Helen Simmons and Stephanie Aspin support their slate through their own work as writers
Need to know: The nous of Erebus producers Helen Simmons and Stephanie Aspin helped secure a cast for Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights Of Hero that will have made the industry sit up and take notice. The fantasy adaptation of Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel attached Nicholas Galitizine, Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, Felicity Jones, Amir El-Masry, Richard E Grant, and pop star Charli XCX in an early acting role – all for a budget under $6m. The film debuted as the closing title of Venice’s Critics’ Week sidebar, before a homecoming as the BFI London Film Festival closing night slot in October.
Having met in their final term at university, the pair took different paths into film: Simmons produced 2016 comedy Chubby Funny, while Aspin worked as a director’s assistant on studio films.
Formed in 2019, Erebus received a BFI Vision award in 2020, since when it has built a consistent slate of features. Neil Maskell’s 2022 comedy-thriller Klokkenluider was followed by Luna Carmoon’s heralded debut Hoard, which starred Saura Lightfoot-Leon and Joseph Quinn, and won a special mention in Venice Critics’ Week 2023 as well as Bafta and Bifa nominations. The following year saw Jackman’s feature debut Bonus Track, co-written by Josh O’Connor and produced with and released by Sky.
Simmons co-wrote 2024 Berlinale drama Last Swim with director Sasha Nathwani. Both she and Aspin bolster Erebus’s producing output through their writing work.
Key personnel: Helen Simmons, Stephanie Aspin, producers.
Incoming: Louise Stern’s directorial debut A Hand Rises is set in a deaf community, where a murder and the arrival of a hearing newcomer change power dynamics. Produced by Simmons and Manon Ardisson, the film shot in spring this year backed by the BFI and BBC Film, and will launch at a festival in 2026.
Konstantinos Antonopoulos’s Byzantine buddy movie Glory B – a Greece-Italy-UK co-production that received UK Global Screen Fund and Eurimages backing – recently wrapped. Erebus is producing Carmoon’s next film, which will shoot in early 2026; and is lining up Jo Lewis’s Echolalic, written by Colin Elves and Ben Hogan and following the carer of an autistic teenager, also for a 2026 shoot.
The company is also growing its TV slate, with projects including a a darkly comic horror by Simmons, a dystopian thriller from Aspin, and additional shows ranging from a sci-fi to a half-hour comedy.
Helen Simmons says: “We are multi-hyphenate through writing for film and TV – that encourages other multi-hyphenates to come to us, whether that’s actors or writers wanting to produce or direct. You don’t have to be boxed in to work with us. We’re very consciously working our way up budget levels, cast, and commerciality.”
Stephanie Aspin says: “We’ve always wanted to do ‘commercial prestige’. They’re intelligent, but they’re entertaining, big, and not ashamed of that. In TV, you’re having to package early on more and more. We’re able to take some of our film relationships and bring them to TV, cast-wise.”
Contact: info@erebuspictures.co.uk
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