By Borys Kit
February 17, 2012
The thriller begins production on Sunday with Jack Heller at the helm.
Kevin Durand and Lukas Haas are starring in Dark Was the Night, a thriller from Caliber Media, Sundial Pictures and Preferred Content that begins production Sunday.
Caliber Media principal Jack Heller is directing the picture, which was written by Tyler Hisel. Darkappeared on the 2009 Black List, Hollywood’s unofficial listing of the best unproduced screenplays, under the title The Trees. Dark, which hopes to introduce a new monster in a horror landscape dominated by zombies and vampires, is set in an isolated town where a logging company has disrupted the balance of life in the woods, causing an evil force to emerge. The only thing standing between evil and the locals is a sheriff and his deputy.
Also in the cast are Sabina Gadecki (Freaky Deaky), Heath Freeman (Skateland) andNick Damici (Stake Land).
Heller is producing with Caliber partner Dallas Sonnier and Stefan Nowicki of Sundial.
Exec producing are Kevin Iwashina and Ross Dinerstein of Prefered Content andJoey Carey of Sundial. Hisel and manager Alexander Robb also are executive producers.
Visual effects company The Molecule is handling the movies’ visual effects, and the company’s Ted Markovic also is exec producing.
Preferred Content is selling the film domestically.
Durand, who played a bad guy on Lost and was last seen in DreamWorks’ Real Steel, is repped by WME, Alchemy Entertainment and attorney Dave Feldman. Haas, who appeared in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, is repped by Innovative, managers Chuck Pacheco and Rick Yorn and attorneys PJ Shapiro and Julian Zajfen.
Hisel, repped by Katie Cates of Kaplan-Stahler, Alexander Robb of Insignia Entertainment and attorney Rob Szymanski, sold his pilot The Brink to Sony TV with Gran Via producing last fall.