Official Plot Synopsis:

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents—townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors—all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

From /Film

From New York Magazine

Olivia Wilde’s talks to join Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys and Aliens” adaptation must have gone well, because she knows an awful lot about the “Iron Man 2″ director’s intentions. Stopped on the red carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards Friday night, the “House” actress likened Favreau to a DJ and believes he’s going to be able to please everyone.

“Jon Favreau likes to describe it as a mashup — he loves mashups when it comes to music,” Wilde told MTV News. “So this is kind of a film mashup. I think that’s cool, and it hasn’t really been done that much before.”

Next time we get Jon Favreau on the line, we’ll have to ask him who he likes better — Girl Talk or Steinski — and whose work “Cowboys and Aliens” will resemble. Wilde talked up all sorts of opposing elements in the movie to back up her mix-master praise. She mentioned big special effects, but credited the producers for maintaining a story-driven focus.

“With producers like Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, these are people who really care about the story, and they care about wonderment and imagination and celebrating that,” Wilde explained. “That’s what this movie’s going to do. It’s going to have awesome effects, but Jon Favreau and everyone else are concentrating on making a great story.”

And above all, she called it “interesting.”

“I think that’s a film that’s going to be interesting for a lot of reasons,” she said. “It’s very different. Western enthusiasts will be happy. Sci-fi enthusiasts will also be happy.”

From MTV

Cowboys and Aliens is scheduled to start filming this July and it’s been written by Roberto Orci/Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Star Trek) and Damon Lindelof (Lost). The film is set in Arizona during the 1800s and follows a group of cowboys and Apache Indians as they band together to fight hostile aliens.

While it’s unclear if Favreau is going 3D with C&A, I’m going to guess he will. After all, aliens invading the planet always looks better in 3D.

Sounds really cool!

Wilde will play a character named Ella who joins up with mysterious gunslinger in an unlikely uprising against an alien invasion.

Craig is playing the gunslinger, taking over the role from Robert Downey Jr., who dropped out of the project in January.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are producing and wrote the script with “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof. Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are also producing along with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, who created the graphic novel upon which the movie is based.

Wilde appears weekly on Fox’s hit series “House.” Her next big-screen appearance will be in Disney’s “Tron Legacy,” hitting theaters in December. She also will be seen in the Lionsgate thriller “The Next Three Days.”

Article from Reuters