Movies
Neon Acquires ‘The Wailing’ Director’s ‘Hope’ with Michael Fassbender & Alicia Vikander
Neon has acquired the sci-fi thriller Hope ahead of its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month, Variety reports.
The Korean production is written and directed by Na Hong-jin (The Wailing).
Hwang Jung-min (The Wailing), Zo In-sung (“Moving”), Hoyeon (“Squid Game”), Taylor Russell (Bones and All), Cameron Britton (“The Umbrella Academy”), Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), and Michael Fassbender (Prometheus) star.
Set in Hope Harbor, a remote village near the Demilitarized Zone, the film follows a police officer who is alerted to the news that a tiger has appeared in the hills, sending the town into chaos.
What begins as a local emergency soon spirals into a deeper, more terrifying mystery, one that forces the town’s residents to confront a reality beyond belief.
Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux said that Hope “constantly changes genres” to capture a story of “no part of history that’s ever been told before.”
Na produces alongside Saemi Kim and Saerom Kim for Forged Films. Jeongin Hong executive produces, with Plus M Entertainment financing.
Neon, which has been pursuing the project since an early footage presentation in November, will release Hope theatrically.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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