Movies
Milla Jovovich in Talks to Topline ‘Mile Zero’
I really, really, really think she deserves the honor of being called a scream queen as Milla Jovovich is looking to topline yet another genre film, this time Phoenix Pictures’ Mile Zero. Today she was announced as the “in talks” to star, while yet another director has been attached to the project. So while this news is great, the deal has yet to be locked down. Beyond the break you can read about the announcement and see who the newest helmer is.
Marcel Langenegger has signed a deal to develop the horror film “Mile Zero” for Phoenix Pictures. Milla Jovovich is in talks to star. Milla can be seen in the forthcoming A Perfect Getaway and The 4th Kind, while she’s also starred in the Resident Evil franchise.
Benderspink is producing the film, derived from an original screenplay by Holly Brix that has been set up at Phoenix since 2007. In Brix’s spooky genre effort, a young woman takes a job on an Alaskan oil rig so she can prove her father’s innocence in a series of murders.
Phoenix execs Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer and Brad Fischer and “Zodiac” scribe James Vanderbilt are producing.
Jonathan Liebesman, Erik Van Looy and David Alcalde previously were involved with the film as potential helmers.
Phoenix produced “License to Wed” and “Zodiac.” It has the Weinstein Co. drama “Shanghai” and the Martin Scorsese-directed Paramount thriller “Shutter Island” set to release in the fall.
Langenegger, repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, directed the Ewan McGregor-Hugh Jackman thriller “Deception.”
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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