Ridley Scott to Direct The Martian for a March 2016 release date

Ridley Scott is one of Hollywood's most accomplished directors. He has just signed up to direct The Martian written by Andy Weir which will be starred by Matt Damon. The movie has a March 6, 2016 release date. 

Here is the synopsis:

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?

Simon Kinberg made this announcement:

"There's a script that Drew Goddard wrote, who wrote Cloverfield and who wrote and directed The Cabin in the Woods, a great, great writer. There's a book I brought to him called The Martian, that is a very realistic science-fiction book, which he wrote an incredible script of, that he was going to direct. Then his Spider-Man movie got pulled up, so he left it, but Ridley Scott is going to direct it and we're going star it this fall."