Reeves's 'Passengers' gets director

Gabriele Muccino is in final talks to direct Keanu Reeves in sci-fi project Passengers, reports Variety.

The Italian filmmaker, who helmed the Will Smith movies Pursuit Of Happyness and Seven Pounds, has described the project as "a love story set on a spaceship".

The futuristic movie takes place on an interstellar craft making the journey to a new planet. A system malfunction causes one of the passengers (Reeves) to wake up from a cryogenic freeze 90 years early. He in turn awakens a beautiful woman on board the ship.

Jon Spaihts, the writer behind the Alien prequel, penned Passengers. The movie will begin production this summer with Reeves, Stephen Hamel and Morgan Creek's James G. Robinson serving in producer roles.