Ridley Scott returned to tentpole sci-fi filmmaking this summer with Prometheus and it turned out to be one of the most divisive genre films released in recent years. Nevertheless, it was a global blockbuster and was warmly embraced by critics and audiences looking for something more intellectually stimulating in their summer movie escapes. Months before Prometheus opened in theaters, Scott had also signed on to make another Blade Runner movie. Plus, he has the Cormac McCarthy original script The Counselor next up on his dance card. After all that is said and done, it looks like the Oscar-winning director will be returning to a pet project he has been pursuing for the past quarter-century.

Since the late 1980s, Scott has sought to make a feature film adaptation of The Forever War, a 1974 sci-fi war novel written by Joe Haldeman, a former Army combat engineer who had served in the Vietnam War and used those experiences as the inspiration for his book. The Forever War told the story of a soldier who goes off to fight in an intergalactic war for a few months and returns to Earth only to find that 700 years have passed and the world is much different than when he left it. In 2008, Scott finally secured the rights to the book and announced he would be making the movie for 20th Century Fox, but those plans were sidelined in favor of Robin Hood and eventually Prometheus.