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The directing duo of Jen and Sylvia Soska has come on board to direct a remake of David Cronenberg’s zombie thriller “Rabid,” Variety has learned.

John Vidette’s Somerville House Releasing has entered into a joint venture with Paul Lalonde and Michael Walker to produce a feature film and original TV series based on the 1977 Canadian horror film.

“Rabid” starred Marilyn Chambers, who was attempting to move from her successful career as a pornographic actress into the mainstream. The film explored the world of experimental plastic surgery with Chambers playing a woman injured in a motorcycle accident who underwent a surgical operation and developed a stinger that she used to feed on people’s blood — triggering an outbreak of a rabies-like epidemic that turned its victims into bloodthirsty zombies…

Filming has wrapped on the largest ever Chinese-Australian co-production at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast.

The 3-D Movie, Nest, stars Chinese megastar Li Bingbing, Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga, Expendables 3), Kelsey Grammer (Transformers), Stef Dawson (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay), Chinese popstar and actor Wu Chun and Shane Jacobson (The Dressmaker, Oddball, Kenny).

‘Vital Signs,’ the technology giant’s inaugural original, is described as a dark semi-autobiographical drama (featuring at least one orgy scene).

Apple is making its first original television show.The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the technology giant is backing a top-secret scripted series starring one of its own executives, Beats co-founder and rap legend Dr. Dre.

Multiple sources say the 50-year-old mogul is starring in and executive producing his own six-episode vehicle, dubbed Vital Signs, and the production is being bankrolled by Apple. The series likely will be distributed via Apple Music, the company’s subscription streaming site, but it’s not clear if Apple TV, the iTunes store or other Apple platforms (or even a traditional television distributor) will be involved. Apple and a rep for Dre declined to comment.

Those who have seen descriptions of the Dr. Dre show say it is billed as semi-autobiographical, with each episode focusing on a different emotion and how Dre’s character deals with it. Sources say that Sam Rockwell and Mo McRae (Murder in the First) are among the additional cast.

While technically a half-hour, the show is not a comedy. Instead, it is described as a dark drama with no shortage of violence and sex. In fact, an episode filming Monday and Tuesday this week featured an extended orgy scene. Sources tell THR that naked extras simulated sex in a mansion in the Bird Streets neighborhood of Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills. (Dre’s wife Nicole Young was on set to witness the shenanigans, one insider says.)

Veteran music video director Paul Hunter is helming Vital Signs, which is also being produced under his Eye Candy banner alongside producers Aaron Ginsburg and William Green. Empire co-exec producer-writer Robert Munic was hand-picked by Dre to write all six episodes and exec produce. The first season will roll out all at once, regardless of venue, a la Netflix. Apple is said to be very bullish on the project.

“Taken” star to play wife of Scoot McNairy in thriller from producer Darren Aronofsky

Maggie Grace has booked a lead in Lionsgate’s “478,” the revenge thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Scoot McNairy.

The film, directed by Elliott Lester and produced byDarren Aronofsky‘s Protozoa Pictures, follows a man (Schwarzenegger) who loses his wife and children in a plane crash. The air traffic controller (McNairy) responsible for the disaster becomes the grieving man’s target. Grace will play the controller’s wife.

The American Film Market title is currently in production in Ohio. Scott Franklin and Eric Watson join Aronofsky as producers. Emmett Furla Oasis Films is on board as financier.

Starz is looking to boost its profile with Latino viewers. The premium cabler has set three development prospects revolving around Hispanic themes and creative auspices that include Televisa USA and “The Blair Witch Project’s” Haxan Films.

The focus on Hispanic audiences comes after Starz has found broad success with shows rooted in African-American experiences, including the drama “Power,” which ranks as Starz’s most-watched original series, and comedy “Survivor’s Remorse.”

Voltage Pictures has cast Alison Brie and Gretchen Mol opposite Gerard Butler, Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina in workplace drama “The Headhunter’s Calling.”

Principal photography started Tuesday on the film, with Mark Williams directing from Bill Dubuque’s script. The story centers on a ruthless headhunter who’s on his way to taking over the company when his 10-year-old son falls ill and his personal and professional priorities clash.

Mol is playing the spouse of Butler’s character and Brie will play his workplace rival.

Producers are Nicolas Chartier, Craig Flores, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Mark Williams and Patrick Newall. Danielle Robinson, Jonathan Deckter and Dan Bekerman will serve as executive producers.

Dubuque wrote the screenplays for “The Judge,” “The Accountant” and the upcoming “The Real McCoy,” starring Chris Pratt.

Voltage launched sales on the film in Toronto, selling it to Square One in Germany, Eagle Pictures in Italy, California Films in Latin America, Innopia in Spain, Gulf in the Middle East, Ascot Elite in Switzerland, EIM for Airlines, Star TV for Pan Asia PTV, Tanweer for Turkey and Greece, Shoval for Israel, IPA for Thailand and Pioneer in the Phillipines.

Voltage will continue to actively sell international rights at the American Film Market next month. CAA will be handling the U.S. sales.

Mol recently wrapped “Manchester-By-the-Sea” alongside Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck, and “Anesthia” with Kristen Stewart and Glenn Close. She is represented by ICM Partners and John Carrabino Management.

Brie will next star in Warner Bros.’ “How to Be Single” opposite Rebel Wilson, Dakota Johnson and Leslie Mann. She recently starred in “Sleeping with Other People.” She is represented by WME Entertainment.

#ZeroGravityManagement #BillDubuque #HeadhuntersCalling #MarkWilliams #GerardButler #AlfredMolina #GretchenMol

EXCLUSIVE: Company will also launch new films from Lee Tamahori, Bouli Lanners and Sylvie Verheyde at AFM.

Pieter Van Hees will direct the story about the infamous axe murders of the Borden family.

Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart will help tell the tale of Lizzie Borden.

Pieter Van Hees, who helmed the 2014 film Waste Land, will direct the new untitled psychological thriller about the grisly murders of the Borden family. Bryce Kass will write the script.

Sevigny will play Borden, the strange and fragile woman who was infamously tried and acquitted for murdering her father and stepmother with an ax in 1892. The film will explore the events that led up to that night.

Stewart, who is in early negotiations, will play the Bordens’ live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan. Sullivan was a witness to the family tension, and may have been in the home when the murders were committed. She testified at the trial.

The crime was salacious and notorious for the age, inspiring children’s rhymes such as: “Lizzie Borden took an ax/and gave her mother 40 whacks/when the job was finally done/gave her father 41.” It also spawned many theories about who committed the murders and why; one theory insinuates that Borden and Sullivan were lovers.

Naomi Despres (Kill the Messenger) is producing, while Playtone is executive producing. The Solution is selling the project, which has no start date, at the upcoming American Film Market. WME is repping domestically. Borden’s tale has been adapted for TV and film, most recently the 2014 TV movie starring Christina Ricci.

Sevigny, who was previously attached to a Lizzie Borden project at HBO, starred on FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum and American Horror Story: Hotel. She won a Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her work on HBO’s Big Love, and her other credits include Bloodline, Portlandia and the film Electric Slide. She’s repped by WME and Brillstein Entertainment.

Since Twilight, Stewart has focused on indie fare, including Equals, the Drake Doremus film that premiered at Venice and then Toronto. Among her other recent credits are American Ultra, Still Aliceand Clouds of Sils Maria, for which she received a Cesar award (France’s equivalent for the Oscar). She has a slew of projects coming up including a Woody Allen film and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, directed by Ang Lee. She’s repped by Gersh and McKuin Frankel Whitehead.

Kass is repped by Principato-Young Entertainment. Van Hees is repped by Zero Gravity Management.

#PieterVanHees #LizzieBorden #KristenStewart #ChloeSevigny #ZeroGravityManagement

Beasts of No Nation, ​which is being distributed by Netflix on October 16, is the most brutal war film in recent memory. It tells the story of boy soldiers used in the wars of West Africa, and virtually every scene is heartbreaking. Agu, a child of perhaps 10 or 11, flees his home after government forces shoot his family in front of him and he only barely manages to escape into the bush. There he is discovered by the forces of the man they call the Commandant, played by Elba with fascinating menace. Idris Elba’s performance is his masterpiece. He uses the intense glamour he possesses to portray a monster of glamour—a man whom children will follow into hell while starving. Initiated into a roving band of boy soldiers, Agu is trained to kill by exposure to horror. The boy soldiers, with their strange spells and their drugs and their love of machines, are based on real events, but they are reminiscent of nothing so much as the fantastical War Boys from Mad Max: Fury Road. They act as if they are already dead. In a sense, they are.

#BeastofNoNation #IdrisElba #CaryFukunaga