Phil Lord And Chris Miller's Next Movie Is A Live-Action Sci-Fi Adventure Called 'The Last Human'

The next movie from Phil Lord and Chris Miller will see the duo heading back into the live-action realm after they conquered animation, spawning a multimillion dollar franchise with their surprise hit The LEGO Movie and shepherding last year's critical darling Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to possible Oscar success. Lord and Miller's latest film, a sci-fi feature called The Last Human, has sparked a heated bidding war between several studios that landed them an eight-figure deal with Sony/Tristar.

Deadline reports that Sony's Tristar Pictures landed the highly sought-after The Last Human when Lord and Miller's attachment sparked a heated bidding war between Universal, Warner Bros, Netflix, MGM/Annapurna, Paramount, New Regency and MRC in what is thus far the biggest deal of the year. Everybody but Fox/Disney, for obvious reasons.

Lord and Miller will be directing and producing The Last Human, which is described as a "reverse ET, in which three robots discover and protect a human child." The film will be based on an upcoming children's book of the same name by Lee Bacon. Henry Gayden, the writer behind Warner Bros.' upcoming Shazam!, will pen the script, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Here is the summary of The Last Human per THR:

Set after the robot apocalypse, when humans have been extinct for thirty years, the story follows a 12-year-old robot, XR_935, who is happy to live in a world without crime, pollution or war. One day, XR discovers a human, Emma, who is also 12 years old, but has spent her entire life inside an underground bunker, hidden away from machines. Emma and XR form an unlikely friendship, and, with two other robotic companions, embark on a dangerous voyage in search of a mysterious point on a map, a journey that will require them to break all of the rules while also challenging ideas of prejudice.

A robotic riff on E.T. from Lord and Miller? Sign me up. This "girl and her robot" story is something that we've recently seen happen to great success in last year's Bumblebee, and Lord and Miller have a great grasp on bringing humor and heart to a well-worn genre. Original movies from the duo are few and far between as well, so I'm excited to see them take on a story that's not an established property.

We're only two months in, and Lord and Miller are having a stellar 2019. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which Lord co-wrote with Rodney Rothman, is an awards darling and a sleeper hit at the box office, becoming the favorite to win Oscar for best animated feature after it won the Golden Globe and Annie Award. And with the buzz around The Last Human already rising, it looks like they'll continue having a great year.