Back in June, we told you about Cameron Crowe’s next movie, an untitled romantic adventure comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Ben Stiller. Not much was publicly known about the project back then, so I thought we’d do an update.

Ben Stiller stars as a 37-year-old disgraced US weapons consultant named Brian Gilcrest, who is disliked by most everyone. His only friend is a techie named Jeremy “a super-smart and highly aware computer”. As a response to aggression from China, Gilcrest is deployed to a dormant military base in Hawaii to supervise the launch of an advanced spy satellite. Together with the anal and humorless Major Lisa Ng, he must secure the blessings of the native Hawaiian council before the launch. Gilcrest also gets a chance to meet with Tracy (likely Witherspoon), the one love of his life who got away, along with her husband and two kids. On the island he discovers himself.

So far, so good, right? Well, this is where things get a little worrisome for me. They are haunted by visions of the Hawaiian Gods, and are forced to throw a sacrifice into the erupting volcano. Yeah, sounds very Joe Versus the Volcano-ish if you ask me. Now you can understand why Crowe and crew were keeping the story under wraps. I have faith n Crowe to make the relationship stuff work, but I’m not too sure about the supernatural storyline.

In my earlier post, I also commented that we can at least assume that the soundtrack will be cool. Why don’t we take a look at the preliminary line-up? “Don’t Be Shy” by Cat Stevens, “Elevation” by U2, “Prodigal Son” by The Rolling Stones, “Let’s Go Out Tonight” by The Blue Nile, “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner & Garcia, “What’s New Pussycat” by Tom Jones, “Baba O’ Riley” by The Who, a bootleg instrumental of “She’s Leaving Home” by The Beatles and “Ribbon in The Sky” by Stevie Wonder.

Production is set to begin in January 2009.

sources: Production Weekly, Gone Elsewhere, Playlist