Ridley Scott puts off Brave New World for The Forever War

You wait 25 years for a new Ridley Scott science fiction film then two come along at once. Not content with hatching a plan to bring Brave New World to the big screen, the British director of Alien and Blade Runner is to adapt Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel The Forever War.

Scott confirmed in October that he would be bring Aldous Huxley's dystopian classic to cinemas with Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role. At the time he was quoted as saying: "I waited for a book for 20 years and I have got the book. That will definitely be what I do next after Nottingham, the Robin Hood film (with Russell Crowe)."

It now appears the tome in question may not have been Brave New World, although Scott still seems certain to film Huxley's novel at some stage. Variety reports this morning that The Forever War will be the film-maker's next project after Nottingham.

"I first pursued The Forever War 25 years ago, and the book has only grown more timely and relevant since," Scott told the trade bible. "It's a science-fiction epic, a bit of The Odyssey by way of Blade Runner, built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise."

Haldeman's novel centres on a soldier who returns home from battling aliens for a few months in space to find his home planet has advanced many years into the future, and is unrecognisable. One aspect of the new society which jars with returning military types is the pre-eminence of homosexuality, which has been encouraged by the government to help relax overcrowding.

Scott recently acquired the rights to the book and is now looking for a writer to adapt it for the big screen.