London-based Moving Picture Co. (MPC) will handle VFX work on director Danny Boyles latest sci-fi feature, THE UNTITLED SUNSHINE PROJECT, announced this week by DNA Films and Fox Searchlight Pictures. MPCs vfx supervisor is Tom Wood (KINGDOM OF HEAVEN). Principal photography began Aug. 22 in London. Boyle is once again teamed up with scribe Alex Garland, who last worked together on 28 DAYS LATER, which MPC also worked on.
The cast will be led by Rose Byrne (TROY), Cliff Curtis (WHALE RIDER), Chris Evans (FANTASTIC FOUR), Troy Garity (AFTER THE SUNSET), Cillian Murphy (28 DAYS LATER), Hiroyuki Sanada (THE LAST SAMURAI), Benedict Wong (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) and Michelle Yeoh (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON). THE UNTITLED SUNSHINE PROJECT will be produced by Andrew Macdonald through DNA Films.
Fifty years from now, the sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device, which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew is fighting for sanity and survival.
THE UNTITLED SUNSHINE PROJECT will be shot by director of photography Alwin H. Kuchler (PROOF, CODE 46). Returning to the Danny Boyle production team following their collaborations on both MILLIONS and 28 DAYS LATER are production designer Mark Tildesley (MILLIONS, 28 DAYS LATER) and editor Chris Gill.
Joshua Deighton, vp of production for Fox Searchlight, will oversee the project for Searchlight.
London-based MPC (www.moving-picture.com), recently acquired by Thomson, is currently working on a raft of visual effects projects, including being the sole vfx facility on two stop-motion features, DreamWorks Pictures/Aardman Features 2005 release THE WALLACE AND GROMIT MOVIE: CURSE OF THE WERERABBIT and TIM BURTONS CORPSE BRIDE. MPC is also lead effects house for HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE and recently finished CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, BATMAN BEGINS and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
DNA Films is a joint venture with the U.S. film distributor Fox Searchlight. The company finances and produces British films and provides access to an international distribution network.
Fox Searchlight Pictures is a filmmaker-oriented company that focuses on distinctive films helmed by world-class auteurs and exciting newcomers. It has its own marketing and distribution operations and its films are distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox. Fox Searchlight Pictures is a unit of Fox Filmed Ent., a unit of Fox Ent. Group.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
