Reese Witherspoon in Talks to Join Keanu Reeves in Sci-Fi Love Story ‘Passengers’ (Exclusive)

Reese Witherspoon has entered into talks to star opposite Keanu Reeves in Passengers, a sci-fi love drama that Brian Kirk is directing for Wayfare Entertainment.

The script – Jon Spaihts (Prometheus) wrote the most recent draft – in which a starship transporting human cargo to a colony malfunctions, causing one passenger (Reeves) to prematurely thaw from a cryogenic slumber nearly a century before anyone else. Not wanting to be alone, he decides to wake up another passenger, a female.

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Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that talks are in the early stages, but should a deal close, Witherspoon would play the female lead.

Reeves is producing the movie with Stephen Hamel and Ben Browning. Michael Maher is exec producing. The project is expected to be presented to buyers at Cannes.

A shoot in Montreal is being planned.

Witherspoon, who was arrested last month in Atlanta for disorderly conduct after her CAA agent husband was pulled over for a DUI, is making the rounds promoting her indie drama Mud, in which she stars with Matthew McConaughey. She next appears in Devil’s Knot, a true-life drama about the West Memphis Three.

The Passengers deal would mark Witherspoon’s first project since the arrest.

Witherspoon is repped by CAA, Management 360 and Hansen Jacobson.

Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com, tatiana.siegel@thr.com

Twitter: @Borys_Kit