Hot from her break-out success opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Rebecca Ferguson has lined up another blockbuster. She'll star in Life, director Daniel Espinosa's sci-fi project, from a screenplay by Deadpool and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.
The story takes place on the International Space Station, where samples recently procured from Mars turn out to display more than the expected signs of intellgence.
No further plot details are available beyond that sketchy synopsis, but coming from that writing team it's probably a safe bet that it's not quite as generic as it sounds. Espinosa has been after a sci-fi movie for some time - he was circling Warner Bros.' buzzy Morningstar this time last year - so his settling on this one may also be significant.
Ferguson, meanwhile, followed Rogue Nation with Shamim Sarif's Despite The Falling Snow, Stephen Frear's Florence Foster Jenkins, Tate Taylor's The Girl On The Train and Tomas Alfredson's The Snowman, and seems likely to reprise her role as Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible 6.
David Ellison is among Life's producers, which makes a release via Paramount probable, since Ellison has a long-standing set-up there. There's no studio officially attached so far though, and no start or release dates yet.