It’s been more than nine months since Tom Cruise clinched the lead role for Oblivion/Horizons, but the rest of the casting seems like it is just starting to pick up.
Anbout a month ago, we got word of the addition of Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko, and now we two new male cast members have been cast.
First, Morgan Freeman has been brought in to play a “critical part” which remains undisclosed. In addition, the Oblivion has clinched Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who you might recognize as Jaime Lanister from the popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
Coster-Waldau will play the role of ‘Skyes’ a weapons expert who is described in the casting call as “battle-hardened, physically imposing, intelligent and extremely athletic.”
Oblivion 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 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 [Cruise] 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.”
The book is still under production by Radical Books under the name Horizons (though all the art still says Oblivion). There is no word as to how the novel will tie-in with the film. Production and release dates have yet to be announced.
