Ridley Scott is in negotiations to direct Matt Damon in The Martian, an outer space adventure project being made by 20th Century Fox, The Hollywood Reporter reveals exclusively.

Scott is sitting in the chair vacated by Drew Goddard, who left the project due to his directing commitments for Sony’s Sinister Six, the planned Spider-Man spinoff.

Scott will also become a producer on the project, joining Simon Kinberg and Aditya Sood, who originally found the book the movie will be adapted from.

Martian was written by Andy Weir and self-published by Amazon on Sept. 27, 2012. Goddard wrote the script.

Described as being in the vein of Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away and Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (both of which starred Tom Hanks), Martian centers on an astronaut who is stranded on a Martian colony and struggles to survive. Back on Earth, NASA tries to mount a rescue mission.

At 77, Scott shows no signs of slowing down. The filmmaker, who counts Fox as his home turf, is in postproduction on the Moses tale Exodus: Gods and Kings, starring Christian Bale and opening Dec. 12. Martian will be his 21st feature movie.