Even as he’s getting to work on Dune Part II, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is planning for the future; Alcon Entertainment has acquired the film rights to Arthur C. Clarke’s science fiction novel, Rendezvous With Rama, which Villeneuve is set to direct.

One of the cornerstones of the author’s work, which also includes A Fall of Moondust and The Sentinel – which in turn served as the basis for his 2001: A Space Odyssey screenplay –, the 1973 novel  is set in the 2130s. The story involves a cylindrical starship which enters our Solar System and becomes humankind’s first encounter with an alien spacecraft, told from the point of view of a group of human explorers who intercept the ship and attempt to unlock its mysteries.

Film rights to the novel were previously controlled by Morgan Freeman (with David Fincher attached to helm the project back in 2010), who will now produce with Alcon under his and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment banner. This is set to be the latest in a successful series of collaborations between Villeneuve and Alcon, who have financed and produced Prisoners and Blade Runner 2049.