According to the Hollywood Reporter, Natalie Portman — Princess Amidala of “Star Wars” fame — has been offered the lead role in “Gravity,” a thriller about the lone survivor of a space mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
If Portman accepts the role, she would play an astronaut “stranded on a space station after satellite debris slams into it and wipes out the rest of the crew,” according to a Sept. 6 post on the Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Business blog.
“Robert Downey Jr. already has committed to a supporting role, but much of the picture is devoted to the female character, who must survive a solitary ordeal much in the way Tom Hanks did in ‘Cast Away,’” the Hollywood Reporter wrote.
Given Elon Musk’s connection to Robert Downey Jr. — Musk and SpaceX headquarters both had cameos in “Iron Man 2” — perhaps Portman will return to Earth in a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
The $80 million Warner Bros. movie, to be shot in 3-D, is slated to start shooting in January for a 2012 release. The director, Alfonso Cuaron, is best known for the films “Y tu mamá también” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.”
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