More than eight months ago, Tom Cruise was cast for the lead role in the tentatively titled sci-fi/adventure Horizons film.
As such, it’s rather strange that the female leads – played by Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) – seem to have only been finalized just a few days ago.
Horizons is an interesting take on the classic alien invasion story. In 2015, an alien device arrives on Earth and begins killing the population, while simultaneously exoforming the landscape in preparation for the arrival of its masters.
Although the device fulfills its mission, the invasion isn’t as successful. So after 30 years of devastation, the device attempts to reverse the damage it caused by terraforming the land. It also repopulates the planet with clones of the few people who survived the original attack – the crew of a starship which was off world at the time.
As a project, it was originally purchased by Disney, and should have been released with an accompanying novel. However, Disney waited too long and the rights eventually got picked up by Universal Studios.
The book is still under production by Radical Books under the name Horizons (though all the art still says Oblivion, a previous name for the film/book duo), and no name is mentioned for the film in any of the recent press material, so it may have been changed yet again. There is also no word as to how the novel will tie-in with the film. Production and release dates have yet to be announced.
The official synopsis is thus: “In a future where the Earth’s surface has been irradiated beyond recognition, the remnants of humanity live above the clouds, safe from the brutal alien Scavengers that stalk the ruins. But when surface drone repairman Jak discovers a mysterious woman in a crash-landed pod, it sets off an unstoppable chain of events that will force him to question everything he knows.”
