After spending the last five years directing a trilogy of animated films based on the Arthur et les Minimoys books and a serious political drama with The Lady, French director Luc Besson is finally returning to the genre that we’ve all been hoping for: science-fiction. Okay, so he’s not directing this one himself, but it’s still hard not to be at least a little bit excited by the prospect. The last time he worked with this kind of material himself was in 1997 with The Fifth Element, a movie that a lot of people still seem to love. This time he has co-written a screenplay about a convict who “is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president’s daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates.”

Yes, the plot synopsis sounds a little bit like John Carpenter’s long-rumoured Escape from New York sequel, Escape from Earth, although the man in the lead role is none other than Guy Pearce. It’s a bit odd seeing Pearce play a wise-cracking macho action hero in the trailer, but I think I could get used to it. Maggie Grace and Peter Stormare also co-star. The title was originally supposed to be Lock-Out, but has since been changed to MS One: Maximum Security and then again to Escape from MS One. Either way, look for it in North American theatres on April 20th, 2012; check out the trailer after the jump and see what you think.