Promethean Pictures is the name of the new UK-based production company established by British TV and film producer Richard Johns with US filmmaker E Elias Merhige. The latter is set to direct Howl, the first title from Promethean Pictures’ slate of TV and film projects in development.

Howl, already in advanced development, is described as a “beautiful, heart-breaking drama about love and survival” centred on a family dog who is left at home during an extreme winter after his owners die in a car crash. Told from the animal’s point of view – and using “innovative, naturalistic and cutting-edge motion-picture technology” – the film follows the dog as he goes on a dangerous and thrilling survival adventure and meets an orphaned wolf cub. Howl is written by Christopher Monger (Temple Grandin, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain), with Doug Allan (Frozen Planet) on board as cinematographer and animal trainer Andrew Simpson (The Revenant, Game of Thrones) as the wolf whisperer.

The duo first worked together on Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), starring John Malkovich as legendary filmmaker F W Murnau and set during the shoot of Nosferatu. The film earned Willem Dafoe a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as Max Schreck, the actor playing the creature in Nosferatu, and it also got another nod for Best Make-up.

Richard Johns launched production company Argo Films last year and recently wrapped filming on The Shepherd, starring John Travolta, for Disney+. Merhige is perhaps best known for his debut film, Begotten (1991), a visceral journey through creation that has garnered cult status over the years. The film was screened together with Merhige’s Din of Celestial Birds (2006) and Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera (2022) on the spherical screen of the Brussels Planetarium as the finale of this year’s Offscreen Film Festival on 26 March.

“Richard and I had a brilliant creative partnership more than 20 years ago, and that spark never went away, binding us over the decades,” noted Merhige. “Despite being forced off radar for a while, I’ve never stopped generating concepts and working out new ways to bring them to life.”

“Promethean Pictures will be targeting mainstream commercial audiences with its projects, but with Elias in the mix, these projects will be anything but ordinary,” added Johns.