23/02/2010

Irish filmmakers Stephen St. Leger and James Mather have signed up to direct the $30m budgeted 3D sci-fi film Section 8, which is to be produced by French giant EuropaCorp.

St. Leger and Mather have previously worked together back in 2004 on the Irish Film Board funded short film Prey Alone, a technically accomplished digital thriller. The pair will share writing duties with Luc Besson, who will also produce the film.

Section 8 takes place in a prison orbiting 50 miles above the earth. The prison houses 500 of the world’s most dangerous prisoners, who are kept asleep by sophisticated techniques until they awaken suddenly. The film is due a summer shoot.

Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, founder of EuropaCorp, said, “When you read the script, you can easily guess how the live-action and 3D will take this sci-fi thriller to a great level… and the two guys are very, very talented.”

Meanwhile, Irish actor Liam Neeson and US actor Aidan Quinn star in the thriller Unknown White Male, currently shooting on location in Germany. The film focuses on Neeson’s character, who wakes after a car accident in Berlin and discovers that his wife doesn’t recognise him, and that another man has taken his identity.

Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) is directing from a script by Oliver Butcher (Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde), Stephen Cornwell (Killing Streets) and Karl Gajdusek (TV’s Dead Like Me), based on the novel Out of My Head by Didier van Cauwelaert. Joel Silver’s Dark Castle Entertainment is co-producing with Studio Babelsberg.