Duncan Jones' first movie Moon marked the emergence of a great new genre talent, winning the Bafta for Outstanding Debut of 2009. Working with a miniscule budget with no big bangs or space battles, the Brit rookie created a moody, thoughtful throwback to 70s science fiction masterpieces like Silent Running and Solaris. How Sam Rockwell didn't receive more accolades for his one-man show performance in the film amazes me to this day. Now that he's finished worked on his sophomore science fiction tale Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright, a big studio sci-fi thriller which makes it's debut opening SXSW festival this coming April, Jones is starting to think about his next project. It was expected for a while that his next would be his low key, future set thriller
Mute, about a non-speaking bartender in search of his kidnapped girlfriend in Berlin but it seems
his plans have changed;
Well its in a bit of a limbo actually. Ive always loved the script and felt it was a film worth making, but its a tricky one. Its a sci-fi film, and one of the drafts of the scripts got leaked a while back. The reaction was mixed. Most people didnt get the fact that yes it is sci-fi but its a futurist film. Its a thriller that happens to take place in the future, its not some amazing piece of technology that ya know the world is depending upon and the whole story revolves around some particular piece of technology or some sci-fi hook. That was the whole idea, to tell a film that can be based in any period, but just HAPPENS to take place in the future. And its been very difficult to basically pitch that in a way where people understand why it needs to be done that way. People just say, why cant it be in a contemporary setting? But no, its about mood and atmosphere as much as anything else. Its also quite dark so its been a tough sell. Also, its not a big film, it has been designed to be sort of a smaller and more independent film. Budget wise, its in between Moon and Source Code. I just need to get away from it for a while. Ill come back to it one day and hopefully itll work the way I see it working. In the meantime, I have another project that Im very excited about. It will address what people expect from sci-fi films but still does what I want it to do, and still has the heart and energy that Id wanna see in a sci-fi film.
Huge shame but he's already on set in mind what he plans to make next;
"One thing I can tell you about my next project is that Im determined to do a future city film, I want it to be my homage to Blade Runner, even if its a bit bigger (than Mute), it will be a city based future film."
Wow... we desperately need to hear more details. Some one pin Jones down and beat it out of him!