The spectre of genetic experimentation forms the crux of Vincenzo Natali’s new film Splice, currently shooting in Toronto.

‘This is the film I’ve been planning to do ever since Cube,’ says the Toronto-based filmmaker. When that film came out in 1997, it became an instant cult hit – a film about a despairing, dystopic future. Splice, cowritten by Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor, holds out similar hope for the years to come.

Set in the near-future, Splice stars Sarah Polley and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as a hot-shot scientist couple. The pair mess with genetic engineering as a way of making money for a pharmaceutical firm. But when the two want to create a whole new human-animal hybrid, the company says it’s not interested. The couple decide to clandestinely create an entire new being on their own, with disastrous results.

‘I was inspired with this idea when, in the mid-’90s, scientists used human and mouse genes and created a mouse that had a human ear on its back. To me, it seemed the perfect intersection of science and the surreal. It reminds me of Salvador Dali, in a sense,’ says Natali.

Principal photography for the $27-million picture began on Dec. 3 and runs until Feb. 29. It is a France/Canada copro, produced by Steven Hoban of Toronto-based Copperheart Entertainment and exec produced by Sidonie Dumas, Franck Chorot and Christophe Riandee of Gaumont Films. Guillermo del Toro, Don Murphy and Susan Montford of Angry Bull also serve as exec producers.

Hoban argues that part of the reason Splice took a decade to get to production is because it was such an ambitious idea in the first place. ‘It was ahead of its time in terms of the technology,’ he says. ‘Now, with the advances in CGI, the things that Vincenzo has imagined will be possible to create on screen.’

As well, Hoban says that some distributors and producers were wary of the script, due in part to some of its sexual content, as well as its dark tone. ‘Oddly enough, it was some of the Canadians who weren’t sure about going ahead with it. The Americans we approached didn’t say anything about it. Since 9/11, darker screenplays are much more acceptable with many of the American distributors.’

Natali says that, at mid-shoot, he can’t believe his good luck. ‘When I look at my cast I’m just overwhelmed. I couldn’t have hoped for a better one. They are doing an incredible job, bringing a whole other dimension to the script. We had a great script to begin with – now it’s just getting better.’

With cinematography by Tetsuo Nagata (La vie en rose, Paris, je t’aime), Splice is produced with assistance from Telefilm Canada and the Ontario Media Development Corporation. Visual effects will be created by CORE Digital Pictures (Silent Hill, The Tudors), with special makeup effects by KNB FX Group. Splice will be released in 2009 and will be distributed by Seville Pictures in Canada, with international sales by Gaumont.