Spider-Man director Sam Raimi and District 9 producer Bill Block are deep into negotiations with Warner Bros. to set up a massive new movie called EDF, based on a script from Air Force One screenwriter and Castle executive producer Andrew Marlowe. Block’s QED International, which helped finance District 9, is co-financing the project. We’ve read it and are unashamed to say we love it: Mix Top Gun with Independence Day and add a pinch of The Last Starfighter, and you’ll get EDF — which stands for “Earth Defense Force,†though we hear the title may change — about Earth’s response to an imminent alien invasion.
In EDF, we open on a U.S. military operation gone awry: Sent to rescue what they believe is a sub that’s accidentally bumped into a mine in Chinese waters, U.S. naval aviators quickly wind up engaged in a dogfight with a squadron of Chinese air force pilots. Soon, planes on both sides are being shot out of the sky, but not by the Chinese or U.S. pilots — by three alien attack fighters, which soon depart and destroy many of the world’s landmarks and military installations, then vanish. It’s a test of Earth’s defensive capabilities, and we failed. Shortly after, NASA detects a radiation signature in a nearby galaxy, indicating a far more massive attack coming in about ten months, and world leaders set about trying to create super-aircraft and weapons that can fight off the coming invasion.
No word on who’ll direct yet — our spies say it’s not Raimi — but the project is going out to directors imminently.