Not casting details or release date has been set yet for sci-fi movie Starfall.

Joe Johnston has had a pretty interesting career. His first movie was the family comedy “Honey I Shrunk the Kids,” which he followed up with The Rocketeer, a severely undervalued period action movie with touches of steampunk and sci-fi. Since then, he’s gone small (October Sky), big (Jurassic Park III), done a superhero movie (Captain America: The First Avenger), and even tried his hand at classic horror (The Wolfman.) So what’s next? Well, he’s signed on to direct the $100 million epic sci-fi movie Starfall, primarily being filmed at a massive new Chinese film studio.

So What’s this sci-fi movie Starfall About?

Well, this is where things get a little hazy. Here’s what we know about the plot: “Starfall is an actioner that takes place on a space station.” Yep. Thankfully, we have a few more details about where it’s being made, and who else will be helping Johnston.

Who’s on the Crew of Starfall?

Writer David Coggeshall, an experienced television writer with a pair of horror movie scripts to his name, will be handling the scripting while Lorenzo Di Bonaventura (Constantine, Transformers, Stardust) will be taking part as a producer.

The movie is being co-financed by Lionsgate, and Chinese movie companies Wanda Media and Infinity Pictures. The movie, according to Deadline, was revealed “after Johnston and Lionsgate’s Patrick Wachsberger joined Wanda chairman and CEO Wang Jianlin onstage last night during the presentation for the mega-studio facility and entertainment complex in the Eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.”

It looks like 2017 will be the year time travel makes a comeback. I mentioned the recent popularity of the time travel genre in books, but it appears to be bleeding into movies and television as well.

This is the first of a series of 5 articles letting you know what cool sci-fi stuff is coming out in the next year, so check out the biggest, baddest, most awesome sci-fi films you can expect next year!

[Click here to read more…]

The new studio comes with, among other things, a 56,000 square foot green screen stage which will be used in the movie’s production. This sort of environment should present no problem for Johnston, who has worked extensively with green screens and computer graphics. I, for one, as a lifelong admirer of The Rocketeer, am very excited for this sci-fi movie Starfall.