12/07/2012 - Sci-fi thriller stars Caity Lotz and Toby Stephens

Content Film has announced a July 23 principal photography start date in Cardiff for high concept sci-fi action thriller The Machine. Directed by Caradog James (Little White Lies), Caity Lotz (The Pact) and Toby Stephens (Die Another Day) are playing the lead roles.

Set in the near future and with the world plunged into another cold war, Britain’s Ministry of Defence is on the verge of developing a robotic soldier. This soldier, called The Machine (Lotz), looks and sounds human, but has the strength, speed, and ruthlessness beyond that of any living person. The project is near completion when a bug in the programming, a side effect of it being too close to human coding, causes the prototype to destroy the lab and everyone in its path in spectacularly violent fashion. Undeterred by this setback, lead scientist Vincent McCarthy (Stephens) obsessively continues his work on The Machine in secret, away from the prying eyes of those who seek to destroy him.

John Giwa-Amu of Red and Black Films is producing and Content’s Jamie Carmichael is Executive Producer. The film was developed with The Film Agency for Wales, Ruby Moon Ltd, Graham Associates, The Ideas Factory, and the Welsh Assembly Government. Content is selling the film worldwide.

Meanwhile, Content’s ghost story The Pact, written and directed by Nicholas McCarthy, has grossed more than £2.5 million at the UK box office where Entertainment One released it. It’s due on the continent via Ascot Elite (Germany, Switzerland and Austria), A Film (Benelux), EEAP (CIS, Baltic States, Bulgaria, Ex-Yugoslavia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania) and Lusomundo (Portugal).