Reese Witherspoon, Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg reportedly teaming up for sci-fi film, Pyros

Reese Witherspoon is reportedly collaborating with Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg for a sci-fi project with the working title, Pyros. The film is based on Thomas Pierce’s short story Tardy Man , published last year in The New Yorker,  according to Deadline . Pierce is also involved in adapting the story for the big screen.

Deadline adds that his short story Chairman Spaceman was bought by Fox Searchlight, which is developing the project with Kinberg attached as producer.

Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter, through the banner Hello Sunshine, are producing Pyros along with Audrey Chon of Genre Films.

Deadline shared the film’s synopsis:  “Tardy Man deals with a group of augmented people who are fitted with indestructible fire suits that are fused to their spines. They work for a corporation that recovers objects for wealthy people when their houses are burning. It is strictly forbidden for them to veer from their salvage missions, even when other humans are in danger. The protagonist decides to make an exception to this rule and that is the jumping off point.”

Witherspoon was most recently seen as Madeline Mackenzie in HBO’s drama series Big Little Lies . The show concluded after two seasons and also starred Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern and Zoë Kravitz. Her last feature film was the Ava DuVernay-directed A Wrinkle in Time.

Witherspoon is a part of the upcoming Hulu miniseries, Little Fires Everywhere, with Kerry Washington. The show is based on Celeste Ng’s 2017 bestseller of the same name, set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where Ng grew up.

Dark Phoenix, which starred Sophie Turner in the lead role, was a box office dud. Kinberg had in an interview accepted the responsibility for the film’s failure . “It clearly is a movie that didn’t connect with audiences that didn’t see it, it didn’t connect enough with audiences that did see it. So that’s on me,” Kinberg had said.