Syriana and Traffic writer Stephen Gaghan has completed a polish of M. Night Shyamalan’s One Thousand A.E.

When we heard a little over a year ago that M. Night Shyamalan was still being allowed to make movies with the impending ONE THOUSAND A.E. starring Will and son Jaden Smith, most of us understandably frowned and glowered and posted nasty things about the whole thing on the internet. The only glimmer of hope was that BOOK OF ELI writer Gary Whitta would be the one on scripting duties, marking the sci-fi project as the first of Shyamalan’s films that wouldn’t be solely written by the man.

Shyamalan did ultimately take Whitta’s screenplay and rewrite it, but in almost trolling fashion, Sony then hired Academy Award-winning scribe Stephen Gaghan (SYRIANA, TRAFFIC) to polish that rewrite in an effort to get the film into “shooting shape”. Variety is reporting today that Gaghan has finished that polish and has turned it in to Sony. It’s unknown whether or not Gaghan will further collaborate with Shyamalan on fine-tuning the script for the film’s proposed February start date, but I like to think (because it’s hilarious) that the studio is doing everything they can to keep Night from even touching the screenplay. That’s what most of us would do, no?

Here’s Variety with the first details on the film’s story:

“Will and Jaden Smith are set to star as a father and son who crash-land on Earth one thousand years after mankind has abandoned the planet. The crash leaves the elder Smith badly injured, and it’s up to the boy to find help in what is now a strange and dangerous place.”