Brian Kirk’s feature debut, sci-fi romance Passengers, starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel McAdams, is set to be Studio Babelsberg’s first international production for 2014.

At last year’s Cannes Marché, The Weinstein Company acquired domestic rights to the story of a man on board a colony-bound spaceship who emerges early from cryogenic sleep and awakens a second passenger for company.

Exclusive Media is handling international sales, Concorde Film Verleih will release the film in Germany.

Studio spokesman Eike Wolf confirmed that the production, which will be co-produced by Studio Babelsberg, will begin principal photography this spring.

This week saw Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg allocate €1m production funding to the project.

The studio between Berlin and Potsdam has one of its co-productions from last year, Brian Percival’s The Book Thief, opening in Germany on March 13, while another three - Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, and Christophe Gans’ Beauty and The Beast - are screening in the Berlinale’s Competition section.

Studio Babelsberg also played host last year to the shooting of such films as Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices; The Business Trip, starring Vince Vaughn and Sienna Miller; and Baran bo Odar’s WhoAmI.

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