Thanks to the monstrous (Indominus?) success of Jurassic World this past weekend, Sony is mulling giving the greenlight to a percolating astronaut tale starring Hollywood’s most bankable new superstars: Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.
Dubbed Passengers, the film will be directed by Academy Award nominee Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), and center around a love story between two astronauts aboard a spacecraft where the rest of the crew is locked in suspended animation.
The film is a bit of a risk for Sony, considering it’s an original IP and not capable of becoming a tentpole franchise, but with two popular stars and a solid director in place, it could be a big hit for the studio. In order to match Pratt and Lawrence’s ever-growing schedules, the film will need to start shooting this fall. The original budget was proposed at around $117 million (with Lawrence earning about $20m and Pratt $10m), but with some trimming, that number could come down to about $100 million and serve as less of a gamble.
Money concerns aside, this sounds like a great project for Pratt and Lawrence and is the type of original concept that is so desperately needed in today’s franchise-saturated climate. And with the sudden upswing in high profile, character-driven astronaut pics like Gravity and The Martian, Passengers could be a welcome addition to the genre.