Movies
Jaume Collett-Serra’s WWII Thriller ‘Play Dead’ For Producer Sam Raimi Heads to EFM
Filmmaker Jaume Collett-Serra (Carry-On, The Woman in the Yard) is set to Play Dead for producer Sam Raimi; Variety reports that the “white-knuckle” WWII thriller is now in post-production and heading to the European Film Market soon.
Matthias Schweighöfer (Army of the Dead) stars alongside Noah Jupe (The Carpenter’s Son, A Quiet Place).
Play Dead was written by Natalie Conway and Peter Stanley-Ward and follows “an Allied soldier who, after an ambush, must play dead to survive.”
It’s described as a “World War II white-knuckle thriller” and, more interestingly, “Don’t Breathe meets 1917.”
Nocturnal produced alongside BoulderLight Pictures, Bad Grey, and Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert produced through Ghost House Pictures.
“‘Play Dead’ is the rare script that felt unapologetically cinematic, built for tension and atmosphere,” said Collet-Serra. “What grabbed me right away was the precision. Every scene escalates, every beat matters. It had this addictive quality where I was turning pages fast to see what happens next. One moment I was being pulled in with suspense and the next I was suddenly feeling all the emotion.”
“Jaume and his cast bring the tense, emotional screenplay for ‘Play Dead’ to life through a masterful building of suspense and riveting performances,” said Raimi.
“From the first read, we knew ‘Play Dead,’ with its bold set pieces and unyielding tension, was a movie we needed to make and that Jaume was the perfect filmmaker for it,” added Nocturnal producers Keaton Heinrichs and Akiva Nemetsky. “He has the rare ability to build tension with precision, and his execution of the script speaks to all his strengths as a world-class filmmaker. We couldn’t be more excited to launch ‘Play Dead’ as our first film under the Nocturnal banner.”
Collett-Serra is also tackling an update of Cliffhanger, slated for this summer.
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From the producers of The Thing Expanded and the In Search of Darkness series, Jaws Explored is the first in a brand new deep dive format that bears the “Explored” branding.
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