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Coming on top of a competitive bidding war, Netflix has picked up Somewhere Out There, a sci-fi spec script written by Max Taxe. The project generated considerable heat thanks to the involvement of Shawn Levy, the Deadpool & Wolverine filmmaker who is attached to direct.

Levy will also produce via his 21 Laps banner along with the company’s Dan Levine.

Somewhere Out There is said to fall into the “emotional sci-fi” silo, and described as being in the vein of Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s alien encounter drama which Levy produced, and The Adam Project, Levy’s time travel family adventure made by Netflix in 2022.

The story concerns a grieving father who, after losing his wife, sends a message out into the stars…and something out there starts to talk back. 

It’s no surprise, given that Levy tends to work with such names as Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, Hugh Jackman, and Mark Ruffalo, but sources say that several prominent actors are already circling the role of the father.

Becca Edelman, who brought the project into 21 Laps, will oversee. 

Levy just wrapped production on the latest Star Wars feature, titled Starfighter, with Gosling as the lead. The adventure movie now heads into an lengthy post-production process as it prepares for a May 28, 2027 theatrical release.

Levy’s previous movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, became the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history with a sniktastic worldwide gross exceeding $1.3 billion.

Taxe is already in the 21 Laps business with his original script Ripple, which has Jack Quaid attached to star. The scribe wrote the script for Moonshot, a sci-fi romantic comedy that starred Lana Condor and Cole Sprouse and that debuted on HBO Max in 2022.

21 Laps, which is one of the entities behind the Stranger Things phenomenon, remains one of the more prolific filmmaker banners in town. It is in production on two Netflix projects, the comedy One Attempt Remaining, starring Jennifer Garner and John Cena, and an untitled hockey series starring Michelle Monaghan.

Levy and 21 Laps are repped by WME and Johnson Shapir. Taxe is repped by UTA, Entertainment 360 and Jackoway Austen.