According to Variety, Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) is being tapped to play an astronaut in J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production of God Particle. David Oyelowo (Selma) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Concussion) are already on board the sci-fi thriller.
The story is set in the near future and centers on an American space station crew abandoned after a particle accelerator accident leads to terrifying consequences. Julius Onah (The Girls is in Trouble) will helm. Best known as a short film director, this will be his second feature film. The project was originally set up at Paramount InSurge, a division created in 2010 for micro-budget films. The division was shuttered and transferred as a label within Paramount last year.
John Krasinski (Aloha) had been in negotiations to join the cast, but Variety reports his status on the project is currently unclear.
Debicki appeared last year in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and in Baltasar Kormákur’s disaster story Everest. She can currently be seen in The Night Manager, a serialized adaptation of John le Carré’s 1993 novel starring Tom Hiddleston (I Saw the Light) and Hugh Laurie (TV’s House). She has just finished shooting Jennifer Fox’s drama The Tale. The in-demand Parisian-born actress is currently filming both Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opposite returning star Chris Pratt (Jurassic World), and the Aussie coming-of-age flick Breath, helmed by Simon Baker (TV’s The Mentalist) in his feature film directorial debut.
Production on God Particle is scheduled to start in the next few months and will open in theaters on February 24, 2017.