Rumours have long been rife about a remake of John Carpenter’s tongue-in-cheek SF thriller They Live. Now Deadline are reporting a new development: Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has signed on to direct a film version of Ray Nelson’s 8 O’Clock in the Morning – the short story They Live was based on.

The tale centres on a man who realises that aliens secretly control society. Apparently though, the new movie won’t re-use Carpenter’s cool concept of the hero being able to see the aliens with the aid of special sunglasses.

Reeves told Deadline: “I saw an opportunity to do a movie that was very point-of-view driven, a psychological science fiction thriller that explores this guy’s nightmare… I am very drawn to the emotional side, the nightmare experience with the paranoia of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or a Roman Polanski-style film.”

In the meantime, you can check out the clip from They Live below.