Tweet

When it comes to his American flicks, Gabriele Muccino is batting.500 with The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds. I’ll let you decide which one wasn’t good, but now the director is stepping away from Will Smith to work with Keanu Reeves on a science fiction romance called Passengers. Possibly.

According to Variety, he’s in talks to helm the project which already has Reeves attached.

The story focuses on a poor astronaut who wakes up almost a century before everyone else in hyper-sleep, so he also dooms a beautiful woman to loneliness so that he doesn’t have to grow a beard and slowly go crazy. Or so he can woo her with his flowery prose and energetic line delivery.

Whoa.

The concept sounds a bit like Solaris and Moon wearing a Fountain costume, but in all honesty, I think we need more romance in science fiction. My reasoning? Because science fiction gets a certain reputation for the kind of stories that it tells, and it’s always nice to see the genre step out of its own bounds to create something different. And because The Fountain was awful.

I’m afraid I’m not well-acquainted with Muccino’s Italian films, but I know the guy has a great film in him. I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen the tedious. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll take the job and knock it out of the park.

What do you think?