Despite years spent trying to get an adaptation of Arthur C Clarke's sci-fi novel Rendezvous With Rama off the ground, it appears that David Fincher has admitted defeat.

Fincher had been developing a script for the project with Morgan Freeman producing and looking to star, but talking with First Showing, the Zodiac helmer says it looks like things have come to a halt.

"It looks like it's not going to happen," says Fincher. There's no script and as you know, Morgan Freeman's not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen."

Very Difficult Translation

A typically large-scale story, Clarke's novel follows a team of astronauts heading out to a mysterious 30-mile-ling cylindrical starship that drifts into the solar system in the 22nd century. There, they discover all sorts of wonders.

Freeman himself has admitted in the past that it's a big job: "It's a very intellectual science fiction film, a very difficult book to translate cinematically."

But let's face it, if anyone was going to pull it off, it was Fincher. We're disappointed to see that it won't happen yet, but perhaps one day Fincher - or someone like James Cameron - will have another crack at it.