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Matt Wells, Matthew Bennett go for the Straight Kill

By Julianna Cummins
August 13, 2014

Canadian actors Matt Wells and Matthew Bennett  have teamed up to launch Straight Kill Films, a production company created with the goal of giving up-and-coming talent a leg up.

Bennett had penned a script for a film called Straight Kill, and pitched Wells on starting a production company to make the project. Forming Straight Kill Films, they now plan to cast the film’s lead roles and score through an open social-media-powered casting call set to launch this fall.

“Anybody who has talent who might not necessarily have an agent – we are going to give them a crack,” Bennett told Playback Daily.

As much as the endeavor is meant to find hidden gems of talent, the parallel goal is building awareness and audience for the film ahead of its release, a la IndieCan10K or Cinecoup.

“We can tune our movie as we go along the way [and] really focus on our market,” Bennett said.

Bennett and Wells met on the set of The Strain, where Wells’ daughter had landed a role in an episode of the series and Bennett played her father. As the two got to know each other, they bonded over their shared experiences of how one person or event pushed their careers to the next level.

“The one thing we really connected on was this idea there was someone in our past that had helped us, who had said ‘I’m going to give you a shot,'” Wells said.

Bennett and Wells hope to start production on Straight Kill by next year. The goals is to build a budget of $1.24 million, with initial discussions with private investors currently underway. The film is set in Toronto’s St. Jamestown and Rosedale neighbourhoods.