Veteran Hollywood filmmaker
Wolfgang Petersen (Troy, In The Line of Fire) endured a difficult 2010 where he failed to gain the studio backing to bring two ambitious projects to the screen - one a live-action remake of Satoshi Kon's anime Paprika and other - an original alien-invasion epic titled
Uprising, that was setup at Columbia. I'm not certain the status of either project as of right now (except that they aren't coming anytime soon anyways) but I'm guessing Petersen is looking for a clean slate as
Deadline reports that Paramount have just picked up the rights to
Old Man's War, a four book sci-fi series from
John Scalzi, which Petersen has now become attached to direct with the intention of turning it into a large-scale science fiction epic. Old Man War centers on a 75 year old man who wishes to trade his physical body for that of a younger, genetically enhanced one so he can use his matured experience with the strength of youth to join an outer space military coalition to protect human colonies in space. When he is injured in battle, he's rescued by a special-forces officer who appears to be a younger version of his previously deceased wife, who now doesn't recognize him. Though our hero is so convinced that he could begin a second life with her, he risks it all to make it happen. Having not read the novel, I'm hooked on this premise alone and apparently there's huge scope in the novel's sequels, so this could very well end up being a sci-fi film trilogy.
Wiki have a pretty detailed entry on the book.
David Self, who adapted the wonderful gangster film Road to Perdition from a graphic novel but most recently contributed to the pathetic Wolf Man remake, is tasked with the screenplay duties. Clearly, for a movie of this size that will be a huge headache to write, it's not one we would expect to go before camera's this year. The novel sounds epic and very un-Hollywood like as a film this century - especially when veterans like Ridley Scott have failed to get similarly lauded sci-fi novels to the screen in the past few years but we hope this isn't one of those deals we hear about one day, then never again for years. And if nothing else, we just want to see Wolfgang Petersen make a movie so we can forget about his last two misguided efforts Poseidon and Troy.