Hugh Laurie may be heading to “Tomorrowland” with George Clooney.
The highly-secretive Brad Bird sci-fi movie, described as being akin to Steven Spielberg’s 1977 classic “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (a film that incidentally ranked No. 5 on HitFix’s recent staff-voted list of the director’s Top 25 films), is close to nabbing the “House” star for the role of the film’s main antagonist, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Unsurprisingly, details on the exact nature of the character are not being provided at this time.
Bird, who had an enormous hit with his first live-action effort, 2011’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” is on board to direct the Disney project (f.k.a. “1952”) from a script by Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “Star Trek Into Darkness”). Clooney attached himself to star in the film in November of last year.
Laurie, who ended his eight-season run on “House” last May, was recently featured in the independent suburban dark comedy “The Oranges” opposite Catherine Keener and Leighton Meester, which came and went to little fanfare last October. He also stars in director Andrew Adamson’s “Mr. Pip,” a war drama that screened at last year’s Toronto Film Festival but has yet to hook a U.S. distributor.
“Tomorrowland” has been set for release on Dec. 19, 2014.
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