The long-gestating 2007 Black List-approved “Passengers” was resuscitated last year when TV vet Brian Kirk and The Weinstein Company aligned themselves with the Keanu Reeves-starring and produced sci-fi film and a release date was set for April 2015. Of course, just as quickly as a deal can come together in Hollywood, it can fall apart.
THR reports the Jon Spaihts-penned “space romance” has lost its female lead, Rachel McAdams — who replaced the originally-cast Reese Witherspoon — and consequently the film’s release date has been postponed, with The Weinstein Company no longer involved. Shooting was set to start in a few weeks but the trade’s sources have optimistically said “the start date has been pushed back by at least several weeks, if not more.”
It’s a shame that the project has hit another obstacle as it’s one of the few original sci-fi films that’s been in development and would have focused on Reeves as a passenger in hypersleep making a centuries-long journey to another planet, woken accidentally by a computer glitch ninety years too early. Faced with the prospect of living the rest of his life, and dying, alone on the ship, he decides to wake up a beautiful fellow passenger. Now, with no beautiful passenger and no U.S. distributor, the film’s future is uncertain.
