For now, it is simply “Untitled Tom Cruise Sci-Fi Project” (or Joseph Kosinski Project, depends on how actor or director-centric you are). Previously it was Oblivion, or Horizons (both perfectly serviceable in my view, though perhaps a touch generic), but regardless of its name, it is moving ahead and female characters are being cast.
The film in question will see Cruise play a man stationed on the now-uninhabitable surface of the Earth, who repairs robots tasked with fighting the alien life forms that now dwell on the said surface. He meets a woman whose craft crash-lands on the surface and she apparently “causes him to question his world view”. Presumably they will also fight aliens quite a lot as well, otherwise we’re looking at 90+ minutes of two people sitting around considering their philosophical positions, which might not work so well as a star vehicle for Cruise.
Olga Kurylenko (Hitman, Quantum of Solace, Centurion) has been cast as Cruise’s partner, dwelling in the cloud cities above the long since abandoned surface, with Andrea Riseborough (W.E., Brighton Rock, Made in Dagenham) as the crash-landing stranger who upsets the apple cart. Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) is still directing and should get going with this one fairly soon, once Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine) has finished a fresh pass at the script originally written by Karl Gajdusek (Trespass) and William Monahan (Kingdom of Heaven, Body of Lies, The Departed) – now that is an eclectic range of creative input and no mistake.
