The director of the Wolf Creek movies, Greg McLean, has a new horror film set in a South American corporation where employees have to kill each other. The writer-director of Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn, has announced on Facebook that production is starting in Colombia on The Belco Experiment, which he has written and McLean will direct. "The story revolves around the American Belco company in South America which is mysteriously sealed off at the beginning of a work day and its employees are ordered to kill each other or be killed themselves," Gunn writes. Shooting – possibly in more ways than one – starts in Bogota in June.
Pirates crew hope to resume in a fortnight
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Crew on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales remain hopeful of resuming production on the Hollywood blockbuster in a fortnight after shutting down pending Johnny Depp's return from the US. More than 200 members of the crew were stood down from the Queensland shoot last week after Depp returned to the US with a hand injury, with producers having to deny rumours he is in rehab. One insider says the crew are having "a well-earned break" in a demanding shoot and expect to resume on April 15. Directed by Norwegians Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, the fifth Pirates movie also stars Geoffrey Rush and Javier Bardem.
First look at Blinky Bill
Blinky Bill doing martial arts? The first teaser trailer for the animated Blinky Bill The Movie has the koala delivering his "famous whip kick to the guts" to show off in front of a female koala. Ryan Kwanten voices Blinky Bill as he heads into the outback to find his missing father in the film, which opens in September. Other characters are voiced by a strong cast that includes Toni Collette, Robin McLeavy, Rufus Sewell, Barry Humphries, David Wenham, Richard Roxburgh, Deborah Mailman and Barry Otto. It is directed by Deane Taylor and co-directed by Alexs Stadermann, Alex Weight and Noel Cleary.
Roxburgh to direct another film
At one of Richard Roxburgh's final events as creative director of the Spectrum Now festival, the actor revealed he is hoping to direct a second film next year. It would be an adaptation of Rita Kalnejais's play, Babyteeth, a dark comedy about a 14-year-old girl who falls in love while dying of cancer. When Babyteeth ran at Sydney's Belvoir Street in 2012, Herald reviewer Jason Blake described it as a "touching new tragi-comedy" that was "moving, confronting, hopeful and, above all, humane". Roxburgh previously directed Romulus, My Father, which won best film at the Australian Film Institute Awards in 2007.
Cinderella has fairytale opening
With Cate Blanchett shining as the evil stepmother, Cinderella opened strongly in Australian cinemas last weekend. It took $4.36 million; averaging almost $11,000 per cinema. Around the world, the Disney movie has raced to $US336 million ($440 million). It's a victory for what Blanchett has called a new kind of heroine in cinemas. "At the moment, we're interested in loud stories, loud people, people who get their voices heard," she says. "Not everyone is like that. Not everyone is an exhibitionist. Cinderella is, I think, for those people who have a quiet, gentle inner life and it's about how can they survive in a world that's full of bullies."
Death in Newtown
It's a great title for a horror film, Deathgasm. One of the first films announced for the Sydney Film Festival's expansion to the Dendy Newtown in June, it is written and directed by New Zealander Jason Lei Howden, who has worked on visual effects for the Hobbit movies, The Great Gatsby and The Wolverine. It is described as "a vividly violent blast" that takes "satanic myths of heavy metal that parents worry about and brings them to life for 90 minutes of mayhem". The festival will screen around 20 films in Newtown including horror, music, animation and cult pics.