Co-produced by Ireland’s Grand Pictures, the €7m (£5.5m) budget action sci-fi horror is currently in pre-production and will be shot in Hungry with all of the VFX work and the majority of the post-production set to be carried out by Windmill Lane in Dublin.
Set in 2023, the movie’s plot details a world divided into two tribes – normal humans and the Blanks, a group born without proper facial features. A new terrorist group and breakaway group of Blanks known as the Fumati is threatening the status quo and is using hi-tech devices to kill humans. In order to restore calm, a security outfit named the Creeping Zero has been tasked with hunting down the elusive Fumati.
The feature has been scripted by English novelist Jeff Noon and is based on his short story, which was published in 1998 as part of his ‘Pixel Juice’ collection.
Other cast members joining Dominic Monaghan on the project include ‘Attack the Block’ actor John Boyega; ‘Chronicle’ actress Ashley Hinshaw; Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) and Adam Deacon (Dead Set).
Boyega will play the film’s central character Lenny, a member of the Creeping Zero crew, while Hinshaw will play his love interest Camille.
Julie Baines of UK production company Dan Films is the film’s lead producer with Paul Donovan set to produce for Grand alongside Ildiko Kemeny (The Raven) of Hungarian co-producers Pioneer Films.
Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan (Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights) will work alongside O’Brien for the third time having previously collaborated with the director on his award-winning 2005 feature film ‘Isolation’ and his 1999 short ‘The Tale Of The Rat That Wrote’. Ryan is currently filming Irish director Ruairi Robinson’s debut feature ‘Last Days On Mars’.
Filming in Hungary is expected to get underway in October and will last for around six weeks. ‘Creeping Zero’ is then expected to go into post in Dublin and the UK towards the end of the year. The majority of post will take place in Windmill Lane with the exception of the picture cut, which will be carried out in the UK.
Windmill’s VFX team will be headed up by Ciaran Crowley, who previously worked on VFX for ‘Lockout’ at Windmill and has previously worked on huge blockbusters such as ‘The Dark Knight’.
’Creeping Zero’ was offered a production loan of €300,000 in the last round of funding from the Irish Film Board and will also avail of the Section 481 tax incentive.
