Columbia, Cross Creek and Doug Liman Team for Sci-Fi 'Unearthed' (Exclusive)

Jez and John Henry Butterworth ('Spectre') are writing the script for the project, which adapts the upcoming YA book by Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner.



Columbia Pictures has picked up Unearthed, a sci-fi adventure that has Doug Liman attached to direct.

Jez and John Henry Butterworth are writing the script for the project, which adapts the upcoming YA book by Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner. Cross Creek Pictures’ Tyler Thompson will produce.

The project was initially being developed by Cross Creek Pictures, which acquired the rights last year. The company is behind Liman’s upcoming Tom Cruise movie, American Made. Cross Creek will retain the right to co-finance under its deal with Columbia, which is eyeing the title as a potential franchise.

Set in a distant future where Earth has been undone by environmental disaster, Unearthed sees a scholar and a scavenger reluctantly team-up to venture to the planet of a now-extinct alien race. With the promise of a salve for the Earth, the two must work together to explore an ancient alien temple and finds its life-altering secrets. But the deeper they go, the more the two discover they may not be help the Earth but rather hasten its destruction.

The book is due to be published in January 2018 and has been described as a spacebound Tomb Raider meets Indiana Jones.

David Beaubaire is overseeing for the studio.

Liman is currently prepping to adapt Chaos Walking, which will star Daisy Ridley, for Lionsgate.

The Butterworth brothers worked with Liman on 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow. Other recent credits include the James Bond movie Spectre and the Johnny Depp crime movie Black Mass.