Edgar Wright Will Direct 'Set My Heart To Five', About A Robot Who Wants To Write A Screenplay

Edgar Wright already has a new project lined-up to follow his upcoming Last Night in Soho. The Shaun of the Dead filmmaker is attached to direct Set My Heart to Five, about a human-like robot on an emotional awakening. Working Title Films, Focus Features, and Compete Fiction Picture have teamed on the project, with the novel's author Simon Stephenson set to pen the script.

Deadline has the scoop on Set My Heart to Five, a new Edgar Wright movie based on the upcoming book from Simon Stephenson. Here's a very detailed synopsis of the book:

Jared works as a dentist in small-town Michigan. His life is totally normal, except for one thing. He is a bot engineered with human DNA to look and act like a real person.

One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared feels a strange sensation around his eyes. Everyone knows that bots can't feel emotions, but as the theater lights come on, Jared is almost certain he's crying. Confused, he decides to watch more old movies to figure out what's happening. The process leads to an emotional awakening that upends his existence. Jared, it turns out, can feel.

Overcome with a full range of emotions, and facing an imminent reset, Jared heads west, determined to forge real connections. He yearns to find his mother, the programmer who created him. He dreams of writing a screenplay that will change the world. Along the way, he might even fall in love. But a bot with feelings is a dangerous proposition, and Jared's new life could come to an end before it truly begins.

The Deadline story adds more: "The story is said to take place in an all-too human 2054 and introduces Jared, an android who undergoes an emotional awakening and embarks on a quest to convince humans that he and his kind should be permitted to feel. It's a quest, sparked in part by Jared's introduction to 80's and 90's movies, that leads to an unforgettable adventure across the West Coast of America, after he determines to write a film script that will change the world."

This actually sounds like perfect material for Wright (while also sounding a bit like the terrible Robin Williams movie Bicentennial Man). Wright's last film was 2017's Baby Driver, and up next he has Last Night in Soho, a psychological thriller currently set for a September 25, 2020 release (that could always change though, what with the way the coronavirus is delaying movie releases lately).

I'm a huge fan of Wright's work – I like all of his movies except Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and I know mine is the minority opinion on that – so I'm always excited for something new from him. Here's hoping we learn more about this project soon.