Jodie Foster Planning to Direct a Sci-Fi Thriller, Still Cast in ‘Elysium’

Posted on Friday, March 18th, 2011 by Russ Fischer

Jodie Foster has been in the news all week thanks to the SXSW premiere of her film The Beaver, which stars Mel Gibson as a guy who, shall we say, loses his way before finding it again with the help of a hand puppet. (Peter was not a fan.) How do you follow a movie with as much rubbernecking public interest as The Beaver, which marks Mel Gibson’s return to the screen after a very public meltdown in 2010? How about with a sci-fi thriller? Jodie Foster has one in the script stage, and would like to direct it.

Speaking to the LA Times, Jodie Foster said,

There’s a family element to it, but it’s much more a genre movie. I’d like to do that ’cause that’s a world I live in as an actor but I’ve never really gone to as a director.  I’d still have to have all the other stuff in a film. It can’t just be, ‘There’s a bad guy, there’s a monster.’ It has to have all the other stuff too… It’s not anywhere close to being ready… I don’t write. I rewrite, but I don’t write, so that always puts me at the mercy of  some enormous talent that comes out of the woodwork that somehow has the same obsessions as me.

That quote is a bit obscure with respect to whether she’s writing the film or working with a screenwriter.

Oh, and with respect to Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium, she’s definitely doing the film (after casting a bit of doubt about that last month) but it sounds like a small part. She confirmed the role and the SXSW press conference for The Beaver (via The Playlist) and says that it is only three weeks of work. So probably a supporting role at most. Though depending on how Neill Blomkamp shoots the film, he could potentially get a lot of material out of three weeks.