With movies like the revenge-via-circular-saw High Tension and the skin-shredding Piranha remake, director Alexandre Aja has memorably dunked his characters in the blood bucket. But Aja's next project, an adaptation of The 9th Life of Louis Drax, is more a supernatural thriller than a blood-and-bones picture, and principal photography on the film has now begun.
"VANCOUVER and LONDON, October 27, 2014 – Miramax, the global film and television producer and distributor, along with the film’s producers AntColony Films and Brightlight Pictures announced today the start of principal photography on the supernatural thriller The 9th Life of Louis Drax starring Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey, The Fall), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Need for Speed, Triple Nine) and Sarah Gadon (Dracula Untold, The Amazing Spider-man 2).
Joining Dornan, Paul and Gadon in supporting roles are Oliver Platt (X-Men: First Class, Chef, Frost/Nixon) playing Louis Drax’s psychologist, Dr. Perez; Molly Parker (House of Cards, The Road) as Detective Dalton; Barbara Hershey (Black Swan, Falling Down) who will play Violet, Louis’ grandmother; and Aiden Longworth (Hector and the Search for Happiness, A Christmas Story 2) in the title role of Louis Drax.
The 9th Life of Louis Drax is being directed by Alexandre Aja (Horns, The Hills Have Eyes, High Tension).
The feature screenplay, based on Liz Jensen’s best-selling novel of the same title, was written by Max Minghella. Producers are Tim Bricknell (Breaking and Entering, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency) and Minghella (The Two Faces of January) of AntColony Films, Shawn Williamson (The Interview, 50/50) of Brightlight Pictures and Aja. Rosanne Korenberg (Half Nelson, Hard Candy) is executive producer.
Brightlight Pictures will handle distribution of the film in Canada and Miramax will distribute throughout the rest of the world with Sierra/Affinity as the international sales agent. Zanne Devine, Executive Vice President, Production and Development, is overseeing the project on behalf of Miramax.
The 9th Life of Louis Drax begins on Louis Drax's 9th birthday, when he miraculously survives a near fatal fall. His doctor Allan Pascal (Dornan) finds himself tangled between his professional responsibility and his growing affections for the boy’s mother (Gadon), a fragile young beauty. When Louis’ father (Paul) comes under suspicion, Pascal realizes other mysterious forces may be at work. With echoes of The Sixth Sense and Gone Girl, The 9th Life of Louis Drax is a supernatural thriller filled with unexpected twists and turns.
The film is a Canadian/UK co-production.
About Miramax:
Miramax is a global film and television studio best known for its highly acclaimed, original content. The studio’s new development projects include both film and TV, with the production of The 9th Life of Louis Drax most recently announced starring Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey, The Fall), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Need for Speed, Triple Nine) and Sarah Gadon (Dracula Untold, The Amazing Spider-man 2). Together with Sony’s Screen Gems, Miramax will release Jeremy Garelick’s film The Wedding Ringer (Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco) on January 16, 2015, and the Studio also recently announced the acquisition of U.S. distribution rights to Mr. Holmes, directed by Academy Award® winner Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey) and starring Academy Award® nominees Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings franchise, X-Men franchise) and Laura Linney (Kinsey, You Can Count on Me, The Savages).
Building on its unparalleled library of characters and groundbreaking storylines, Miramax is also currently developing new television series alongside industry luminaries, with projects that include Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, recently renewed for a second season.
Collectively, the library of more than 700 motion pictures has received 282 Academy Award® nominations and 68 Oscars® with four Best Picture awards, and includes such celebrated independent films as Pulp Fiction, No Country for Old Men and City Of God – as well as scores of commercial hits such as Chicago, Good Will Hunting and Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Since the purchase of Miramax in 2010 by Qatar Holding, together with the investor group led by Miramax Chairman Thomas J. Barrack, Jr.’s Colony Capital, the studio’s world-class global distribution team has successfully brought this renowned collection to existing and emerging platforms in nearly every country in the world.
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About AntColony Films:
AntColony Films was incorporated in the U.K. in 2008 by Timothy Bricknell and Max Minghella. Born from the legacy of Mirage, the production company run by Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, Tim and Max have gone on to produce a variety of work including HBO’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Channel 4’s The Fear, BAFTA winner Eric & Ernie and, most recently, Hossein Amini’s directorial debut The Two Faces of January.
About Brightlight Pictures:
Brightlight Pictures develops, packages and produces independent feature films and television projects. Brightlight's Chairman, Shawn Williamson, has produced more than 90 productions in the last 15 years and over 35 productions since launching Brightlight in 2001 including White Noise (Michael Keaton) which has grossed over $100 million since its world-wide theatrical release in 2005. Recently, Williamson has worked as an executive producer on the feature film The Interview (Seth Rogen, James Franco) for Columbia Pictures and the television series Witches Of East End (Julia Ormond, Jenna Dewan-Tatum) for Fox 21. His recent producer credits include the feature film Horns (Daniel Radcliffe) for Mandalay and Red Granite Pictures; 50/50 (Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt;) and The Company You Keep, a Sony Pictures Classics release for spring 2013 directed by Robert Redford and starring Robert Redford and Shia LaBeouf. Other feature producing credits include The Possession (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick) for Mandate Pictures and Lionsgate Films; White Noise 2: The Light (Nathan Fillion, Katee Sackhoff) with Gold Circle Films; In The Name Of The King (Jason Statham;) 88 Minutes (Al Pacino;) Wicker Man (Nicolas Cage) for Nu Image/Millennium Films and Emmett Furla Films; Slither with Gold Circle Films and Universal and Apollo 18 for The Weinstein Company.
Brightlight's UK/Canada feature co-production Fifty Dead Men Walking (Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Zegers) had its world premiere as a Gala Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2008 and was released theatrically in the summer of 2009. Brightlight also produced Frankie & Alice (Halle Berry, Stellan Skarsgard) and the feature film Gunless, a comedy western co-produced with Niv Fichman's Rhombus Media and distributed by Alliance films starring Paul Gross, Sienna Guillory and Graham Greene.
About Sierra/Affinity:
Sierra/Affinity is a leading independent film finance, production and foreign sales company, consistently delivering high-quality, commercially viable feature films for a global audience. Led by Nick Meyer and Marc Schaberg, Sierra/Affinity capitalizes on the ever-evolving global film marketplace, representing sales of third-party films as well as its own productions designed to appeal to both the North American and global marketplaces. In addition to representing sales of third party films, the company acts as the exclusive sales agent for films developed and produced by Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, OddLot Entertainment, Bold Films and Sierra Pictures and its partner, Incentive Filmed Entertainment. In October 2012, Sierra/Affinity leveraged its international film and distribution capabilities to enter into a partnership with leading global TV program distributor Engine Entertainment to jointly launch Sierra/Engine Television designed to globally distribute television productions."
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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