Grand Piano and Maniac‘s Elijah Wood, pictured, is taking a break from production and distribution to help Vin Diesel hunt some witches (they’re in suburbia, just ask the filmmakers behind Paranormal Activity).
Wood has joined the cast of Lionsgate’s The Last Witch Hunter opposite Diesel, Rose Leslie and Michael Caine, says Variety.
Production will begin later this month with The Crazies‘ Breck Eisner directing from a script by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama based on a pitch by Cory Goodman.
Diesel’s witch hunter will partner with his enemy, a female witch, to stop a plague on humanity unleashed by the covens of New York City.
Here’s a super long plot crunch we dug up out of AFM last November.
“Five hundred years ago, war raged between humankind and witches, vicious supernatural creatures intent on unleashing the Black Death upon the world. Armies of witch hunters battled the unnatural enemy across the globe, including KAULDER (Vin Diesel), a valiant warrior who managed to slay an all-powerful QUEEN WITCH, decimating her followers in the process. In the moments before her death, the Queen exacted her revenge by cursing Kaulder with immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter in the afterlife. Kaulder has spent centuries hunting down rogue witches, all the while yearning for his long-lost loved ones.
Today, he is the only one of his kind–the last witch hunter. With the help of FATHER DOLAN, a Catholic priest, and a mystical arsenal hidden beneath New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he continues to pursue the renegades and outlaws who endanger humanity. Chief among their adversaries is BELIAL, a powerful rebel witch who Kaulder believes has found a way to restore the Queen Witch to power and reignite her campaign to destroy the human world.
With the help of CHLOE, a goodhearted young witch, Kaulder sets out to stop Belial before he can set his plan in motion, but allies in unexpected places keep the evil witch one step ahead in a cunning cat-and-mouse pursuit that will determine the survival of the human race.”