Fresh off his role as a hitman in the entertaining John Wick, Keanu Reeves will return to the cold, metallic embrace of science fiction with a lead role in Replicas, a thriller from Lotus Entertainment and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Reeves will play a “daring neuroscientist” who loses his family in a car crash. Devastated, his attempts to get them back will put him into conflict with a government-controlled laboratory, a police task force, and the physical laws of science, the last of which he’s at least overcome before.
Replicas will be directed by Tanya Wexler, whose previous movie Hysteria was about the invention of the vibrator, the most bewildering sci-fi gadget of the 1880s. There’s little information about what scientifically fictionalized means Reeves will use to bring his family back in Replicas, but producer di Bonaventura dropped some hints, while also praising the actor’s virtues as a sci-fi everyman.
“From my experience working with Keanu on The Matrix franchise through our collaboration on Constantine, I have always been impressed by (his) ability to bring a genuine level of humanity to the sci-fi genre through his performance. I am looking forward to collaborating with Keanu once again on this unique take on what lengths a person will go to alter the past, and the implications of those actions.”
That could imply time travel, or some kind of futuristic take on The Monkey’s Paw, where the paw is a matter-regenerating laser cannon or something. Production is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2015, so moviegoers will have to wait a while to find out for sure.