Denis Villeneuve will be staying in the realm of heady science-fiction for a while longer.
The Dune director is set to head up an adaptation of Arthur C Clarke’s seminal science-fiction classic Rendezvous With Rama.
The novel focuses on a group of late 21st century scientists who are assigned to explore a mysterious metal cylinder 50 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide that is dubbed Rama that has entered the solar system. Upon arriving at it and gaining entrance, the determine it is an alien spacecraft, discovering an abandoned alien world on the inside.
Villeneuve is currently at work, prepping the second part of adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel Dune. He is also scheduled to direct some episodes of the HBOMax spinoff series Dune: The Sisterhood, which he will also executive produce. Presumably he will move onto Rendezvous With Rama once he finishes with that.
Published in 1993, Rendezvous With Rama won Clarke both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novel and is today considered one of the author’s major works. It would spawn three sequels which Clarke co-wrote with Gentry Lee.
This is not the first time that Rendezvous With Rama has been in development as a motion picture. Around 2000, Morgan Freeman’s production company, Revelations Entertainment, acquired the film rights to the novel with the intention of Freeman producing and starring. Director David Fincher was soon attached. The project stayed in development for over a decade before it petered out. Freeman will retain a producer credit on this new iteration of the film.
