After a long time floating in development limbo, much-praised sci-fi script Passengers is finally gathering the people it needs to make its voyage, with Morten Tyldum in the director’s chair and Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence attached to star. Michael Sheen will now be joining the actors in front of the camera.
The script, written by Prometheus' Jon Spaihts, chronicles a ship en route to a distant colony with all of its crew in cryposleep. A malfunction causes one man (Pratt) to be rudely awakened 90 years before anyone else. Unable to fix the situation and seemingly doomed to spend his time dying alone, he decides to take the unusual and controversial step of waking up a fellow passenger (Lawrence).
As we now learn from Variety’s report on Sheen’s casting, the pair won’t be completely alone on the ship, as he’s playing a robot along for the ride. While the movie will have to wait for the actors’ schedules to clear, it’s finally some actual forward movement after cast members and even the odd director came and went in the film’s development history.
Sheen, who last appeared on the big screen in Far From The Madding Crowd, is part of the cast for thriller Oppenheimer Strategies and will be back as the White Rabbit for Alice In Wonderland sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass. He’s also just returned to TV screens for the new series of cable drama Masters Of Sex.