Hugh Laurie reportedly in talks to join George Clooney and Brad Bird’s ‘Tomorrowland’

House star Hugh Laurie is reportedly in talks with Disney to join Tomorrowland, the secret project that will star George Clooney and will be directed by Brad Bird.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported the news, noting that Laurie is being considered for the villain role. The plot of the film is still mostly unknown, although THR says that it will be similar in theme to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with a man looking for extra-terrestrials already on earth.

The project was known as 1952 until a couple of weeks ago, when Disney revealed to Entertainment Weekly that it will be named after one of the lands in Disneyland and Disney World.

Bird also tweeted an image of possible influences on the project, including Buck Rodgers stills.

The film will be written by Prometheus’ Damon Lindelof with Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen. Lindelof did tweet that it’s not supposed to be about aliens, though.

Bird and Lindelof haven’t tweeted anything about Laurie joining the project. Bird did recently tweet that Clooney will be making Monuments Men first, then he’ll work on Tomorrowland. He also tweeted to one follower:

“@mattrecballz: Don't get the whole "let's not tell what it's about!" thing with Tomorrowland.”Twitter limits what I can say, but it's abo

— Brad Bird (@BradBirdA113) February 11, 2013

Tomorrowland is scheduled for a Dec. 19, 2014 release.