Robert Redford and Jason Segel have joined Rooney Mara in Charlie McDowell’s The Discovery. Segel is replacing the originally cast Nicholas Hoult, who is said to have dropped out of the picture which is scheduled to go before the cameras later this month because of scheduling conflicts. The actor had been attached to the picture since last fall. The film, written by McDowell and Justin Lader, will shoot in Rhode Island.

The scheduling conflict is with Rebel in the Rye in which Hoult is starring in as author J.D. Salinger with Kevin Spacey. Directed by Danny Strong (who scripted The Butler), the film is prepping to go before the cameras next month. Hoult is also part of director’s Xavier Dolan’s English-language debut The Death And Life Of John F. Donovan with Natalie Portman and Thandie Newton. That project is scheduled now for a fall start.

Produced by Alex Orlovsky of Verisimilitude and James D. Stern of Endgame Entertainment, and financed by Endgame and Protagonist Pictures, The Discovery is a sci-fi story set two years after the discovery of an afterlife that has been scientifically proven where millions of people have taken their own lives in order to start over. Segel plays the son of the man (Redford) responsible for the discovery, and Mara plays a woman he falls in love with whose life is tinged by a tragic past.

Julie Goldstein and Lucas Smith will oversee the project for Endgame. Mike Goodridge, Dimitra Tsingou and Eddie Vaisman are overseeing for Protagonist.

This is McDowell’s second feature after the critically acclaimed The One I Love which starred Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss.

ICM Partners and WME Global packaged the project and are representing domestic rights for the film. Protagonist is handling international rights. ICM Partners represents McDowell and Lader along with Kenny Goodman at MGMT Management. Redford and Mara are repped by WME. Segel is repped by WME and Abrams Entertainment.