Thanks to head honcho Josh Tyler’s insistence that I watch Dark City, I can’t read about any science fiction with a reference to “shell” without thinking of the importance of Shell Beach. It’s a horrible curse to bear, especially since it rarely has anything to do with Shell Beach or the underappreciated Dark City.

Hopefully Len Wiseman’s next picture will remove that association for me. The Live Free or Die Hard and Underworld director will be taking on Shell Game, a science-fiction movie that follows a detective in the future investigating black-market business. This isn’t ordinary black-market movement, however, as it deals with immortality, leading to a moral conflict for the main character.

Wiseman was also part of the team who provided the most recent revision on the screenplay, alongside Chris Morgan. The original script came from Justin Bondi and Andrew Ludington.

This certainly sounds like an interesting idea and I’m intrigued to see what Wiseman can do with it. While I’m not the biggest fan of the Underworld movies, I can appreciate the concepts Wiseman attempted to bring in and I think he really redeemed himself to Underworld haters with the latest chapter of Die Hard. Of course, he gets bonus points if he manages to work his wife, Kate Beckinsale, into the movie, especially if she’s in futuristic tight leather.