EXCLUSIVE: UK, Australia, Japan also among key pacts for sci-fi starring Max Deacon.

The Call Up

Altitude Film Sales has secured distribution deals in a number of key territories for Charles Barker’s debut feature The Call Up.

Vertical Entertainment has picked up US rights with Mongrel Media taking Canada. Deals were also finalised with Altitude Film Distribution for the UK, Nikkatsu for Japan, Defiant for Australia/New Zealand, Betta Pictures for Spain and Gate 23 for Airlines.

The Call Up follows a group of online gamers who are invited to trial a state-of-the-art virtual reality game, but what starts out like a dream encounter with cutting edge video technology – a perfect representation of soldiers in a warzone – takes a turn for the sinister when the stakes are raised to fatal.

Max Deacon (Into The Storm) plays the lead role alongside Morfydd Clark (Pride And Prejudice and Zombies), Ali Cook (Kilo Two Bravo), Parker Sawyers (Southside With You), Tom Benedict Knight (Dracula Untold), Adriana Randall (Experimenter), Boris Ler (In The Land Of Blood And Honey), Christopher Obi (Snow White And The Huntsman) and newcomer Douggie McMeekin.

Directed by Charles Barker from his own Brit List-topping screenplay, the film is produced by Matthew James Wilkinson (Stigma Films), John Giwa-Amu (Red&Black Films, The Machine) with Alan Martin (The Machine) exec producing.

Other executive producers include Creative England’s Richard Holmes (Eden Lake) and Marzipan Productions, while Isabelle Georgeaux (Resistance) of Pont Neuf Productions acts as co-producer.

The film was also part-funded through Creative England’s West Midlands Production Fund.

As previously reported The Call Up had already been licensed to Germany, France, Benelux, Scandinavia and South Africa (eOne), Switzerland (Impuls), CIS (All Media), Ex-Yugoslavia (Cinemania), Indonesia (PT Amero), Thailand (Mono Group), Middle East (Gulf) and Turkey (Fabula).

The feature will be released worldwide in Q2, 2016.