It seems there could be a bit of a Blade Runner reunion going on, as David Peoples, co-writer of the classic 80s sci-fi flick, is apparently working on a script for sci-fi movie, The Forever War, which Ridley Scott has long been attached to direct.
Peoples has been working on the fourth draft of the screenplay, which is based of Joe Haldeman’s 1974 novel. Indeed it was Haldeman who revealed the news on his website, saying (in reply to someone offering to write the script), ‘Andrew, anybody can write a script for any book, especially THE FOREVER WAR, but it might not be a productive use of one’s time. Scott has a script; last I heard, it was the fourth rewrite. I’ve talked to the writer — he has good credits, like “Unforgiven.”‘
While that doesn’t specifically name Peoples, as he’s the person who wrote Unforgiven (and Twelve Monkeys, Hero and Soldier, incidentally), it’s safe to assume he’s the one who’s got the job.
The book itself is about Private William Mandella, a reluctant conscript drafted into an elite military unit, who’s forced to go off and fight in a distant thousand-year conflict, even though he has no desire to, particularly as the war seems pointless, and the enemy if unconquerable and very far away. However the real key to the novel is how it uses spacetime, so that while the soldier only ages 10 years, because he’s been travelling around so fast, on Earth seven centuries have passed (if that sounds confusing, think Flight Of The Navigator, or go bone up on you Theory Of Relativity).
There’s no news however on when and if Scott will get around to making the film. He’s apparently want to direct a Forever War movie for the past 25-years, but always had trouble over the rights. Now Fox owns the movie rights and he’s Scott is developing the movie for them, but with loads of other movies on his plate, it’s impossible to know when he’ll get round to this one.