Rhett Reese And Paul Wernick Offer 'Earth Vs. Moon' Update: Still Stuck In Development Hell

Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick worked on Deadpool for over five years, and the very R-rated superhero picture finally opens in theaters next week. We can't say what we think of the film yet, but the early buzz suggests the wait was worth it.Deadpool hasn't been the only project to take its sweet time getting to the big screen for Rheese and Wernick, though. Back in 2009, we reported on a rather inspired and wild idea of theirs, Earth vs. Moon. According to the screenwriters, not much has happened with the project since we first heard about it.

Rheese and Wernick's Earth vs. Moon would be a big original movie. The duo has said in the past if it wasn't made for $200 million, it wouldn't get made at all. Here's their description of the plot:

It's about two societies at war, but it's also about a family, not at war, but a fractured family. Half of them have gone to the moon and the other half are still on Earth and so they are on opposite sides of this conflict and we wanted to make sure that as big of movie as it's going to be, it works on a small level. It works on a personal level, the way we like to think about Zombieland working.

That's a balance Rheese and Wernick often have in their work: telling an actual human story while also delivering the spectacle audiences expect. We spoke with the screenwriters just this morning, and they were kind enough to give us an update on Earth vs. Moon. Here's what Paul Wernick had to say:

It's in development hell over at Universal, in some form or another. I don't know exactly what's going on. We've always loved the project and the title. It's a big movie. Maybe we'll be talking in six and a half years about the struggle to get that made. I don't know. It's so hard to get a movie made in this town, especially hard to get an original project made, and that's obviously an original idea that we had. It's nowhere closer to being made to when we sold it eight or nine years or so.

Deadpool appeared dead many times, but the Marvel character managed to fight its way to the big screen. Perhaps Earth vs. Moon will go down a similar path. However, if the project doesn't move forward, let's at least hope Rheese and Wernick get the opportunity to write another Deadpool movie. They couldn't be happier with the end result, and based on the box-office tracking, a Deadpool sequel appears likely.

(Note: The header image is from Duncan Jones' Moon – which has nothing to do with Earth vs. Moon, but we needed something to put up there.)