Pierre Morel can’t seem to catch a break lately. This month alone he’s left two major projects, the running-out-of-time “Dune” currently set up at Paramount (where they are considering putting the albatross into turnaround) and Universal‘s big screen adaptation of the drunken Halloween board game thingy “Ouija.” But in his back pocket has always been another project and it looks like it’s picking up some momentum.
Variety reports that Morel is now in talks to direct the terribly named “Earth Defense Force” (seriously, it sounds like a bootleg videogame from China for the original Nintendo), a project that is set up under Sam Raimi‘s shingle, QED International. It’s yet another alien invasion flick that will take place as “three alien fighters attack the planet, leaving the governments of the planet humiliated. Earth’s leaders respond by forming an alliance to create a fighting force in preparation for the next larger alien attack.” Yawn.
The film has a script by Andrew Marlowe (“Air Force One“) but it will be rewritten by Danny Strong (“Recount“) which gives us some hope this might be more interesting than the premise suggests. No word yet on start dates but it’s probably a safe bet to lens sometime next year.
