She remains, hands down, the most prolific actress of 2011, notching six credits that ranged from the Sundance hit Take Shelter to Oscar contenders The Help and The Tree of Life. Now Jessica Chastain’s parlaying her multiple roles into a high-profile co-starring role opposite veritable A-lister Tom Cruise.

Tron: Legacy director Joe Kosinski has chosen Chastain for one of his two female leads for the sci-fi thriller Horizons, Variety reports. As we noted back in August, Chastain was one of a handful of actresses testing for the role, and she reportedly beat out Olivia Wilde, Noomi Rapace and Brit Marling.

Previously known as Oblivion, the film focuses on a lonely soldier (Cruise) left on our planet after mankind has abandoned Earth because of an alien race that has taken over civilization. At the start of the story, he meets a woman in a crash, and the two embark on an epic journey together.

Variety does not confirm whether Chastain will play the woman in the crashed pod or Cruise’s wife, a separate female character that still could be filled by one of the actresses named above (who have not yet been ruled out). Either way, the idea of Cruise teamed with Chastain and any of the aforementioned actresses sounds appealing. Kosinski, who would direct from a graphic novel he himself wrote, is very comfortable in science-fiction, as Tron proved. Universal has circled July 19, 2013 as a release date for Horizons, so there’s time, but so far, I like the direction this one is heading.