September 4, 2014 - 15:10 AMT
Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig in talks for Ridley Scott's “Martian”

Jessica Chastain and Kristen Wiig are in very early talks for the female lead roles in Ridley Scott's The Martian, The Hollywood Reporter said.

If the deals stick, they'll star opposite Matt Damon in the Fox film, which 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.

Scott signed on to direct the project after Drew Goddard exited, due to his directing commitments for Sony’s Sinister Six, the planned Spider-Man spinoff. Scott is producing with Simon Kinberg and Aditya Sood, who originally found the book the movie will be adapted from.

Goddard wrote the script for The Martian based on the book by Andy Weir, which was self-published by Amazon on Sept. 27, 2012.

Chastain has several hot projects coming out in the next few months, including the buzzy awards film The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar and J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year. She's repped by CAA and Mosaic.

Wiig's recent work includes The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and The Skeleton Twins, hitting theaters on Sept 12.

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty