Oh irony of ironies. Just over a month after Universal officially killed Guillermo Del Toro‘s $150 million, R-rated “At The Mountains Of Madness,” it looks like the studio has not only found a cheaper, PG-13 replacement tentpole, they want Tom Cruise to star in it too.
Deadline reports that Universal is ready to scoop up “Tron: Legacy” director Joseph Kosinski‘s “Oblivion” after Disney recently let it go. Based on Kosinski’s own graphic novel with Karl Gajdusek rewriting a script first penned by William Monahan, the story is “set in a future where the Earth’s surface has been irradiated beyond recognition and the remnants of humanity live above the clouds, safe from the brutal alien Scavengers that stalk the ruins. But when surface drone repairman Jak discovers a mysterious woman in a crash-landed pod, it sets off an unstoppable chain of events that will force him to question everything he knows.” Sounds pretty cool right? But there are some stipulations Universal have.
Firstly, the film will need to be made on a budget of $100 million and will have to come in at a PG-13 rating. Kosinski and Disney lightly scuffled over the ratings issue, with the mouse house wanting a PG film and the director not able to bring his vision all the way down. All that said, if everyone can agree, and Tom Cruise is game, the film could start very soon, possibly when the actor is done shucking and jiving in Adam Shankman‘s “Rock Of Ages” this spring.
So a potential light at the end of the tunnel for Kosinski, and we presume he’ll find a way to make the suits happy and get his movie off the ground.