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Details on Reese & Wernick's Sci-Fi War Epic Earth vs. Moon

by Alex Billington
August 18, 2009

Yesterday we ran an early interview with the writers of Zombieland, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. At the end, I asked them about what they've got coming up next, and while they couldn't talk about the Venom script the wrote, they were able to talk about "a big, epic, sci-fi war movie" called Earth vs. Moon. It was sold as a pitch to Universal with Scott Stuber (The Kingdom, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Wolf Man) producing, but it's much different, tonally, from Zombieland. Wernick describes it as a "hardcore, 300-style movie with some comic relief to it, but about the Earth and a colony on the moon essentially in a civil war."

Reese explains that it's "set about 300 or 400 years in the future" and that they originally thought it would be a great video game, but decided to pitch as a movie instead since that's what they know how to do best.

"It's about two societies at war, but it's also about a family, not at war, but a fractured family. Half of them have gone to the moon and the other half are still on Earth and so they are on opposite sides of this conflict and we wanted to make sure that as big of movie as it's going to be, it works on a small level. It works on a personal level, the way we like to think about Zombieland working. It's just this huge post-apocalyptic landscape, but we really want it to work on an interpersonal level for just a few people who are the stars."

He says that the concept comes from this TED speech that Stephen Hawking gave "about the necessity to colonize other worlds because of the inherent dangers on Earth, nuclear dangers, biological dangers, and the need to have a back-up society." They go on to say that it's such a "huge movie" that "it's either going to be made at a grand scale for $200 million or not at all." Sounds like an awesome concept. Reese and Wernick are currently working on a second draft of the screenplay, which I'm sure is being pitched to directors and actors around town, because the moment they find the right director, this will probably move very quickly.

Lastly, if Earth vs. Moon ever does get off the ground, they want Will Smith for the lead. So much so that they even named the lead character Will in hopes of grabbing his attention. I haven't read the script, but it definitely sounds cool, and I'd love to see some talented director hop on board and show us what an Earth vs. Moon civil war would look like. If Avatar is a huge hit, maybe a big, new sci-fi movie trend will follow.

Filed under Hype, Movie News, Opinions

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