Hot off the nearly $500 million worldwide grossing prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rupert Wyatt defied all critical and box office expectation in his sophomore effort. In a perfect career place, he is lining up some top-quality projects. One of them is the spy thriller Londongrad with Michael Fassbender attached and now Variety reports on another.

They reveal that Wyatt has been tied to a science-fiction action film titled Agent 13 over at WME. While set to go up in space this June in Prometheus, Charlize Theron may be getting another chance as she is attached to the film, which has spare details as these things tend to be. Written by T.S. Nowlin, behind the script Wild Guns which features Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and is set up at WB, there is no telling if this has ties to other Agent 13s in pop culture. There’s the Marvel comics character as well as another from a series of spy fiction novels, but judging by the sci-fi aspect here I’d bet this is wholly independent.

Nearly every studio under the sun, including Sony, Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures, Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox are in the mix to negotiate a pick-up for this one. Wyatt saved would could have been quite a dry film with his snappy direction  and pacing for Apes and with an actress coming off her overlooked performance (one of last year’s best) for Young Adult, this sounds like a great match-up. I’d bet my money on Wyatt doing an Apes sequel first though, so this one should be gestating for some time.

Would you like to see Wyatt direct this before another Apes film?