Killer wasps, a potential global outbreak, and Samara Weaving trying to keep the whole thing from spiraling into catastrophe? That sounds like a pretty fun recipe for a creature thriller.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) and Nicholas Braun (Succession) are set to star in Hivemind, a new environmental thriller that is currently filming in Dublin. Ciarán Foy, the Irish filmmaker whose credits include Citadel, Sinister 2, and Eli, is directing.
The movie follows the emergence of a newly evolved breed of killer wasps that poses a much bigger threat than anyone initially expected. With the possibility of a deadly outbreak spreading around the world, authorities in a small town are forced to work together to contain the threat before things get completely out of control.
It sounds like Hivemind could land somewhere between a creature feature and an outbreak thriller, which is a combination I can get behind. Killer wasps are already nasty little monsters without giving them an evolutionary upgrade.
The screenplay comes from Peter Gaffney, whose credits include Yeti and Don’t Go in the Water. Badlands acquired Gaffney’s spec script last year, and the project has since picked up some serious momentum.
Amazon MGM Studios has now boarded Hivemind and plans to release the film internationally on Prime Video.
Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, and Diarmaid McGrath are producing for Thunder Road alongside Scott Strauss for Badlands, Macdara Kelleher and John Keville for Wild Atlantic Pictures, Adam Rodin, and Gaffney.
Weaving has plenty going on right now. She’s been cast as Emma Frost in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men movie and recently returned to the horror-comedy franchise that helped make her such a great genre favorite with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.
She also appeared this year in IFC’s Over Your Dead Body, directed by Jorma Taccone, which won the Audience Award at SXSW, as well as Magnolia’s romantic crime thriller Carolina Caroline from Adam Carter Rehmeier.
Braun is best known for playing Cousin Greg on HBO’s Succession, a role that earned him three Emmy nominations. More recently, he appeared in Amazon MGM’s comedy The Sheep Detectives. He’s also set to appear in The Entertainment System Is Down from Ruben Östlund.
There’s plenty of room for Hivemind to have some nasty fun with its premise. Weaving has proven repeatedly that she can carry horror movies that mix intensity with a little insanity, while Braun brings a very different energy that could make the pairing interesting.
