According to Deadline, Fox beat out other interested studios to land The Gone World, an as-yet-unpublished sci-fi time travel novel by Thomas Sweterlitsch. The novelist’s debut work, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, has already been acquired by Tri Star.

Fox is courting Neill Blomkamp to adapt the screenplay as well as to direct. Writer-director Blomkamp’s critically acclaimed debut feature in 2009, the action sci-fi District 9, garnered four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. He went on to write and direct the dystopian Matt Damon-starrer Elysium, and followed that up with another sci-fi – Chappie – which was released earlier this year. He had been announced to direct a new take on Alien, however that project may be in limbo now that Ridley Scott, who helmed the original Alien in 1979, has expressed interest in developing a multi-film prequel story leading up to Alien. In fact, Scott has named his upcoming Prometheus sequel Alien: Paradise Lost.

Chernin Entertainment is producing The Gone World. We will have more news on the film as it breaks.