Oblivion Director Joseph Kosinski Gets Backing For Top Secret Project

Just months after Joseph Kosinski's Tom Cruise-fronted thriller Oblivion hit theaters, the science-fiction focused director has inked a deal for a future feature. Deadline reports Media Rights Capital has bought a spec package pitched by Kosinski for potentially a high six-figure price tag. Details on the project are being safely guarded; not even a working title has been released. However, Deadline claims the mysterious project is a "grounded action thriller" conceived by Kosinski and penned by Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers.

Cantwell and Rogers are a newly minted writing team who recently sold their concept for a drama series called Halt & Catch Fire to AMC. Off to a promising start, in-the-works show has wrangled Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace, The F Word's Mackenzie Davis, and Argo actors Scoot McNairy and Kerry Bishe to star. The network's official synopsis for Halt & Catch Fire reads as follows:

Set in the early 1980s, series dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time. Their personal and professional partnership will be challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas' Silicon Prairie.

Kosinski's background is in commercials, but he broke into film in a major way after grabbing Disney's attention. The studio hired him to make his feature directorial debut on their big budget sequel to Tron, titled Tron: Legacy. While the reviews were mixed, the $170 million movie made $400 million worldwide. During its lengthy production process, Kosinski had begun sketching up the idea for his next film, Oblivion. The concept was spun into a graphic novel that laid the groundwork for the eventual film.

While his work so far suggests Kosinski has a soft spot for sci-fi, there is no indication in Deadline's article that this new project will delve into that genre. And too little is known about Cantwell and Rogers to guess what their collaboration with Kosinski might mean. So we're left to wonder for now what this trio has in mind until casting announcements or potentially news of a precursor comic arises. But with Kosinski attached to helm Warner Bros Twilight Zone movie, it's unclear how soon this top secret spec project will take to get off the ground.

In the meantime, let's revisit the worlds Kosinski has created so far with trailers for Oblivion and Tron: Legacy.

Kristy Puchko

Staff writer at CinemaBlend.