Chainsaw Massacre director to helm big-budget sci-fi invasion flick

Jonathan Liebesman, director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Darkness Falls, is in negotiations to direct Battle: Los Angeles, a sci-fi action film that Neal Moritz is producing for Columbia Pictures.

According to a story by The Hollywood Reporter, Battle: Los Angeles revolves around a Marine platoon’s encounter with an alien invasion on the streets of L.A.

Liebesman beat out several other potential directors, by making a live-action/animated presentation that showed his vision and passion for the project, which is described as Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day. In August, the South-African helmer went to locations in Santa Monica and downtown L.A., shooting sequences and adding CGI aliens. He also created a pre-visualized alien invasion sequence.

Liebesman is currently doing post-production work on the political thriller The Killing Room, starring Timothy Hutton, Peter Stormare and Nick Cannon. That film revolves around four individuals who sign up for a psychological research study and discover that they are now the subject of a brutal, classified government program.

Film Fetish Trivia: Prolific producer Neal Moritz is also producing the upcoming Luke Cage film, set to be directed by John Singleton (due in 2009); The Green Hornet, co-starring Seth Rogen and Stephen Chow, who will also direct (due in 2010); 21 Jump Street, which is based on the popular late ’80s TV series that aired on Fox (due in 2010); and Flash Gordon, the comic adaptation that has Breck Eisner (Sahara) attached to direct (also due in 2010).