Yesterday we spoke of Bryan Singer’s desire to get into the revenge thriller genre with Prisoners, a Taken-esque movie that would star Mark Wahlberg. Now comes reports from Variety of another project he has been developing for the past 8 months which has moved forward significantly this week. 

The movie is Freedom Formula, a “futuristic Top Gun”, which could be his return to the big screen epic after directing the World War II ensemble thriller Valkyrie after the disappointment of Superman Returns. In July, he said he only wanted to produce Freedom Fighters, now it’s said to be a movie firmly within his “potential” directing sights.

Singer’s adaptation of the Radical Publishing comic book has been picked up by New Regency and now has a screenwriter in the form of Michael Finch, a scribe who earlier this month sold a period action spec script titled Medievel to New Regency for “a colossal payday”. That film has attracted McG’s attention. 

Freedom Formula is set in the future where racing exo-suits have replaced fighter jets, with the story focusing on a genetically engineered racer who learns that his bloodline has the power to change society. It’s described as a character driven flick with awesome set pieces.

Radical principal and producer Barry Levine said…

“Mike Finch came up with an incredible take that goes deeper into the mythology of the source material,”

Definitely sounds like a movie that belongs in the post-Transformers world and Singer is m=by no means a director who can no longer handle the big blockbuster. Superman Returns was too close a project to his heart for him to ever truly succeed with it the way he wanted to tell it, which is precisely why I don’t want to see him remake Logan’s Run, because it will just turn out the same.

Freedom Fighter from Singer is something I would quite happily pay to see, wouldn’t you?