It’s coming on five years since Wolfgang Petersen‘s soggy “Poseidon” and he has yet to get a new film in front of cameras, but not for lack of trying. Last spring an optimistic Petersen said that his alien-invasion pic “Uprising” was going to shoot before his planned remake of Satoshi Kon‘s “Paprika,” but since then, there wasn’t been much movement on either front. Well, Petersen is clearing space on his desk for another ambitious project.
Deadline reports that Paramount has picked up the rights to “Old Man’s War,” a sci-fi series of novels written by John Scalzi. The story follows “a 75-year old man who, having lost the love of his life, is amenable to trading his old carcass for a younger, genetically enhanced body so that he can combine the experience of age with the strength of youth and join an outer space military coalition sent to protect human colonies in outer space. Inductees agree to leave their past lives on earth behind, and are promised land on distant human colonies if they live. Injured in battle, he’s rescued by a special-forces officer who seems to be a younger version of his wife. She doesn’t recognize him, but he’s so convinced he has another chance with her that he abandons his unit and risks everything to be with her.” So a spring/autumn romance reconfigured as a sci-fi story? Also, where is the war and explosions the title promises? We suppose there are a few more details that need to be filled in.
David Self (“Road To Perdition,” “The Wolfman“) has been tapped to write the film for what will be a big sci-fi picture, but clearly, this one is a bit of a way off. And while Petersen seems intent on dishing out another big epic, we’d love to see him scale back and knock out something smaller; maybe an “In the Line of Fire“-style thriller? That would be nice.