As with most every year, the week following the Oscars tends to be filled with lots of news about some of our favorite projects. When you bring that many talented people together into one auditorium, I’m sure the number of execs and reps trying to line up and solidify projects and attachments spikes significantly. And judging by the number of new exclusives we’ve been handed this morning alone, I have a feeling this week is going to be a busy one for breaking news. That is just the case for Relativity Media’s OUT OF THIS WORLD.
Following a few non-starters for this project, with director Yann Samuell (War of the Buttons) no longer in talks to helm, the studio has begun reaching out to other potential directors to step in. Currently working from a script by Allan Loeb, the story follows Gardener Elliot, the first human to ever be born on mars, who after being brought back to Earth to be experimented on, makes a break for it to find his father, and not become a guinea pig for NASA. The script has not been touched in a few years, and the studio is looking for a director to board the project to kickstart the development process, and start the search for a lead.
So, with Samuell no longer in the mix, lets see who’s up next. Of the 8 names listed below, we’ve been told that half of them are already reading, and the other half will be soon.
DIRECTORS SHORT LIST:
Ben Stiller – Reading
Danny Boyle
Gareth Edwards – Reading
Jon Turteltaub – Reading
Jonathan Demme
Shawn Levy – Reading
Stephen Chbosky
Tim Burton
Personally, if I had to choose one person to tackle this it’d be Levy. Following his surprise hit in “Real Steel”, this seems right up his alley. Burton on the other hand, I don’t see as a fit at all.