Screenwriter Billy Ray has enjoyed a major boost in his career since adapting Hunger Games. Besides penning the screenplay for Paul Greengrass‘ hijacking drama Captain Phillips, he’s also attached to the Thin Man reboot, and was hired to rewrite Martin Scorsese’s planned Sinatra biopic. Soon Ray will add another project to his busy schedule when he gets behind the camera for a new film from Good Universe.
The Flight Plan writer signed on to direct Departure, a sci-fi romance based on the book Ghost of the Air: True Stories of Aerial Hauntings by Martin Caidin. If the title didn’t tip you off, the work contains accounts from real pilots who experienced strange phenomena while flying the apparently not so friendly skies. According to THR, the film centers on a “brilliant Miami-based FAA investigator who is obsessed with learning how a 727 suddenly vanished into thin air and then reappeared in the exact same spot ten minutes later. As mysterious occurrences continue to occur with increasing frequency in the skies over Miami, the investigation becomes personal when the employee’s beloved wife is on one of the planes affected.” Jim Whitaker will produce, with Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane coming on as executive producers.
The film marks the first directing project for Ray since he wrote and helmed the 2007 crime drama Breach. It won’t be long before he’s on on the job, since Good Universe wants to start casting Departure right away.
Based on the description, do you think Departure sounds more romantic or spooky?