As a 38-year-old who makes his living writing about movies and pop culture, I think about the premise of Logan’s Run all the time, even though I have not seen the 1976 movie, or read the novel it is based upon, or watched the television show based on the movie. All three explored a dystopian future where, due to a lack of resources, the powers that be have instituted a maximum age for humanity. In the book, it’s 20. In the movie, they’re kind enough to extend it to 30. 

As a metaphor, Logan’s Run has lasting resonance as a commentary on how our youth-worshiping culture discards people once they’ve reached a certain age—albeit generally not to the point of actually killing them to ensure that the world is perpetually filled with young people. So perhaps it’s not surprising that folks have been trying to get Logan’s Run and its eternally timely premise back onscreen for a while now. 

Most famously, film friends Nicholas Winding-Refn and Ryan Gosling were supposed to direct and star in a remake, but that fell apart, presumably because even in a vicious dystopian future where everyone over 30 is killed, Gosling would be so handsome and charming he’d be allowed to live as long as he’d like. According to Screen Rant, the project has since cycled through a series of writers, including Alex Garland, Will Beall, Christopher McQuarrie, and the directors Bryan Singer and Joseph Kosinski. Now, the project may have new life—apparently studio executives are looking for a new writer to rewrite the script with an actress in the lead. 

That might seem like a bold choice, but the box office for The Hunger Games and Divergent series prove there’s a huge market for dystopian science-fiction with a female lead. It remains to be seen whether this gender twist will finally get this long-stagnating project onto the big screen, or whether, like a 31-year old in the Logan’s Run universe, its time has conclusively passed.