Attack the Block actor John Boyega is currently reprising his role as Finn in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX, but he’ll return to space again in Hold Back the Stars, a movie adaptation of a sci-fi romance novel that will team him with Black Panther breakout Letitia Wright.
The project is being described as “Romeo & Juliet meets Gravity,” and with those actors and that description, I’m already hooked. Learn more about the new movie below.
Deadline reports that author Katie Khan‘s novel Hold Back the Stars is getting the movie treatment, with Boyega and Wright attached in the lead roles. The story tracks “a man and a woman who revisit memories of their love affair on a utopian Earth while they are trapped in the vast void of space with only 90 minutes of oxygen left.” But the Amazon description paints a more detailed picture:
“We’re going to be fine.”
He looks around, but there’s nothing out here: nothing but the bottomless black universe on their left, the Earth suspended in glorious Technicolor to their right.
Trapped in the vast void of space, Carys and Max have only ninety minutes of oxygen left to live. None of this was supposed to happen. After a freak accident, Carys and Max are left adrift in space with nothing to hold onto but each other. As they fall, they can’t help but look back at the world they left behind: a world whose rules they couldn’t submit to, a place where they never really belonged; a home they’re determined to get back to because they’ve come too far to lose each other now. While their air ticks dangerously low, one is offered the chance of salvation—but who will take it?
Mike Cahill is set to direct from a script by Christy Hall. Cahill broke out with the impressive sci-fi indie Another Earth back in 2011, and went on to direct episodes of Hulu’s The Path, NBC’s Rise, and The Magicians and Nightflyers for SyFy. He directed one other feature, the little-seen I Origins, back in 2014, but Hold Back the Stars will mark his return to the big screen. Hall doesn’t have any produced screenwriting credits yet, but she’s writing the script for a remake of last year’s Norwegian movie Thelma and developing a drama called Daddio that may end up starring Boyega’s Star Wars co-star Daisy Ridley.
There’s no indication yet about which studio will scoop up this “hot package creating buzz around town,” but it shouldn’t be long until someone leaps at the opportunity to put Boyega and Wright, two of this generation’s most charismatic actors, on screen together in a sweeping sci-fi romance.
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