Paramount nixes Doug Liman's Luna; WB wants Brad Pitt for All You Need Is Kill

Looking beyond casting, there were two upcoming movies that had me sold based on their unique premise and the directors involved. One was Now You See Me, the illusionist heist flick from Louis Leterrier. The other was Luna, from one of our favorite directors here on the site, Doug Liman(Swingers, The Bourne Identity). Luna was Liman's pet project, a heist film that would have involved a group of renegade scientists assembling the pieces of a ship in order to get to the moon and steal a prized energy source. To complete the mission they must kidnap a NASA employee.

Back in June we learned that Liman had secured funding for the high concept film from Skydance and New Regency, but now Vulture is reporting that Skydance has backed out, balking at the $100M+ price tag. A slew of names were said to be circling the film, including Andrew Garfield, Olivia Wilde, Bradley Cooper, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Megan Fox, and many more. Hopefully it'll find new life elsewhere, but if it doesn't Liman will still be plenty busy.

Now that Liman's schedule is open, Warner Brothers is quick to get the ball rollin' on All You Need Is Kill, the adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's manga that they paid a hefty sum for last year. Liman has been attached to direct it for awhile, and for a long time the problem has been hammering out the script. Now it sounds like screenwriter Dante Harper has ironed out the third act issues plaguing the film, and are looking at Brad Pitt to star.

The story sounds like a more militarized version of Source Code. The story follows an army recruit who is killed in the first day of an alien invasion of Earth, but is repeatedly resurrected back to the day before he dies. Why? I got no clue, but I'm guessing that'll be part of the central mystery.  Pitt has a lot of projects on his plate right now, so whether or not he can fit this movie in is uncertain. Right now he's shooting the zombie war film, World War Z. After that Warner Brothers wants to keep Pitt in the fold, hoping he'll star in The Mission, a film about one Navy Seal's six year long quest to rescue US hostages from Colombian rebels.

If Pitt takes on 'Kill', he'll be reuniting with his Mr. and Mrs. Smith director, a partnership that flourished to the tune of over $475M.