You are Robert Zemeckis. You’re looking to rebound after the most recent film you produced – Mars Needs Moms – did an ungainly belly flop at the box office. You’ve got one possible project on the bubble, but what happens if you get a hankering to tackle a genre you’ve mastered in the past? According to Vulture, you go for it, with Zemeckis now in talks to direct time-travel drama Replay.

The sci-fi film has been floating around for years now, ever since writer Ken Grimwood sold the rights to the book in the late 1980s. As for the plot, that finds a 40-something radio journalist dying of a heart attack in 1988, only to wake up in 1963 in his 18-year-old body with his memories of his future life in place. As he travels through his existence time and again, he begins to realise that he’s not meant to change his own death, but to save his daughter.

And here’s an extra twist if Zemeckis should lock in a deal to direct it – one of the story’s big points is a film directed by Steven Spielberg, which leads the hero to his soul mate, another time-jumper who just so happens to be the fictional flick’s scriptwriter. Zemeckis and Spielberg have a bit of a history when it comes to time-travel movies and their collaboration on Back to the Future.

Most recently, the film has been stuck in development, with Lucky Number Slevin writer Jason Smilovic cranking out the latest draft of the script, which Ben Affleck was courted to direct before choosing instead to go with Argo. As mentioned above, Zemeckis also has plane trouble drama Flight jumping up and down like an excited Chihuahua trying to get him to pick it, but if Denzel Washington doesn’t star in it, the director may go ahead and tackle this one first. Robert Zemeckis dabbling in time-twisting again? We’re game.