EXCLUSIVE: TriStar has set Fede Alvarez to direct and Jay Basu to write a film that will delve into the universe Jim Henson hatched in the 1986 Jim Henson-directed cult classic Labyrinth. That duo will take on that hallowed project after Alvarez directs the script he wrote with Basu for The Girl In The Spider’s Web, the continuation of the Lisbeth Salander saga that Sony began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Alvarez, who helmed for Sony the genre blockbuster Don’t Breathe, will do Labyrinth after he and Basu complete Spider’s Web. That film is casting and will begin production this fall.

Insiders stress that what they will do with Labyrinth after The Girl in the Spider’s Web is create a new story within the universe created in the original movie and that it is not a remake; indeed it sounds more like a spinoff than a sequel. The original was the last film Muppets’ creator Jim Henson directed before he died tragically in 1990. Jennifer Connelly played a teen who wished away her baby brother. When The Goblin King Jareth (played by David Bowie) stole away the infant away and took him to his castle to be turned into a goblin, the regretful teen has to find her way through his maze-like kingdom to rescue her sibling. The movie wasn’t a box office smash, but it was considered one of the strongest screen turns for Bowie and is beloved by a lot of filmmakers. Bowie’s character will not be part of this. The film is a co-production between TriStar Pictures and The Jim Henson Co. with Alvarez and Basu writing the script. Lisa Henson will produce and Nicole Brown will oversee for TriStar. Lisa Henson of The Henson Co. will produce.

The studio confirmed and Alvarez told Deadline: “Labyrinth is one of the seminal movies from my childhood that made me fall in love with filmmaking. I couldn’t be more thrilled to expand on Jim Henson’s mesmerizing universe, and take a new generation of moviegoers back into the Labyrinth.”

Basu is the Cambridge-educated British writer who moved from London to be a part of the Universal Monster’s writer’s group, this after writing his first novel, The Stars Can Wait and landing several scripts on the Brit List. He co-wrote Vertigo Films’ sequel Monsters: Dark Continent with Tom Green, and first worked with Alvarez on an adaptation of the the EA game Dante’s Inferno for Universal. He has since done projects including U’s Talon for Chris Morgan, Metal Gear Solid for Sony and Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Red Queen for Universal and adapted the Joe Hill novel The Fireman for Fox. Alvarez, who also directed the Evil Dead remake, is repped by WME and Stuart Manashil and Basu by UTA, 42’s Josh Varney, Kaplan/Perrone and attorney Peter Nichols.

Back in 2017 it was announced that Lisa Henson of the Jim Henson Company was plotting a sequel to the 1980’s fantasy cult hit, Labyrinth, and that Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe, The Girl in the Spider’s Web) was brought on to help develop the project as an upcoming directing vehicle. We haven’t heard much about it since then – just that David Bowie’s iconic Goblin King character wouldn’t be featured, but that the film would be a sequel and not a reboot.

While Fandango was chatting with Alvarez about his work on The Girl in the Spider’s Web (in theaters November 9; tickets on sale now), we asked him for an update on that Labyrinth project, and learned that not only is there a completed script, but that he had just met with Lisa Henson hours before our conversation.

“I was actually having lunch yesterday with Lisa Henson and we reconnected with that project,” Alvarez revealed. “We're very excited about it. It is basically a direct continuation of the first movie many years later, and I can't tell you much more about it... but we have a script, and we're very excited about it so we'll see where that goes. Like always, it takes time and effort to put those movies together because they're larger than life. But that's one of the projects that I'm very excited about.”

So does he feel good about it actually happening?

“You never know, and really right now, I'm just finishing with this film so I'm not even thinking about what I'm going to do next. But all I can tell you is that I had lunch with her yesterday and it was great.”

Rejoice, Labyrinth fans! It does seem like this project is moving forward, but just how long it will take to make it to the big screen is unknown at this time. Also unknown: whether star Jennifer Connelly, who in the original played a child tasked with solving an elaborate labyrinth in order to save her brother, will return in some capacity for its sequel.