'IMITATION GAME' Director In Talks For 'PASSENGERS'; Script From 'PROMETHEUS' Writer

Variety reports that Sony is currently in negotiations with Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum to helm their sci-fi flick Passengers. He's best known for the Oscar nominated film which earned him a Best Director nomination, studios will likely be knocking his door with many projects.

Another one of his films is a slick thriller Headhunters which is totally worth watching if you get the chance.

Passengers is based on a spec-script from screenwriter Jon Spahits that Sony bought on the spot.

Set on a spacecraft in the future with thousands of passengers making an interstellar voyage to a distant new planet. One passenger awakens from cryogenic sleep 90 years before anyone else and decides to wake up a female passenger, sparking the beginning of a love story.

Jon is best known for having his original Prometheus script rewritten by Damon Lindelof, I urge you to seek out his original draft and compare it to the film it's actually pretty damn good.

This new project is seeming taking cues from David's creepy spying on Shaw during her hyper-sleep.

He's also landed high profile screenwriting gigs with Marvel Studios penning Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange along with writing a draft of Universal's Mummy reboot.

Casting hasn't begun but a couple of names have been attached to the project in the past and they include Reese Witherspoon (Wild, Inherent Vice), Keanu Reeves (John Wick, Speed, Point Break) and Rachel McAdams (True Detective, Notebook). The actors have since moved on from the film but could be lured to return with Morten Tyldum's involvement.

The genre is hot again thanks to films like Gravity and Guardians of The Galaxy making huge box office.

I'm sure he'll be getting a bunch of offers but Sony has managed to allow some creative freedom to their sci-fi directors in the past with Neill Blomkamp being able to make wildly different movies like Elysium and the upcoming Chappie.

Other big sci-fi projects with sprawling casts coming soon include Ridley Scott's The Martian and Ben Wheatley's High-Rise.





SOURCE: VARIETY

Aksel Hennie Joins Dwayne Johnson In HERCULES

THR reports the first new addition to the cast of Bret Ratner's Hercules which stars Dwayne Johnson. They say that Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie (Headhunters) will play Tydeus a fellow warrior who welds twin axes. He's also a madman who has to be chained up at night. The film based on the comic book Hercules: The Thracian Wars will be more grounded than previous Greek mythology films such as Clash of The Titans or Immortal. Hercules is aiming for an August 2014 release date with production beginning this Summer.

SPECULATION: Nikolaj Coster-Waldu Wanted For Zemo In CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER?

It was just announced that Crossbones will be joining Winter Soldier as the film's villains. It's unclear if Rumlock will be pulling the strings of Winter Soldier or will be just doing wet-work alongside him as an assassin. There had been rumblings that Baron Zemo was going to be the main villain of the film. He along with a few other classic villains were in original drafts of the script for First Avenger. While the Zemo rumor hasn't been confirmed, "a foreign villain" is still being cast. Dutch actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's (Game of Thrones, Black Hawk Down, Oblivion, Headhunters) name did appear as in the running for that other unnamed part. My assumption here is that Nikolaj was testing for that role which could be Zemo and not Rumlock.

Morten Tyldum To Direct Thriller 'THE DISCIPLE PROGAM' Starring Mark Wahlberg

HeatVision reports that Swedish director Morten Tyldum (Headhunters) has lined up his first Hollywood film titled The Disciple Program. Universal won a bidding war for the spec-script from newcomer Tyler Marceca and has Mark Wahlberg attached to star. Wahlberg had been trying to put together an American remake of Morten's Headhunters, so his involvement looks good. It centers on a man who begins an investigation into his wife’s mysterious death, only to find that the mystery goes much deeper than he imagined.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Joins Oblivion

Deadline reports yet another addition to Joseph Kosinski's (Tron Legacy) Oblivion. Game of Thrones actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Headhunters) has joined the science fiction actioner that is setup at Universal Pictures. Nikolaj will play Sykes, a battle-hardened, physically imposing, intelligent and extremely athletic military technology and weapons expert. The rest of the cast lead by Tom Cruise includes Morgan Freeman (RED, Wanted, Dark Knight), Olga Kurylenko (Centurion, Quantum of Solace, Seven Psychopaths) and Andrea Riseborough (W.E., Never Let Me Go, Brighton Rock).

Headhunters' Director Morten Tyldum Next Film Will Be What Happened To Monday?

Norwegian director Morten Tyldum's breakout film Headhunters is opening a lot of doors for the filmmaker. Deadline reports Morten will cut his teeth on his first English film which will be a science fiction thriller titled What Happened To Monday? The story follows a group of identical septuplets (seven) who are trying to avoid governmental execution due to a one-child-per-family rule set in place as the result of overpopulation. To make their situation even more of a struggle, one of them goes missing and the other six set out to try to find them. 

His recent film Headhunters is based on the novel by Jo Nesbo which features an art thief, corporate espionage and a murderous mercenary played by Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones). I recently saw the stunning thriller which gets an North American debut this spring. Another one of Nesbo's crime novels The Snowman is getting a film adaptation by Martin Scorsese.