Jennifer Lawrence has been cast to star in a timely new film about the pending apocalypse, and she may have found her partner-in-crime in fellow actress Cate Blanchett.
Developing film Don’t Look Up would position the Oscar winners as a pair of astronomers whose work leads to the terrifying discovery that a large meteoroid is headed straight for Earth. Hoping to educate people about their imminent doom, the scientists embark on a media tour that takes them around the world.
The premise of the science fiction comedy pretty much guarantees an assortment of hijinks, but the timing of the project is freaky. We’re already dealing with rapid climate change, a global pandemic that doesn’t look like it’s ending any time soon, and rampant civic unrest as it is — Earth reaching its end by way of a stray piece of space rock would be the chaotic cherry on top of the current hellscape.
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Don’t Look Up is being produced as a Netflix original, and production for the project was set to begin last month. Obviously, the industry-wide shutdown has altered those plans, and the fate of the film is now in question as its team explores its options in the meantime.
Adam McKay (Vice, The Big Short) wrote the screenplay for the Lawrence film, and he also signed on to produce and direct the production.
“Adam has always had great timing when it comes to making smart, relevant and irreverent films that depict our culture,” Scott Stuber, head of Netflix original films, praised the director in a press release announcing the project back in February. “If he somehow ends up predicting planet Earth’s imminent demise, we’re excited to add this to our slate before it all comes to an end.”
Don’t Look Up is still in its early stages of development, but fingers crossed that life won’t imitate art with this project.