Hot on the heels of Keanu Reeves’ thoroughly enjoyable directorial debut, Man Of Tai Chi, and his thoroughly disastrous supernatural samurai movie 47 Ronin, he was gearing up for his latest return to science fiction with Passengers. Production was scheduled to get underway early next month, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be delayed, perhaps significantly, after the loss of both its leading lady, Rachel McAdams, and its American distributor, the Weinstein Company.

Per THR, the film was acquired by TWC in “one of the biggest deals of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival,” but the company took Passengers off its release calendar after McAdams recently decided to leave the project. Now director Brian Kirk (Game Of Thrones) will have to find a new partner to release the film, and a new lead to star opposite Reeves. This is the second actress to drop out of the film; McAdams previously replaced Reese Witherspoon in the role. 

Here’s the film’s plot synopsis:

“Passengers, hoping to tap into the same success that Gravity enjoyed, stars Reeves as a colonist aboard a spacecraft carrying 5,000 sleeping passengers to a new world. After accidentally awakening and becoming lonely, he rouses Aurora. Falling in love, they eventually realize it is up to them to save everyone on the journey.”

And then, after Keanu saves the ship, he goes around telling every single person “You owe me a life!”

Passengers does sound a bit like Gravity, which lost at least one leading lady (Angelina Jolie) during its own lengthy development. Hey, what’s she up to these days? Any chance she might want to fall in love with Keanu Reeves in outer space?