Tron Legacy Director Joseph Kosinski Goes Into The Oblivion

Commercial director Joseph Kosinski (TRON Legacy) is developing a new feature film project for Radical Pictures titled Oblivion. You might recognize the title because it is the same title of a "illustrated novel" announced back in February, written by Kosinski with art by newcomer Tae Young Choi. For those of you who don't yet know Kosinski's work, check out some of his commercials, and the VFX concept footage that he directed to convince Disney to greenlight Tron 2 — all of which is very impressive. What is Oblivion about? Details and artwork after the jump.

Kosinski has been developing the idea for the last four years, which he had initially hoped to make his directorial debut with the story before Tron came along. He had conceived the idea as a "very spare science fiction film with a small cast but big ideas and big landscapes" that could be made on a medium budget.

Described as a "big sci-fi epic" set in a "post-apocalyptic Earth," where "civilization lives above the clouds and scavengers illegally collect artifacts from the polluted and destroyed surface below." The story follows one young scavenger, a soldier who's been court-martialed and sent to patrol this planet and maintain "a fleet of droids and probes that comb the surface, searching out this primitive alien race that's been defeated." One day, he "discovers a crashed spacecraft planetside- and a beautiful women within," "who left on a science mission 60 years earlier. When she wakes up, she knows who he is, which doesn't make any sense to him and together they have to unravel this mystery. It's in the same realm as "12 Monkeys."

Sounds like a pretty awesome concept. The book sounds equally as cool — 125-130-page 11x14-sized hardcover featuring painted art, some of which will span 2 pages (ala 300?). Right now Kosinski has a 25-page treatment, which will be fleshed out by one or two writers for the graphic novel, which is due out in 2010. A screenwriter will then be brought on board to help adapt it for the screen.

source: The Hollywood Reporter