Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity will be 60% CGI and have a 20 minute opening scene

Earlier this year Robert Downey Jr. signed up to star in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, however he will not be the lead. Downey will play the leader of a team posted at a remote space station. While he and a female colleague are travelling outside the space station, the other team members are decimated by debris from an exploded satellite.

Much of the film is devoted to the females struggle to get back to Earth and her daughter. Angelina Jolie was attached at one point; however she passed, so there is a role of a life time awaiting a certain actress out there. Not since Sigourney Weaver in Aliens has there been a big budget sci-fi space movie with a female lead, so this should be interesting.

What’s equally interesting are the details that Framework, the Oscar winning UK special effects company, has posted on their site.

Framestore is about to embark on one of its greatest challenges yet, Gravity is the next Avatar in terms of ambition. There are many innovative and visually stunning aims for this project.

The entire film will be made here at Framestore. In effect the film, as Avatar was, is 60% CG feature animation with the balance being hybrid CG and live action elements.

Starring Robert Downey Junior, the film is a contemporary survival thriller that follows a woman as she attempts to make her way back to earth after a satellite crash sets off a chain reaction of further crashes. Because it’s set in space, most shots require every element to float in zero-gravity.

But then factor in that this a stylish Cuarón flick, directed with his trademark languid feel, and you begin to realise the full scale of our challenge. Cuarón’s long and fluid style (the opening shot alone is slated to last at least 20 minutes) leaves no cut points to hide behind. In short, this is a hybrid of a fully animated, photo-real feature film with a blockbusting visual effects movie.

Fortunately, having worked with Alfonso before on Harry Potter and Children of Men, we know one another extremely well. Now we are looking for the best talent in the world to help us realise this massive and beautiful film. Over the next few weeks we are interviewing and looking at reels of those in-house who want to join in as well as making trips to the US, Canada and Australasia.

This is CG feature animation meets real world on a large and beautiful scale.

It seems Warner Bros. want their own Avatar, just without the Na’vi. Shooting will begin this summer with Robert Downey Jr. leaving to shoot Sherlock Holmes 2 half way though. He will return to finish his bit after Sherlock and in-between The Avengers.

After seeing Children of Men i’ve been waiting for Alfonso to get his hands on another cool project, and this certainly fits the bill. I would have loved Alfonso to take on The Hobbit, but i’ll be happy in the fact that he is working on something like this instead.