Doug Liman to Adapt Indiana-Jones-in-Space Adventure ‘Unearthed’

The sci-fi/military fusion Edge of Tomorrow was that rarest of gifts when it debuted back in 2014, a masterful action picture with an original high-concept angle and a whip-smart script. Hollywood then scrambled to find something for director Doug Liman, a clearly skilled orchestrator of large-scale setpieces, to do with his talents. First order of business was getting him back together with his Edge of Tomorrow star Tom Cruise (their new collaboration, American Made, comes to theaters on September 29 of next year), and following that, Liman’s choice was "do everything." He signed on for the Gambit solo picture and then bailed, agreed to bring YA dystopian franchise Chaos Walking to the screen, made plans for a Edge of Tomorrow sequel, and inked a deal to direct DC’s "Dark Universe" picture after Guillermo Del Toro dropped out.

Never one to allow a gap in his schedule, Liman has taken on yet another project. Deadline reports today that the director will stay in his wheelhouse and adapt even more sci-fi literature, planning a cinematic treatment of the upcoming novel series Unearthed. The two-book series won’t be published until next year, but Liman has already moved on the YA thriller novels, with an option for a second film if all goes well with this nascent franchise’s maiden voyage.

The synopsis that Deadline provides sounds, in the parlance of today’s youth, “wild as hell.” Unearthed jettisons a group of adventurers in the mold of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft out into space, where they compete in a test of speed as they sift through the remains of an alien civilization to uncover their secrets. As dictated in Movie Law, all ideas become at least 50% better when moved into the intergalactic beyond (just look at Hellraiser IV, or Moonraker, or Jason X, or...) and so this could be one of the most promising prospects in Liman’s long to-do list. As the source material does not yet exist, it could be a little while before Liman’s freed up to start work on this, but the teens of tomorrow will have lots to be excited about.