Michael Sheen is set to join Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt in Sony’s sci-fi space romance “Passengers.”
Morten Tyldum will helm from a script by “Doctor Strange” scribe Jon Spaihts. Sony bought the rights to “Passengers” in December.
“Passengers” is set on a spacecraft in the future, with thousands of passengers making an interstellar voyage to a distant new planet. One passenger awakens from cryogenic sleep 90 years before anyone else and decides to wake up a female passenger, sparking the beginning of a love story. Sheen will play the robot that is traveling with Pratt’s and Lawrence’s characters.
Neal Moritz and Ori Marmur will produce through Moritz’s Original Film banner along with Michael Maher for Start Media and Stephen Hamel of Company Films.
The project has a long development history: Focus was in talks to acquire U.S. rights with Keanu Reeves attached earlier in 2014; before that, the Weinstein Co. ditched the project after acquiring the rights. Both Reese Witherspoon and Rachel McAdams were at one point attached to the project.
Sheen stars on Showtime drama “Masters of Sex” and is currently filming “Oppenheimer Strategies.” He is repped by ICM Partners and Sanders Armstrong Caserta Management.
