We have been keeping you up-to-date on Duncan Jones’ (Moon) upcoming film, Source Code, the sci-fi, action thriller, with some time travel thrown in for good measure starring Jake Gyllenhaal (Love and Other Drugs, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) and Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye, Machine Gun Preacher).
Jones originally had intended to work on his sci-fi/futurist film entitled Mute after Source Code but, it seems he’s shelved that project for now, and has instead decided to work on an as yet untitled Sci-Fi film that he sees as an homage to director Ridley Scott‘s classic, Blade Runner.
Jones told WeGotThisCovered,
“One thing I can tell you about my next project is that I’m determined to do a future city film. I want it to be my homage to Blade Runner, even if it’s a bit bigger, it will be a city based future film.”
The director also told them why Mute has been shelved:
“Well it’s in a bit of a limbo actually. I’ve always loved the script and felt it was a film worth making, but it’s a tricky one. It’s a sci-fi film, and one of the drafts of the scripts got leaked a while back. The reaction was mixed. Most people didn’t get the fact that yes it is sci-fi but it’s a futurist film. It’s a thriller that happens to take place in the future, it’s not some amazing piece of technology that you know the world is depending upon and the whole story revolves around some particular piece of technology or some sci-fi hook.
That was the whole idea, to tell a film that can be based in any period, but just HAPPENS to take place in the future. And it’s been very difficult to basically pitch that in a way where people understand why it needs to be done that way. People just say, why can’t it be in a contemporary setting? But no, it’s about mood and atmosphere as much as anything else. It’s also quite dark so it’s been a tough sell. Also, it’s not a big film, it has been designed to be sort of a smaller and more independent film. Budget wise, it’s in between Moon and Source Code.
I just need to get away from it for a while. I’ll come back to it one day and hopefully it’ll work the way I see it working. In the meantime, I have another project that I’m very excited about. It will address what people expect from sci-fi films but still does what I want it to do, and still has the heart and energy that I’d wanna see in a sci-fi film.”
No production or release dates have been set for Mute, nor his untitled Blade Runner homage but, Source Code is slated to hit U.K. theaters on March 11th, 2011 and U.S. theaters on April 15th, 2011.
