Casey Affleck Re-Teams with David Lowery for Sci-Fi Film 'To Be Two'

Does everything David Lowery touch turn to gold? Certainly the two biggest films he had at Sundance would seem to indicate so, as he was an editor on Shane Carruth's buzzworthy Upstream Color, and his writing/directing performance on neo-Western Ain't Them Bodies Saints (review here) is looking like a powerhouse. It's led to a number of other major gigs, including a Disney remake of Pete's Dragon, Robert Redford's The Old Man and the Gun, and many others that should keep him plenty busy. But not so busy that he can't add another project to his slate.

Lowery will reteam with his Ain't Them Bodies Saints star Casey Affleck for To Be Two, a sci-fi film based on Paul Broks' short story To Be Two or Not To Be. It takes place in a future when "teleportation exists and people are scanned, the digital self sent to Mars, reconstructed atom by atom, while the original is vaporized. The story then posits the idea of the teleportation machine malfunctioning and not vaporizing the original person." The story will explore issues of identity and self, and posits what happens when the authorities want to vaporize the original.

Sounds like heady, brainy stuff and the comparisons to Rian Johnson's Looper are already flying around.  Lowery will write and direct, with he and Affleck also serving as producers. No word on when this might roll in front of cameras, but hopefully it's soon. [THR]