It's based on the 1998 short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. He's often considered the best working writer of short science fiction, and I think that even before the movie that was his best loved story. For example, Locus Magazine voters picked it as the best science fiction novella of the 20th century.
http://www.locusmag.com/2012/AllCenturyPollsResults.html So Villeneuve has filmed an adaptions of popular picks for the greatest work of short science fiction, the greatest sf novel, and a sequel to the greatest sf movie without a sequel already.