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Star Wars sequel trilogy star Daisy Ridley is swapping a lightsaber for an axe for her first foray into the horror genre.

Ahead of its world premiere at Australia's Adelaide Film Festival this November, Variety has shared the first official stills from new zombie survival thriller We Bury The Dead.

Written and directed by Zak Hilditch, the movie stars Ridley as a woman named Ava who is searching for her husband in the aftermath of a catastrophic military experiment that has decimated the population of Tasmania.

Ava joins a “body retrieval unit” in a desperate attempt to find out what happened to her husband, and ends up being tasked with burying the corpses. However, she soon comes to realize that some of the bodies aren't quite as dead as they should be.

Seemingly unfazed by the emerging supernatural threat, Ava takes up an axe and begins to dispose of the...

Daisy Ridley, star of the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, is a different kind of vigilante in Zak Hilditch’s upcoming horror-survival-thriller “We Bury the Dead.”

The film, which will have its world premiere shortly and hold a special preview event at Australia’s Adelaide Film Festival in November, unveiled a first look at Ridley in the role of a desperate woman who joins a body retrieval unit, hoping to find her husband alive after a disastrous military experiment destroys the population of Tasmania. As she sifts through the corpses, she discovers that many are not quite dead.

Ridley’s character looks haggard as she journeys to the south of Tasmania and is forced to make peace with her own unfinished business in the face of futility.

Daisy Ridley in ‘We Bury the Dead’

Production took place across Albany and the Great Southern region in Western Australia earlier this year. The...

There have been plenty of superhits in the vast expanse of Hollywood that went through comprehensive confusion when it came to casting. That was also true with respect to David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which underwent a humungous search for an actress who could do justice to Lisbeth Salander.

Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. | Sony

While the role eventually went to Rooney Mara who did nothing but an expert job, there were several Hollywood bigwigs who were also in the reckoning. That popularly includes Scarlett Johansson, who did not get the role for the simple error of being ‘too sexy.’

However, at the same time, Succession star Sarah Snook was also close to landing the role, as revealed by noted casting director Francine Maisler, in a recent interview.

Sarah Snook was one of the high-profile actresses who came close to landing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

It never gets easier to look up the horrors of what real life humans are willing to perpetrate but some of them are harder than others. Looking into the purported Scottish myth that inspired The Hills Have Eyes for example is a whole heck of a lot easier to do than find out the absolutely abysmal crimes that were committed against a young girl in The Girl Next Door. Sadly, today’s movie The Snowtown Murders, a.k.a. Snowtown (watch it Here), is a lot closer to the sickening facts that happened to The Girl Next Door. While Australia already got our notorious spotlight shined on the fictional Mick Taylor who was a composite of two backpack killers, today we will look at the man who is known as the country’s worst serial killer and unpack what he did and who with. The movie is hard to watch...

The episode of Wtf Really Happened to This Horror Movie covering Wolf Creek was Written and Narrated by Andrew Hatfield, Edited by Mike Conway, Produced by Lance Vlcek and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

One of the biggest and some would say overused tropes in horror movies is the killer stalking people in an outdoor setting. The main series for this is, of course, the Friday the 13th series but we have nearly countless other examples to pull from. Sometimes, like today’s entry, or The Burning, these stories and movies can be based on true events and make it even more frightening. Unlike The Burning, which is based on an urban legend with the true story being far from fact, Wolf Creek (watch it Here) had an original script that was tweaked to be based on the real life killers Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch...

Exclusive: Angourie Rice will star opposite Jennifer Garner in Apple’s The Last Thing He Told Me, based on Laura Dave’s best-selling novel of the same name.

Rice portrays Bailey, the stepdaughter of Garner’s character Hannah.

Created and adapted by Dave alongside series co-creator and Academy Award-winner Josh Singer (Spotlight), The Last Thing He Told Me follows Hannah (Garner), a woman who forms an unexpected relationship with her sixteen-year-old stepdaughter while searching for the truth about why her husband has mysteriously disappeared.

The series marks the second collaboration between the married Dave and Singer.

The Last Thing He Told Me is produced for Apple by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, who optioned the book from Dave, and 20th Television. It will be executive produced by Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter for Hello Sunshine, as well as Dave and Singer.

The new project marks the latest...

Nominees for the 53rd NAACP Image Awards are officially in, with Netflix taking the lead with 52 noms overall for titles across film and TV including The Harder They Fall, Passing, Bruised, The Upshaws and Maid.

The Harder They Fall’s nominations include for Outstanding Motion Picture, where it joins fellow nominees Judas and the Black Messiah and King Richard from Warner Bros, MGM/Uar’s Respect and Hulu’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday.

The show announcing marquee winners is set to place February 26 at 8 p.m. Et/Pt live on BET. The NAACP will recognize winners in non-televised categories February 21-25, with those ceremonies to stream on NAACPImageAwards.net.

The Image Awards celebrates the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color across more than 80 competitive categories spanning film, television, streaming, music, literature and podcasts. That category count is up from the 70-plus categories recognized earlier this year.

Eman Varoqua has been promoted to executive producer of Nightline at ABC News.

Varoqua, who most recently has been senior broadcast producer, succeeds Steve Baker, who departed earlier this year, having been in the role since 2017.

Varoqua joined ABC News in 2018 as senior producer, and has led team coverage of topics like the U.S. border and the Uighurs. She also was executive producer of a breaking news special on the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. She was senior producer on the Nightline documentary short Asylum. She also was among those who spearheaded the Hulu productions Final Hours, America’s Longest War and The Housewife and the Hustler.

ABC News President Kim Godwin wrote in a memo to employees that Varoqua was “a proven leader with a track record full of success. She has already helped the Nightline team win multiple awards, including Murrow, Gracie, Deadline and GLAAD awards.”

She previously worked...

Actress Isla Fisher, director Zak Hilditch, producer Judi Levine, and producer Julia Redwood will make up the jury for next week’s CinefestOZ Film Festival.

They are set to join jury chair Nadia Tass to decide which of the four in-competition films will take home the $100,000 Film Prize at the Closing Gala Night August 28 at Orana Cinemas Busselton.

This year’s finalists include Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, Justin Kurzel’s Nitram, anthology feature drama Here Out West, and Jennifer Peedom’s River.

Fisher has more than 35 years of film and TV experience, having begun appearing in commercials from the age of nine before playing Shannon Reed in Home & Away. She has since gone on to appear in a raft of international productions, including The Wedding Crashers, Rango, The Great Gatsby, Nocturnal Animals, Definitely, Maybe, Now You See Me, Hot Rod, The Brothers Grimsby,...

While Aacta’s Byron Kennedy Award is typically given to an individual or organisation who demonstrates “outstanding creative enterprise”, this year the award will go to a film.

The nominees for the honour, which celebrates the legacy of Dr George Miller’s original producing partner and Mad Max co-creator Byron Kennedy, are a short-list of the last decade’s best indie genre features.

The films are diverse, spanning comedies, Westerns, thrillers, horrors and sci-fis, but Aacta has determined each are in line with Kennedy’s “ethos of excellence”, resourcefulness and “the can-do spirit of independent, low-budget local filmmaking.”

They include: The Babadook, Beast, Cargo, Girl Asleep, I Am Mother, The Infinite Man, Mad Bastards, Mystery Road, Red Hill, That’s Not Me, These Final Hours and Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.

‘Girl Asleep’.

Many nominated are debut features, such as Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Zak Hilditch’s These Final Hours,...

Sarah Snook, the Emmy-nominated actress from HBO’s hit drama “Succession,” has signed on to star in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel, “Persuasion.”

The movie, from Searchlight Pictures, will be directed by Mahalia Belo. Published in 1817 after Austen’s death, “Persuasion” centers on Anne Elliot, a 27-year-old whose family moves to lower their expenses. In the meantime, they rent their home to an Admiral and his wife. The wife’s brother, a Navy captain, had been engaged to Anne Elliot (who will be portrayed by Snook), but they have had no contact in more than seven years when they meet again.

Jessica Swale, whose credits include “Summerland,” will pen the screenplay.

Alison Own and Debra Hayward are producing the film through their Monumental Pictures banner. BBC Films is co-financing the drama. Katie Goodson-Thomas is overseeing the project for the studio, as well ass Pete Spencer and manager Apolline Berty.

Zak Hilditch.

After trying to find ways to reconfigure Airborne, a thriller set during a mid-flight pandemic, Zak Hilditch has given up, conceding Covid-19 is far more lethal and scarier than the scenario he envisaged.

The filmmaker had been developing the project formerly known as Celestial Blue since 2017, initally with his These Final Hours producer Liz Kearney, later joined by US producer Ross Dinerstein.

Backed by XYZ Films, he planned to shoot in Bulgaria. At an Australians in Film webinar with Ben Young and Natalie Erika James in May, he said: “I’ve had to rewrite the entire film because the fantastical virus that happens on that flight is nothing compared to what has actually happened.”

Today, however, at a Director’s Spotlight session at CinefestOZ in Busselton, he said: “It’s too much of a minefield. The time is not right and I’m not interested in it any more.

Jessica de Gouw in ‘Operation Buffalo.’

After starring in Network 10’s The Secrets She Keeps and the ABC’s Operation Buffalo, Jessica de Gouw’s career continues to flourish while many in her profession are idle due to the pandemic.

The London-based actress heads to Austria next month to start filming the second season of Vienna Blood, the British/Austrian murder mystery which screened on BBC2, PBS in the US, Germany’s Zdf and Austria’s Orf.

Adapted from Frank Tallis’ novels and set in 1900s Vienna, the series starred Matthew Beard as Max Liebermann, a doctor and protégé of Sigmund Freud. When Liebermann comes into contact with Oskar Rheinhardt (Juergen Maurer), a detective struggling with a baffling murder case, he agrees to help solve the investigation.

In the show produced by Red Arrow Studios’ Endor Productions and Austria’s Mr Film, de Gouw she played Amelia Lydgate, a...

Natalie Erika James, Ben Young and Zak Hilditch.

Australian directors working on productions in the Us get far more time, money and resources than they were accustomed to at home.

But there’s a downside: Loss of creative freedom.

“I liken working in the American studio system to working on a two-hour television commercial where you have a lot of different voices telling you that you are not allowed to do things the way you want to,” says Ben Young, who directed Extinction for Netflix and was co-directing Clickbait for the streamer when production was shut down.

“In making an American film you have way less freedom but way more support. The level of support and resources you get in the Us is amazing but I miss the control I had in Australia.

“What I’m desperately searching for is that middle ground where I can have the toys and...

Rachel Griffiths, Liz Doran and Que Minh Luu.

Screen Australia has announced the 18 members of the new iteration of the Gender Matters Taskforce, which provides independent advice to the agency, and works beyond Screen Australia’s direct sphere of influence to deliver outcomes for female creatives and assist in broader industry efforts to achieve gender parity.

Formed in 2016 and updated in 2018, the Gender Matters Taskforce is a volunteer-based advisory body made up of women working across the Australian screen sector. Returning members include taskforce chair Joanna Werner; deputy chair Deanne Weir and Lisa French.

Werner said: “These 18 brilliant women represent a cross section of the screen sector and come from varying backgrounds with a range of expertise locally and internationally. This taskforce will be integral in helping to shape Screen Australia’s next steps as well as promoting the broader industry systemic change that is needed.”

“Whilst Screen Australia’s...

Exclusive: Xyz Films has taken on international rights to Zak Hilditch’s thriller Airborne, which will star Alexandra Daddario (Baywatch) as a flight attendant who faces a mid-flight pandemic.

When the deadly disease spreads throughout the plane, she must contain the infected passengers and against unlikely odds land the aircraft safely.

Ross Dinerstein of Campfire will produce with Liz Kearney. The project will be taking off at Afm for Xyz, with Endeavor Content looking to land the domestic sale.

Director Hilditch credits include These Final Hours, which played at Cannes in 2014, and two Netflix movies: an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1922, which debuted on the platform in 2017, and mystery horror Rattlesnake, which was released online last month.

Airborne was previously set up at Covert Media under the title Celestial Blue.

Xyz’s Afm slate also features Tiff premieres Synchronic and Color Out of Space, as well as Gilded Rage with Christoph Waltz,...

Tagline: "Time Waits for No One." Rattlesnake is an upcoming thriller from production company Campfire. Moving to Netflix's streaming service in late October, the film offers Katrina (Carmen Ejogo) a difficult choice - after her daughter is bitten by a rattler. In order to save her daughter's life, she must sacrifice another. Rattlesnake is one part thriller and one part horror, with Zak Hilditch (These Final Hours) directing. Hilditch also brought 1922 to this same streaming service in 2017. As well, Rattlesnake also stars: Emma Greenwell (Holy Ghost People), Apollonia Pratt and Theo Rossie. The film's first trailer and movie poster are here. The trailer shows Katrina in a number of challenging situations. On the hunt for an easy victim, Katrina is reminded of how her time is running out. One mysterious characters states "now you owe a life in return" and "you only have until sunset." This is not a...

Tania Chambers and Renée Webster.

Writer/director Renée Webster and producers Tania Chambers of Feisty Dame Productions and Judi Levine of Such Much Films are the recipients of Screenwest’s 2019 West Coast Visions initiative.

They will receive $750,000 towards the feature film How To Please A Woman, a heartfelt comedy drama about Gina, an admin worker who starts a company providing women with quality sexual experiences packaged with a houseclean. She soon discovers the boundless nature of not only their desires but also her own.

The project has received development funding from Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Brilliant Stories initiative and Screenwest’s feature development program.

Screenwest head of production and development Matt Horrocks said the film’s DNA was strong and its underlying themes were universal, observing: “The ideas explored in the film will touch audiences worldwide and I’m very excited to see another Western Australian feature film creating...

Spider-Man: Far From Home shows us Peter Parker and his pals reeling from the shattering aftermath of Avengers: Endgame. Besides Mj and Peter's budding romance, there's another couple swinging into action: Ned and Betty. If your spidey senses are tingling about Ned's love interest, you've likely seen her around before. Betty's played by 18-year-old Australian actress Angourie Rice, who has appeared in a number of pop culture hits over the years.

Chances are that you've seen Spider-Man: Homecoming if you're tuning into the sequel. Rice also plays Betty in the first film, although her character is less fleshed out in the first Spider-Man movie. In the McU, Betty resembles the character Gwen Stacy, sporting a black headband. In the original Spider-Man film with Tobey Maguire, Betty was a newspaper secretary at The Daily Bugle played by Elizabeth Banks. Her character in the newer films is, obviously, a teenager, who reports...

Zak Hilditch and Justin Monjo project “The Haunting of Mary Todd” is among four genre film efforts to be set up at Truant Pictures. Truant is the new genre-specialist production arm of Animal Logic, the Australian digital effects firm.

Truant will “primarily develop and produce the films in collaboration with emerging and established Australian talent. Wherever possible the films will be produced in Australia for a worldwide market,” Animal Logic announced on Tuesday.

Truant Pictures will be headquartered at Animal Logic’s Sydney-based studios and will also operate out of its Los Angeles offices alongside sister company Animal Logic Entertainment, producer of Sony’s recent “Peter Rabbit.” Animal Logic CEO Zareh Nalbandian will produce. Toby Nalbandian and Greg Schmidt will serve as VPs of development and production.

Other projects on Truant’s debut slate include: “Biohackers,” with Stephen McCallum and Michael Kratochvil; “The Galvanist,” with Shayne Armstrong and S.P. Krause; and “The Gooynboon,...

The last 10 years or so has seen a huge influx in post-apocalyptic movies. After an initial glut in the 1980s (thanks to the Mad Max series and its countless cheap knock-offs), the genre faded back for a number of years, but has come back with a vengeance in the 2000s and beyond, maybe because it’s an easier way to shoot a movie on a low budget, maybe because of the popularity of The Walking Dead, or maybe because the political climate has grown more tumultuous and divisive over the last decade, making many of us wonder how we’re going to continue living together as a society. Apocalyptic movies play directly into those fears.

What Still Remains, the first feature film from writer/director Josh Mendoza, is interested in exactly these kinds of questions. It’s a relatively intimate apocalyptic movie set years after things have fallen apart and...

Miranda Nation takes a bold approach to pregnancy and abortion in her Geelong-shot film that evokes the work of Jane Campion

Film is an intensely collaborative art form, which is one of the reasons the auteur theory was established: to help navigate a sea of creative people dabbing away at their corner of the canvas. It is an effective way to define authorship and contextualise film history, though sometimes an artist comes along whose work is so strong in a non-directing role they seem to call into question auteurism’s very validity.

The Australian cinematographer Bonnie Elliott is one of them. Her compositions have a striking tendency to explore relationships between people and places. They have profoundly enhanced productions including Spear, Teenage Kicks, These Final Hours, TV’s Seven Types of Ambiguity and now Undertow – a Geelong-shot psychological drama premiering this week at the Melbourne international film festival.

Continue reading.

Halloween always provides a good excuse to celebrate scary movies, but as anyone keen on the genre knows, it’s never really a bad time to do that. That’s especially been true this year, long before “It” broke box office records. Just a few months into 2017 and it was already a banner year for genre films, with “Get Out” becoming a cultural phenomenon, new horror festivals generating headlines, and other promising developments that send a positive message to genre fans. While the industry worries about the future of moviegoing and the quality of the art form in a blockbuster-dominated era, horror fans have nothing to worry about — the genre is secure, but only if you know where to look.

Keeping up our annual tradition, here’s an overview of 13 of the very best horror indies produced over the last 12 months, all of which are available to rent, on streaming platforms or in theaters.

The Netflix-produced “1922” has jolts of violence and sweeping period details, but in a year overrun with Stephen King adaptations, it’s also the simplest of them: “It” features a ludicrous shapeshifting clown, “The Dark Tower” is an inter-dimensional sci-fi western fantasy, and “Gerald’s Game” has kinky sex gone wrong and a giant goal. In “1922,” a guy kills his wife and feels guilty about it. That’s the gist of its premise, and while nothing groundbreaking, the story mines a degree of profundity out of the traditional supernatural thriller tropes at its core.

Read More:‘Twin Peaks’: Kyle MacLachlan Takes James Corden Inside the Red Room on ‘The Late Late Show’ — Watch

As directed by Zak Hilditch (whose 2013 debut “These Final Hours” was an expressionistic apocalyptic tale), “1922” (originally a King short story) has the merits of a solid “Tales From the Crypt” or “Masters of Horror” episode, with a...

In the aftermath of a brutal war between the living dead and the strictly living, a zombie safari offers a unique type of therapy and closure for traumatized survivors, but as our exclusive clip from the new horror film The ReZort shows, a new battle may just be beginning within the shores of the eerie island attraction.

Today, Content Media released The ReZort on digital platforms in the Us, and as a special treat for Daily Dead readers, they provided us with the exclusive clip below. (Fear The Walking Dead fans will especially want to keep an eye out for Dougray Scott as Archer.)

We also have the official press release with full details, and in case you missed it, check out this image gallery from The ReZort.

Press Release: Jurassic World” meets “The Walking Dead” in The Rezort, releasing on all major digital platforms in North America on January 17th 2017, courtesy of Content Media.

The theatrical and VOD / Digital HD release of Dagen Merrill's Atomica from Syfy Films is slated for mid-March, and casting as well as a synopsis for the film kicks off today's Horror Highlights. Also: info on The Bye Bye Man soundtrack from the Newton Brothers, images and release details for the zombie film The ReZort, and a trailer for Hostage to the Devil.

Atomica Release Details & Still: Press Release: "New York, NY -- January 11, 2017 -- Syfy Films is pleased to announce the release of the anticipated sci-fi thriller Atomica, in theaters on March 17, 2017, and on VOD and Digital HD on March 21, 2017. The film is directed by Dagen Merrill (“Beneath,” “Broken Hill,” “Murder in the Dark”) and written by Kevin Burke (“Ultimate Spider-Man,” Marvel’s “Avengers Assemble,” “Beneath”), Fred Fernandez-Armesto and Adam Gyngell. The cast includes Dominic Monaghan (the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “Pet”), Tom Sizemore (“Saving Private Ryan,...

Red deserts, sweaty brows, scalding sand and swimsuits. Nowhere does summer quite like Australia – and nowhere is it captured better than on film. But how well do you know your classics?

They’re A Weird Mob

Puberty Blues

Age of Consent

The Daughter

These Final Hours

On the Beach

Blackrock

All Men Are Liars

The Overlanders

The Sundowners

The Back of Beyond

Mutiny on the Bounty

Welcome to Woop Woop

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert

Muriel’s Wedding

Red Dog

Road Games

Fair Game

Long Weekend

Dead Calm

The Killing of Angel Street

Newsfront

Heatwave

The Year of Living Dangerously

Wake in Fright

Sunday Too Far Away

The Water Diviner

The Man From Snowy River

The Man From Snowy River

The Water Diviner

Australia

The Silver Brumby

Goldstone

Dead Heart

Babe: Pig in the City

Mystery Road

Bungala Boys

Bra Boys

The Coolangatta Gold

The Four Minute Mile

Crocodile Dundee...

Thomas Jane is no stranger to bringing Stephen King's written works to life onscreen. Having already appeared as David Drayton in The Mist and Henry in Dreamcatcher, Jane will next play Wilfred James, a husband with a dark secret in Netflix's movie adaptation of King's novella 1922.

According to THR, Jane will be joined by Molly Parker as Wilfred's wife, Arlette, in 1922, which is filming in Vancouver with Zak Hilditch (These Final Hours) behind the camera, directing from a script he wrote based on King's haunting tale of family murder and vengeance from beyond the grave. 1922 was published as one of four novellas in King's 2010 story collection, Full Dark, No Stars.

THR reveals that the cast also includes Dylan Schmid, Kaitlyn Bernard, Brian D’Arcy James, and Neal McDonough, with Ross M. Dinerstein on board as a producer.

Packed with rats, guilt, and a creeping sense of unshakable dread,...

Vr project Buried.

Screen Australia has announced its latest funding round, with $3 million in production and development funding split between two Indigenous TV projects, eight multiplatform projects, eight feature films, and two individuals and two companies.

The two Indigenous television projects to have received production investment are:

–... ABC TV.s previously announced Indigenous comedy drama series The Warriors. From Robert Connolly's Arenamedia, the show is set in the competitive world of Australian Rules Football, and has major production investment from Screen Australia and funding support from Film Victoria;

–... Nitv documentary Carry The Flag,.which delves into the story behind the Torres Strait Island flag designed by Bernard Namok, from Tamarind Tree Pictures with Screen Queensland and Screen Territory support.

The eight multiplatform projects to have received production investment are:

–... Vr project The Buried, a 3D experience that plunges the viewer into a magical Dreamtime world, from Indigenous writer/director Tyson Mowarin,...

Following the film co-financing event Miff 37ºSouth Market, three local producers have been awarded places at the Production Finance Market (Pfm), held in London in October.

Miff 37ºSouth Market is the exclusive Australia/Nz partner of the Pfm, and the only three guaranteed local places are reserved for attending producers. The Pfm runs in association with the BFI London Film Festival.

New Zealand producer Tom Hern won one of the coveted places, as well as a $2000 flight voucher towards his trip. Victorians Pip Campey and Jamie Houge also received places.

Selection was guided by the votes the international financiers and buyers at Miff 37ºSouth Market.

The event, now its 10 year and the only Australian market of its kind held at a film festival, hosted 50 film financiers and buyers including film financiers/buyers including Amazon, Bankside, Catalyst, Double Dutch, eOne Australia, Embankment, Film Mode, Fulcrum, Im Global, Indie, Kaleidoscope, Lotus, Madman,...

Stephen McCallum.

Screenwest has announced that 1%, debut feature of director Stephen McCallum, is the recipient of this year.s $750,000 West Coast Visions funding.

West Coast Visions is one of Screenwest.s largest funds, aimed to .uncover, inspire and develop. local talent and skills.

1%, written by actor Matt Nable (Hacksaw Ridge, Arrow, Barracuda), is a set within the primal underworld of outlaw motorcycle club gangs. It follows the heir to the throne of a motorcycle club who has to betray his president to save his brother.s life.

McCallum, who has previously directed a variety of shorts, music videos and commercials, says he was attracted to the Shakespearean undertones of the story. He calls it one of .father versus son, tradition versus ambition, and brotherhood..

.The main question that draws me to the script that Matt wrote is: what.s the cost of loyalty when it makes you turn against your own blood?...

Angourie Rice in Cannes.

Australian actress Angourie Rice has been cast in the next Spiderman film, currently shooting in Atlanta, Georgia.

Rice was singled out by critics for her performance in Shane Black's The Nice Guys, in which she starred alongside Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.

The Melbourne native has previously appeared in Walking with Dinosaurs 3D and These Final Hours in 2013, The Doctor Blake Mysteries in 2014 and Nowhere Boys: Book of Shadows.earlier this year.

As first reported by THR, Rice's role in Spider-Man: Homecoming is being kept under wraps.

The film is the first Spiderman film made under the aegis of Marvel, and stars In the Heart of the Sea's Tom Holland as Peter Parker.

The Jon Watts-directed blockbuster is slated to hit cinemas July 7 next year.

Starring alongside Rice and Holland are Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr., Community's Donald Glover and Prometheus star Logan Marshall-Green.

The Rezort is a blend of Jurassic World (2015) with zombie films. A remote park allows zombie safaris, until something goes wrong. The Rezort is slated to show in Edinburgh, Scotland - today. The film will have several showings, this week. And, the film stars: Dougray Scott (Enigma), Jessica De Gouw (These Final Hours), Martin McCann, Elen Rhys, Claire Goose and Jassa Ahluwalia. Several stills, from the film, are available here, along with the official trailer and an effects reel. The story, from writer Paul Gerstenberger, talks of a "controlled zombie safari retreat." After a plague has decimated the world, survivors can pay for the right to hunt the undead. But, these zombies still have a bit of bite. When the security measures go down, these zombie tourists are put on the run, again. A number of stills have been released for the film, recently. They show the island, on which the tourists hunt the undead. Events take a turn for the worse in a control room. Three of the stills are...

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Two fun characters played by two great actors with fantastic chemistry together go in search of a movie, and — spoiler! — never quite find it. I’m “biast” (pro): love Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling; like Shane Black

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Holland March (Ryan Gosling: The Big Short, Gangster Squad) is a private eye in 1977 Los Angeles; he’s not very bright yet somehow has an apparently thriving business, perhaps because he’s stupidly charming. World-weary Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe: Fathers & Daughters, The Water Diviner) beats people up for money, including, sometimes, private eyes, if the pay is good enough. That’s how these two meet, and end up, for convoluted and not very convincing reasons, working together on a case that isn’t what the script thinks it is. No, what happens in The Nice Guys...

The Legend of Gavin Tanner.

We Were Here and Flushed have scooped the nominations for the West Australian Screen Awards.

The West Australian Screen Awards celebraes excellence and achievements in feature film, short film, web series, music videos, television production, documentary, games and interactive productions.

Short drama We Were Here, directed by David Vincent Smith and produced by Joshua Gilbert and Simon Camp, earned six nominations, the most for the awards.

Short comedy Flushed, directed and produced by Richard Eames, also received six nominations.

ABC comedy TV series The Legend of Gavin Tanner, written and directed by Matt Lovkis and Henry Inglis and produced by Lauren Elliott received five nominations, as did short drama Sol Bunker, produced by Glen Stasiuk and directed by Nathan Mewett.

Film and Television Institute Wa (Fti) chief executive, Paul Bodlovich, said the WASAs were one of the most important events on the cultural calendar in Western Australia.

The “end of the world” sub-genre is filled with all kinds of variations from thrillers to horror to comedy, but some of the best (and least seen) are the ones that use mankind’s annihilation as the backdrop for romance. Two relatively recent films — Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and These Final Hours — touch on it well and are great movies too, but neither match the romantic drive at the heart of 1988’s Miracle Mile. Writer/director Steve De Jarnatt‘s film — his second and, inexplicably, last feature — is a terrific little genre-bender that eases viewers into the first hours of a new relationship only to shift gears, both tonally and speed-wise, as the clock starts ticking towards an unknown possibility. It’s a great entry in the category of films taking place over one night, offers action beats, comedy, and a fun variety of interesting side characters, and...

Well here it is, my Top 15 films of 2015. If you’ve ever read one of my end of year lists, you’ll know that my choices tend to be a million miles away from the mainstream; and this year is no different! This year has been Amazing for films, I could easily had penned a list of 52 films – one for each week of the year – but instead I managed to narrow down the choices to 28 films quite swiftly. However, to hit this years target of a Top 15 (for 2015 geddit?) it took a hell of a lot of work. I think this list even surprises me – there’s a number of films that going back over the 508[!] films we’ve reviewed here on Nerdly in 2015, at the time I reviewed them, I didn’t expect would stay with me till the end of the very end of the year. Oh, and...

In our ongoing recap of last week's Ultimate Horror Poll -- in which over 100 genre experts helped determine the 100 greatest horror movies of all time by voting for their personal "ten best" -- the time has come to take stock of every honorable mention and clarification given by the survey's participants that weren't included in the original piece. To be clear, voters weren't asked for honorable mentions specifically; but a handful felt strongly enough about their "bubbling under" choices to list them anyway (which proved extraordinarily useful in helping break ties on the Top 100). See below for a full listing, as well as explanations from Bloody-Disgusting founder/editor-in-chief Brad Miska and director Corin Hardy ("The Hallow") on why they voted the way they did. Honorable Mentions: Barbara Crampton (Actor, "Re-Animator") Dracula (1931) Jaws (1975) Nosferatu (1922) Poltergeist (1982) Vampyr (1932) Brad Miska (Founder/Editor-in-Chief, Bloody-Disgusting.com; Producer) -- See Full Explanations Below Beetlejuice (1988) Bill & Ted's...

TV pundits who were quick to categorize the overnight ratings for the premiere of Essential Media and Entertainment.s 4-part drama The Principal on Sbs as disappointing were too hasty - and misleading.

The broadcaster and producers were more than happy with the combined nationwide figures for the first screening and the repeat the same night.

The first episode last Wednesday drew 361,100 viewers in the five metro cities and a further 115,100 in the regions, for a total of 476,200.

The encore screening on the same night was watched by 98,900 in the metros and 37,800 in the regions for 136,700 combined, so the total was 612,900, with the time-shifting/consolidated figures to come.

.The program has received rave reviews, a lot of commentary on social media and Sbs is very happy with the ratings,. producer Ian Collie tells If. .It.s a great boost to Sbs drama's credentials with its appetite for edgier and compelling stories about our diverse,...

Nowhere Boys: Book of Shadows is set to hit Australian cinemas on January 1.

After two seasons on ABC television, the 82-minute family film will bring together Felix (Dougie Baldwin, Andy (Joel Lok), Sam (Rahard Adams) and Jake (Matt Testro) for one final spell when Felix discovers a sealed Book of Shadows.

The ABC3 series, aimed at the 8-14-year-old market, began when the four teens got lost during a school excursion and found themselves in a parallell world.

The feature film will add rising star Angourie Rice to the cast. Rice first came to the screen in These Final Hours and will soon be seen in Us feature The Nice Guys with Ryan Gosling.

Series regulars Darci McDonald (Ellen), Sean Ree-Wemyss (Oscar), Michala Banas (Phoebe), Victoria Thaine (Alice), Ben Keller (Bear), Tamala Shelton (Mia) and Michelle Gerster (Viv) willl also return for the film..

The film was produced by Beth Frey for Matchbox Pictures.

Each October, the industry’s major players converge at Mipcom in Cannes; and thanks to Variety, today we have an early announcement from the event relating to L.A.-based EuropaCorp Television Studios USA’s plans for a couple of new TV series that… Continue Reading →

The post Mipcom 2015: New Series Janus and These Final Hours on the Way from EuropaCorp appeared first on Dread Central.

The Fox network has given a script commitment for "These Final Hours," a U.S. cable television series adaptation of 2013's Australian apocalyptic drama feature of the same name.

Nathan Phillips, Angourie Rice, Jessica De Gouw and Daniel Henshall starred in the original film which is set in Perth, Australia and starts ten minutes after a meteor hits the North Atlantic. With just twelve hours left until the subsequent global firestorm reaches, the story follows a group of twenty-somethings as they celebrate the last hours of their lives.

EuropaCorp TV Studios USA is producing the small screen version with original film writer/director Zak Hildizactch on board to serve in the same capacities. The new take shifts the action to the San Francisco Bay Area and follows three siblings who srace to get to their estranged father's bomb shelter that can withstand the end of days.

Matthew Gross, Edouard de Vesinne...

On the heels of deals for These Final Hours (Fox) and Taken (NBC), EuropaCorp Television Studios USA has set a third project at a U.S. network. Janus, an adaptation of the Austrian drama, has been put into development at ABC. The pilot is being written by Kevin O'Hare. Thor Freudenthal (Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters, Arrow) is attached to direct and co-exec produce. Janus is a large pharmaceutical corporation that will stop at nothing to protect its image and maximize…...

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to These Final Hours, an apocalyptic drama project from EuropaCorp TV Studios USA. The series is inspired by the Australian feature that premiered at the Cannes Director Fortnight last year. These Final Hours was one of the first projects put in development at EuropaCorp TV Studios USA, the U.S. outpost of French studio EuropaCorp (Taxi Brooklyn) launched last year with Matthew Gross as President. The film's writer/director…...

Rob Paris’ La-based Paris Film, Robert Menzies’ Ottawa-based Zed Filmworks and Canadian real estate developer Alphonse Ghossein’s Go Insane Films will co-finance and produce the drama.

The UK’s Altitude Film Sales is in talks with international buyers in Toronto on Numbskull and Paradigm handles North American rights.

Zak Hilditch will direct from his screenplay about a former wild man who goes in search of his missing estranged daughter. Hilditch’s These Final Hours debuted in Cannes Directors’ fortnight in 2014.

William Horberg brought Numbskull to the group and is producing. Ghossein will serve as executive producer.

The project is the second to emerge from the financing and production partnership between the three companies after Trinity. Production will be based in Ottowa.

Paris (pictured) and Menzies collaborated on Toronto selection February, which screens again in Toronto on Monday and on Tuesday.

Zak Hilditch ("These Final Hours") is set to direct "Numbskull" for Paris Film, Zed Filmworks and Go Insane Films.

The story centers on Billy 'The Kid' O'Connor who does extreme stunts, which lead to online fame, while breaking every bone in his body in the process.

His marriage and family life are also destroyed, however he has a chance for redemption after his daughter disappears and he goes in search of her.

William Horberg will produce the film which will shoot in Ottawa.

Source: Variety...

Kelli Cross has been named director's attachment on Rachel Perkins' Jasper Jones.

The Australian Directors Guild and Screen Australia announced Cross as an indigenous feature film attachment for 2015.

The attachment is part of the Director.s Attachment Scheme, an industry incentive program funded by Screen Australia and managed by the Adg for emerging feature film directors.

The film is an adaption of the award winning coming of age mystery novel by Craig Silvey..

Principal photography is set to commence in October in the south west of Western Australia..

The cast will include Levi Miller (Terra Nova, upcoming Pan, Blue Dog), Angourie Rice (These Final Hours, upcoming The Nice Guys) and Aaron McGrath (Glitch)..

Cross said she was absolutely thrilled and honoured to be attached to Perkins..

"This is a fantastic opportunity with an experienced director of great sensibility and attention to detail to absorb and learn from," she said.

The August bank holiday weekend in London is always cause for celebration for horror fans as the FrightFest horror and genre film festival rolls into the city’s Leicester Square for four days of blood-spattered cinematic mayhem. This year saw the arrival of horror icon and star of Re-Animator and You’re Next, Barbara Crampton, as the Guest of Honour who starred in no less than five of the entries this year including festival favourite We Are Still Here. As always with film festivals it was a real mixed bag, with very few scares but a lot of laughs (some intentional, other not so much) as the filmmakers, many of them horror fans themselves, had a lot of fun playing with the tropes and clichés of the genre while others tried to put fresh new spins on some well-worn material. Here are a few of the highlights:

We Are Still Here...

Porchlight Films and Bunya Productions have revealed the cast for feature film Jasper Jones, which is set to start filming in Western Australia on October 26.

The cast will include Levi Miller (Terra Nova, upcoming Pan, Blue Dog), Angourie Rice (These Final Hours, upcoming The Nice Guys) and Aaron McGrath (Glitch)..

The film is an adaption of the award winning coming of age mystery novel by Craig Silvey..

Principal photography is set to commence in October in the south west of Western Australia.

Jasper Jones will be directed by Rachel Perkins (Bran Nue Dae, Radiance, One Night the Moon).

Miller will play bookish 14-year-old, Charlie Bucktin, who over one eventful summer in 1965 navigates small-town racism, hypocrisy and the trials of teenage love.

McGrath has been cast as the titular character, Jasper Jones, while will play the intelligent and mysterious Eliza Wishart, who is also the object of Charlie.s affections.

.Perkins...

Porchlight Films and Bunya Productions have revealed the cast for feature film Jasper Jones, which is set to start filming in Western Australia on October 26.

The cast will include Levi Miller (Terra Nova, upcoming Pan, Blue Dog), Angourie Rice (These Final Hours, upcoming The Nice Guys) and Aaron McGrath (Glitch)..

The film is an adaption of the award winning coming of age mystery novel by Craig Silvey..

Principal photography is set to commence in October in the south west of Western Australia.

Jasper Jones will be directed by Rachel Perkins (Bran Nue Dae, Radiance, One Night the Moon).

Miller will play bookish 14-year-old, Charlie Bucktin, who over one eventful summer in 1965 navigates small-town racism, hypocrisy and the trials of teenage love.

McGrath has been cast as the titular character, Jasper Jones, while will play the intelligent and mysterious Eliza Wishart, who is also the object of Charlie.s affections.

.Perkins...