Guns n’ Roses guitarist Slash was in town at the AFM on Wednesday night (2), pressing the flesh with his Slasher Films partners to promote their upcoming horror film Nothing To Fear.
Content is selling international rights on the creepy tale starring Anne Heche, James Tupper, Willa Holland, Rafi Gavron and Jennifer Stone, set to begin principal photography in Louisiana on Feb 13 2012.
The genial rocker and his partners Michael Williams and Rob Eric announced their company at Sundance earlier this year after an auspicious first meeting. “A couple of years ago Rob and I were working with Slash’s wife on a project and met Slash and we discovered we were all horror geeks,” Williams says. The company aims to make two sub-$10m films a year.
“Horror has always been a passion of mine and I wanted to get into it somehow,” Slash says. “Rob and I had this fantastic conversation and that got the creative juices flowing and he said I could get involved on the creative side.”
When Slasher Films acquired Jonathan C Mills’ screenplay they sent it to Anthony Leonardi, a brilliant artist who had worked with Gore Verbinski on the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise.
Leonardi responded to the story of a pastor who relocates his family to the Kansas town of Stull, allegedly the site of one of the gates of hell and a place so feared by many that even the Pope will not fly over it. Shaun Redick and Ray Mansfield serve as executive producers.
The young director brought storyboards and concept art to his first meeting with Slasher. “It was exactly the movie we wanted to make,” Eric says. “His vision for the movie was spot-on for what we’ve envisioned as a character-driven horror film. We’ve always loved the creepy movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist – the stories that stay with you.”
“We want to do movies that you want to go and watch again,” Leonardi says. “In the genre world, a lot of ideas seem redundant but when I got the script from Slasher Films I loved it. The story reminded me of the creepy sensibility of The Stepford Wives with the gradual build-up of tension.”
Content expects plenty of interest from buyers this week and will work with Slasher Films to promote the project through social media, mobilising the more than 10m fans who follow Slash on Twitter and Facebook. The plan it to show first footage in Cannes next summer.
- Slash is pictured with Leonardi on the left and Content’s Harry White.
No comments yet