Ridley Scott going back to the" Brave New World"

Ridley Scott—who recently signed on to direct a prequel to his original Alien movie—is taking on another high-profile sci-fi project, producing and directing a film version of Aldous Huxley's dystopian SF novel Brave New World, The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz blog reported.

Scott will produce with Leonardo DiCaprio, who will also star, the blog reported.

It seems like a natural fit for Scott, who's well acquainted with dystopian futures, having directed Blade Runner.

Here's what the blog says:

The studio has brought on Apocalypto scribe Farhad Safinia to pen the script; he's expected to be working shortly.

Scott and DiCaprio also will produce via their respective Scott Free and Appian Way banners, with Michael Costigan also producing for Scott Free and George DiCaprio producing at Appian. Peter Cramer is overseeing for Uni.

Scott has mentioned casually in interviews that he's interested in the 1931 novel, which Appian Way owns, prompting a flurry of rumors on sci-fi and other blogs over the past year. But the studio details as well as DiCaprio's personal involvement always have been murky.

Now, with a writer on board and Scott Free and Appian execs meeting frequently during the past six months, the project has more momentum, though several people familiar with it emphasize that it remains at the development stage.

Brave New World is set in the year 2540 (632 A.F. in the book) in London, an egalitarian dystopian society of strictly controlled reproduction, consumerism and sexual promiscuity, seen at the time as partly a critique of the emerging Americanization of world culture. The book has previously been adapted for television but never for the big screen.