Quebec and its 25% all-spend tax credit is starting to get its share of Hollywood movies after Summit Entertainment said it will shoot its Warm Bodies feature there this fall.
And Ottawa has snagged a November shoot for the Michael Keaton-starring feature Penthouse North by director Joseph Ruben.
Warm Bodies, directed by Jonathan Levin and starring Nicholas Hoult, John Malkovich, Teresa Palmer, and Rob Corddry, is prepping at Mel’s Studios in Montreal.
The Warm Bodies shoot is set for 46 days from Sept. 19, with location shooting at Mirabel airport, and in and around Montreal and the lower Laurentians.
The project is based on the Isaac Marion book and follows an existentially tormented zombie named R, played by Hoult, who begins an unlikely friendship with the girlfriend of one of his victims.
This starts a chain reaction that will transform him, his fellow zombies, and maybe the whole lifeless world.
Bruna Papandrea is producing Warm Bodies through her Make Movies banner, and David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are coproducing via their Mandeville Films banner.
Laurie Webb and Cori Shepherd Stern are executive producing.
Meanwhile in Ottawa, Hollywood thesps Michael Keaton and Michelle Monaghan will star in Penthouse North, a psychological thriller being shopped at this week’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Ex-ThinkFILM topper Jeff Sackman, Michael Baker, Jon Shiffman and director Ruben are producing the picture, as is David Loughery, who wrote the Penthouse North script.
ICM, agents for Keaton and Monaghan, packaged the movie and are selling the U.S. rights, while Lionsgate is shopping the foreign rights.
Penthouse North is about a photojournalist, played by Monaghan, who lives as a hermit in a Manhattan penthouse, only to be pursued by a sadistic criminal, played by Keaton.
Keaton last starred in the 2005 film White Noise, directed by Patrick Lussier and produced by Vancouver-based Brightlight Pictures.