Passengers – Director Gabriele Muccino onboard

Variety is reporting that Seven Pounds director Gabriele Muccino is in in advanced negotiations with Morgan Creek to direct Passengers, a sci-fi romance film.

The script, written by Jon Spaihts (who’s also writing the new Alien prequel for Ridley Scott), sees Keanu Reeves play a man awoken from cryogenic sleep 90 years too early. Finding himself on an automated interstellar journey and faced with the prospect of leaving out his days alone, he wakes another passenger to live out his days with.

Whether he actually knows the beautiful woman he’s woken up or how she takes his meddling is unknown, although I’d be pretty upset at the thought of living and dying with only Keanu for company. What is known is that the movie is envisioned as a “love story set on a spaceship”. So it’s a kind of Titanic in space.

The movie is set to begin shooting this summer. With any luck they’ll change that title, or risk confusion with the U2 side-project from years ago.