David Weil is a young man on the cusp of very big things. As an actor he has delivered small roles in the TV show The Young And The Restless, and in little-known movies such as 5 Hour Friends. But the very big things that are about to happen revolve around screenplays he has written – most notably Moonfall, which is apparently being sized up by Academy Award nominated director and producer, Darren Aronofsky.
It seems that Moonfall may have developed quite a following of interested parties, as it has been doing the rounds of Hollywood studios. Weil has been a fixture on many radar screens since his script Half Heard In The Stillness was included in the 2013 Black List. That script featured a story in which a young man finds himself being rescued from the basement of a child predator, where he has been held for ten years. Apparently, Half Heard In the Stillness achieved the same number of votes as Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, and the script for Cake, which is now in production with Jennifer Aniston in the lead. Moonfall could not be more different, however. Though details are sketchy, the story is tantalizingly summed up as being ‘Fargo on the moon.’
While there was something of a dearth of quality science fiction films for some years (Mission To Mars, The Core), things seem to be looking up for the often-neglected genre – thanks, in no small part, to the unprecedented success of Gravity. The eyes of every studio will undoubtedly be on Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar when it hits theatres on November 6th this year – waiting to see if Gravity was a fluke, or part of a new trend back toward the stars.
With Ridley Scott apparently developing a film adaptation of Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian, David Weil’s Moonfall could fit right in. Whether it stays in Darren Aronofsky’s hands is another question entirely, however. The director does have a first-look deal with New Regency, but the script is currently in general circulation. Still, with a filmography that covers maths, addiction, spirituality, wrestling, ballet and Bible stories, a Darren Aronofsky space movie sounds very intriguing.