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Paramount & Bad Robot Find Fresh Director for Sci-Fi 'God Particle'

by Ben Pearson
November 30, 2012
Source: Variety

When Paramount and Bad Robot teamed up for a new science fiction mystery film called God Particle, we knew it'd be something worth keeping an eye on even though J.J. Abrams wasn't going to direct it. The story follows a physics experiment with a Hadron accelerator goes wrong and Earth vanishes completely, leaving the astronauts in an orbiting space station lost in space. But when a European spacecraft shows up on their radar, the crew has to figure out if the incoming vehicle is friend or foe. Now Variety reports the production has found a director in the unknown Julius Onah, who has mostly helmed short films so far.

Onah has only directed one full feature before - The Girl Is in Trouble, starring Wilmer Valderrama and Paz de la Huerta - but he's also been a prolific writer, producer, and short film director over the past ten years. It makes sense that Paramount would give the job to an up-and-coming filmmaker because the budget on this movie is going to be between $5-10 million, and the studio is hoping to capture some of that lightning in a bottle that they seem to produce with their microbudget features like the Paranormal Activity series and even The Devil Inside. It's not much of a risk to give Onah a shot, so we're looking forward to seeing if he can become a big time player if God Particle turns out to be fantastic.

Even though Abrams is only producing this one, the success he and Bad Robot had with making Cloverfield a surprise hit and giving director Matt Reeves a career-making opportunity bodes well for the future of this project. Here's hoping Onah can capitalize on a great sci-fi premise and bring fans something that's thrilling and suspenseful in all the right ways. We'll keep a close watch on this project.

Filed under Development, Movie News, SciFi

From around the web:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7YGEVuJ4mM Carpola

Was this script was mentioned on here a while back? I seem to remember the plot coming up, or was it that the whole world turned black and the astronauts were all crying?
- http://www.firstshowing.net/ Alex Billington
  
  Yea, earlier this year. As a script scale, so yea. Link: http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/j-j-abrams-bad-robot-producing-microbudget-sci-fi-god-particle/ Here's all there was: "The story sounds like something that would tickle Abrams' fancy as a physics experiment with a large hadron accelerator causes the Earth to seemingly vanish completely, the terrified crew of an orbiting American space station is left floating in the middle of now-even-more-empty space. And when a European spacecraft appears on their radar, the crew has to figure out whether they've been saved, or if their predicament has somehow been made worse."
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7YGEVuJ4mM Carpola
    
    I like the idea, but really even if they could battle it out for a year, where would they go without supplies from another ship, they'd just have to die. It'd be depressing but rather than fight it out with folk I'd be chilled out about starving to death or suffocating. He he. I reckon Abrams could lenseflare the burgers out of it. He single handedly locked that drawer in the plugins box, pretty much til the end of time, for anyone trying to make a short. I just read my comments on the last post, nearly as clear as the one here. Can't believe I got called a Republican.
Tester

Sounds intriguing.. count me in
beevis

sounds interesting.
anonymous mcgee

i met Julius. VERY SMART DUDE. it's going to be a great one.
avi

hmmmm! i am following this one!