Ridley Scott in Talks to Direct THE MARTIAN starring Matt Damon

From The Collider

About a month ago, Drew Goddard had to exit 20th Century Fox’s sci-fi film The Martian due to his commitment to directing Sony’s The Sinister Six.  While Matt Damon remains on board the film as star, director Ridley Scott is now reported as being in talks to helm the picture.  Goddard was attached to direct his own adaptation of Andy Weir’s e-book, and though he’ll be stepping away from the director’s chair, it looks like his screenplay will remain in place, at least initially.  The story follows one of the first people to walk on Mars who becomes stranded and must struggle against insurmountable odds in order to survive.  Hit the jump for more on The Martian and Scott’s involvement.

As Heat Vision reports, Scott is in talks to come on board The Martian as director.  He’ll also join Simon Kinberg and Aditya Sood as producers.  This could be a more reined-in version of Scott’s recent work since it should center on a lone survivor if the script takes a Gravity-like approach.  Either way, it’ll be nice to see what Scott can do in a space-based tale when he’s not beholden to an existing cinematic mythology.

Here’s the book description for The Martian (via Amazon):

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?