'Imitation Game' director Morten Tyldum to helm space flick 'Passengers'

Sony has approached 'The Imitation Game' helmer Morten Tyldum to direct 'Passengers.'

Tyldum, whose first English-language film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, has got 8 Oscar nominations including Best Director and Best Pictureh, would make his studio debut with the film, Deadline.com reported.

Penned by 'Doctor Strange' scribe Jon Spaihts, the sci-fi love story, takes place on a spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant colony planet and has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers.

As a result, a single passenger is awakened 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he eventually decides to wake up a second passenger, marking the beginning of what becomes a unique love story.

The project would be overseen by production president Michael De Luca and produced by Original Films' Neal Moritz and Ori Marmur and Michael Maher for Start Media and Stephen Hamel of Company Films.