20th Century Fox has tapped into the works of the great science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov twice before — Fantastic Voyage (1966) and I, Robot (2004). Hoping that the third time will be the charm the studio is turning the author’s 1954 novel The Caves of Steel into a major motion picture and have already hired newcomers Henry Hobson and John Scott 3 to respectively direct and write the film.

Hobson and Scott are presently prepping Maggie, a film about a teenage girl who gets bitten by a zombie and how she deals with life in the six weeks it takes for her to transform into one of the living dead, which is based on Scott’s spec script. During his off-time from screenwriting Scott works for N.A.S.A. building command systems for their X-ray satellite. Hobson previously worked as a titles designer for movies like The Help, Fright Night, and the upcoming The Thing as well as the Walking Dead television series. Producing The Caves of Steel will be Simon Kinberg, the writer and producer of films like X-Men: First Class, Sherlock Holmes, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

The Caves of Steel takes place 1,000 years in the future and the title refers to giant city complexes that were constructed due to Earth’s increasing overpopulation. The story revolves around the investigation into the murder of an ambassador who was seeking to repeal the planet’s anti-robot restrictions as their presence on Earth is feared despite their use as slave labor on other planets by Earth-based corporations. A human detective is partnered with a human-looking robot to solve the mystery. Surprisingly, Fox has not set a release date yet.

[Source: Deadline]