Julius Onah
Julius Onah

Paramount and Bad Robot has set a June 10 filming start date in Los Angeles for Julius Onah’s sci-fi thriller “God Particle,” from a script penned by Oren Uziel (“22 Jump Street”) and Doug Jung (“Star Trek Beyond”), with J.J. Abrams supervising.

David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Oyelowo are attached to star in the film which was said to have been one of Hollywood’s most buzzed-about “open directing assignments” (partly because there had been lots of secrecy around it, and J.J. Abrams had been attached to produce). The story follows an American space station crew that’s abandoned after a problem with a Hadron accelerator causes Earth to completely vanish, challenging all they know about the fabric of reality, as they desperately fight for their survival.

Joining Oyelowo and Mbatha-Raw are Daniel Bruhl, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, Zhang Ziyi and Aksel Hennie.

Lindsey Weber will produce alongside Abrams, while Tommy Harper and Bob Dorhmann are executive producers.

Paramount has also set a February 24, 2017 release date for “God Particle,” so we’ll get to see this a lot sooner than I originally expected.

But I’m glad the project is finally becoming a reality, and with black actors starring, as well as a black director. It’s been in development for 2 years (before Oyelowo and Mbatha-Raw became attached), so to see it going into production, with the original studio and Abrams still backing it. It should help increase awareness of Onah’s name, in the industry, as well as among audiences.