The Hollywood development process is slooooooow. A year ago we reported that DJ Caruso was attached to direct the movie adaptation of the palm-sweatingly horrifying videogame Dead Space. The news today from MTV is that it's only slightly further forward. But Caruso (Eagle Eye, I Am Number Four) does provide a couple of small updates.

Dead Space, for those who've not put themselves through that particular ordeal, is a shooter game taking place on a mining ship infested by zombies ("Necromorphs", if you will). The trouble starts when something is brought onto the ship from a mysterious planet (ahem-Alien-ahem), and the game's plot-thrust sees the player piecing together what happened. In amongst the killing and being scared and having to switch off the console and make some nice calm tea. We really hope they'll build those tea-breaks into the movie.

Caruso's main reveal to MTV s that the planned movie is a prequel, which is interesting because there's already been one, in the form of the DTV animation Dead Space: Downfall. 

"We've got a really good storyline, [leading] to where the game picks up," says the director. Back last year we speculated that comparisons to a similarly-atmosphered Paul WS Anderson film from 1997 (not to mention the much more recent Pandorum) would be hard to avoid, and Caruso admits that "it is a challenge getting the major studios to understand that this isn't Event Horizon." It isn't? Aw shucks.

While the story has been roughly hammered out however, there's not yet a screenplay. "We're listening to different writers and taking different pitches," says Caruso. "We've tried to crack the story a few different ways, and I feel like we'll have a screenplay ready in a few months. We've had a few offers to set it up. I'm looking forward to getting going."