Cooties

[jvince]

Leigh Whannell On His New Zombie Comedy Script

I’ve just attended a screening of Insidious, the sort-of-haunted house spooker from Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Long story short, it’s the best film on their resume, with Dead Silence running a close, but barmy second.

Wan and Whannell popped up after the film to talk and answer questions, and amongst the deflection of my critiques and discussion of Insidious‘ scare tactics, they did give some details on what else they’re working on.

Here’s how Whannell pitched a comedy script he’s recently wrapped:

Great title, strong pitch. How can that possibly fail to sell?

The intimation was that this would not be a film for Wan to direct, and the next collaboration between the duo would most likely be a scary sci-fi film, full of FX but done on a budget. They’ve been mentioning that proposed project a lot lately.

Source: Bleeding Cool

[TLeeTx2012]

[Col. Zombie]

Good luck selling that to a studio right now.

[cinemaphile]

It IS getting made, and Elijah Wood is in it. Just read an interview with Wood where he mentions this one. No release date is set (IMDB says 10/10/14, but EW says TBD), but it is coming out.

"The idea is to take 'cooties' to the next level."

I love this idea!

[MrBlonde]

Pretty cool idea in an over-saturated genre, hope it's good!

[cinemaphile]

Elijah Wood Horror-Comedy ‘Cooties’ Catches Alison Pill, Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer, Jorge Garcia, Nasim Pedrad

from Deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: SpectreVision and Glacier Films have fleshed out the crew of teachers who’ll take on the ultimate school outbreak in prepubescent horror comedy Cooties. Pic, written by Leigh Whannell (Insidious, Saw) and Glee co-creator Ian Brennan, follows a zombie-like epidemic originating from an infected chicken nugget that turns elementary school students into rampaging savages. Joining Elijah Wood as a substitute teacher leading a ragtag band of educators in a fight for survival are Alison Pill as Lucy, an eternally optimistic 4th grade teacher, and Rainn Wilson as ex-athlete turned PE teacher Wade. Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), Jorgé Garcia (LOST), Nasim Pedrad (SNL), and Whannell also co-star. Filming is set to begin July 15 in LA with HONEST duo Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion directing. Wood is also producing the pic alongside SpectreVision partners Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller, with Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity) and Glacier Films’ Tove Christensen and Georgy Malkov also producing. Glacier’s Vladimir Poliakov, Sarik Andreasyan, Gevond Andreasyan and Hayden Christensen are exec producing. Paradigm arranged financing and is handling North American sales.

[cinemaphile]

IGN had posted a short interview with Elijah Wood regarding "Cooties". Nothing much we didn't already know, but I am disturbed and disappointed that the end of the article says it's not coming until 2015. I hope that is wrong. Seems an awful long turnaround for a small-budget indie horror flick.

[Show spoiler]

IGN: What was the genesis of Cooties?

Elijah Wood: We’ve been planning that film for almost two years now. So to finally get it together and be on-set making it was so surreal after so long. My producing partner Josh had this idea of basically taking a zombie-esque virus and applying it to children, pre-puberty, and calling it Cooties. We were shocked that that had never been made – that there wasn’t a movie in the '70s or '80s called Cooties. There are so many exploitation horror films that appropriate something that’s cheesy and turn it into something horrific. So we were shocked that that hadn’t been made.

IGN: So how did Saw and Insidious scribe Leigh Whannell become involved?

Wood: It got communicated to Leigh – a friend of ours told him about the idea and he freaked out and wanted to write it. Our original plan was to make it serious, but Leigh pitched it to us as a comedy and we thought it was brilliant.

IGN: Was it difficult getting the balance between horror and comedy right?

Wood: That was one of the interesting things about making it. I remember our first table read – which I think was the Friday before we started shooting on the Monday – the comedy was so apparent that my main concern when making the film was that we get the horror right. The funny thing for Leigh is that, because he comes from horror, he wants the comedy to really work well. So it’s two different factions looking out for different elements to make sure that they’re all operating on the same level.

IGN: Can you tell us a bit more about your character?

Wood: I play a substitute teacher that has been living in New York and comes back to this small town where he grew up. He used to go to this school, so he comes back to work as a substitute, because he’s trying to earn money to write a book. And the whole thing takes place in the course of a day. It’s his first day back and this virus breaks out. And very quickly things start to spiral out of control and the teachers realise that they’re in danger, so a group of them lock themselves into the school to avoid being eaten by these children. And it gets insane.

IGN: What was it like working with all those kids?

Wood: It was great. We were nervous because we have a lot of kids, and a very short amount of time and limited budget to make the movie. It’s nerve-wracking – it could go either way with kids. But they were super-professional and really wonderful. We worked really fast and had a blast. Plus Alison Pill’s in it, Rainn Wilson. Leigh plays a teacher. It was a blast.

Cooties will spread through cinemas sometime in 2015.

[Kleeberg]

Just got bought at Sundance by Lionsgate (first deal of the festival that I know of).

[tonylopez]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

Just got bought at Sundance by Lionsgate (first deal of the festival that I know of).

This pic has me sold. Will definitely check it out.

[Kleeberg]

Great poster, too.

[cinemaphile]

I was actually pretty disappointd in the poster. Mostly because, why the skeleton hand?? Make it an actual zombie hand and it's already 80% better.

[remake]

Another film I'm looking forward to.

[MarkJ801]

I saw this at Sundance, and all I can say is it definitely doesn't disappoint. It's extremely hilarious and very gory!

[L.J.]

Sounds like a good funny film.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by MarkJ801

I saw this at Sundance, and all I can say is it definitely doesn't disappoint. It's extremely hilarious and very gory!

Brill.

[cynatnite]

Not a fan of zombie movies here...

On it's face, this thing sounds like a riot. If the trailer can hold up to the imagery in my head, it might wind up being one of two zombie movies I like. This could be loads of fun.

[Himmel]

[Foggy]

Keep it quiet, but

[Show spoiler]I heard the film is decent

.

[spectre08]

I love that poster

[StevenHarvey1990]

Finally, some news. Been looking forward to this for a while and was starting to think it'd never see the light of day.