Denis Villeneuve just called his new film ‘Arrival’ on steroids

In a recent interview, Canadian director revealed that he has an adaptation of the book Rendezvous with Rama underway. And though the auteur behind Prisoners hasn’t been too forthcoming about it, he did describe it as “Arrival on steroids”. To be fair, that figures: Rendezvous with Rama, a 1973 novel by British author Arthur C. Clarke – the guy behind 2001: A Space Odyssey – is set in the 2130s, and follows what happens when an alien starship enters the solar system. In terms of it’s Arrival-esque credentials, it’s likely Villeneuve is referring to the fact that Rendezvous with Rama is, again, about other-worldly beings. In Arrival, those took for the form of seven-limbed beings called “heptapods”, and we reckon he’ll offer up something equally subversive in his upcoming project. Basically, Villeneuve is single-handedly shaking up the little green man-ification of alien representation.

Though Eric Roth, the screenwriter behind Killers of the Flower Moon, is in the middle of adapting the Clarke novel, we don’t yet have a release date for Rendezvous with Rama. Unfortunately, we probably won’t get one for a long, long time. Luckily, there’s a decent amount of Villeneuve output we might get sooner. Villeneuve is currently working on a HBO series based on Jo Nesbø’s novel The Son – said to star Jake Gyllenhaal – and a re-telling of Cleopatra, which will see him team up with Zendaya again. The director is also fresh off the campaign trail for Dune: Part Two, which is released on the 1st of March. It’s the very same campaign trail that saw Pugh get an unidentified object lobbed at her eye, but that’s a whole other article.