Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt’s Passengers may be the talk of the town – and rightly so – but come 2017, moviegoers will be rooting for a very different team of astronauts in Life, Daniel Espinosa’s star-studded space thriller that imagines a near-future scenario in which humanity makes the greatest discovery of them all: extra-terrestrial intelligence.
But Life is a sci-fi thriller, and that alien lifeform turns out to be much more sophisticated – dangerous, even – than anyone could imagine. Housed up in the International Space Station with said organism are Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds and Rebecca Ferguson, who can be seen exploring the bowels of the ISS up above. There’s also a new poster, tethered with the foreboding message: “Be careful what you search for.” It seems Gyllenhaal and Co. have bitten off more than they can chew.
Once slated for a May release, Sony recently reshuffled its deck and, as a result, Life is now expected to dock in theaters on March 24 – directly opposite Lionsgate’s Power Rangers reboot, for those keeping track. Espinosa’s space-set thriller faces a tall order, then, but with a script penned by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Deadpool, Zombieland) coupled with that starry cast, we’re confident Life can find an audience of its own in a few months’ time. Besides, now that God Particle (Cloverfield 3?) has relocated to a pre-Halloween corridor, genre fans needn’t worry about being inundated with nail-biting space thrillers early next year.
Also starring Olga Dihovichnaya, Ariyon Bakare, Hiroyuki Sanada, Life is earmarked to launch into theatres on March 24, 2017.