Tessa Thompson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will star in Flying Lotus' upcoming science fiction horror thriller Ash. It will be the second directorial effort from producer/musician/filmmaker Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus. Deadline reports that Thompson and Gordon-Levitt are now attached to the picture, which will now be executive produced by South African science fiction director Niell Blomkamp (District 9). Flying Lotus stated that the casting is "an absolute dream come true to collaborate with some of the most talented actors out there!"
Thompson will play a woman who wakes up on an alien planet and finds the crew of her space station have been slaughtered; Gordon-Levitt plays the man who rescues her. However, all is not apparently as it seems; she may not be able to trust her rescuer, and he comes to suspect she may have been involved in the horrific deaths of her crew. Their investigation sets off a nightmarish chain of events that both must survive.
The multi-hyphenate Flying Lotus has released seven studio albums, and has scored a number of projects, including 2018 sci-fi film Perfect and 2021 anime series Yasuke; his music can also be heard on Adult Swim's interstitial bumpers. His first feature as director, the post-apocalyptic body horror comedy Kuso, premiered at Sundance in 2017, and his segment of V/H/S/99, the latest installment of the lo-fi found-footage horror anthology series, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
Thompson has had a busy summer, as she reprised her roles as Valkyrie in Thor: Love and Thunder, and as Charlotte Hale/Dolores Abernathy on the just-concluded fourth season of Westworld. She will be seen next in 2023's Creed III, reprising her role as Adonis Creed's wife Bianca Taylor. Gordon-Levitt recently starred as Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick in the first season of Showtime's Super Pumped, and can be heard as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney Plus' upcoming live-action Pinocchio remake. Blomkamp's science-fiction horror movie Demonic, his fourth feature as director, debuted last year.
Ash will be produced by American independent studio XYZ Films and Auckland, New Zealand-based production company GFC Films; Blomkamp and American production company Echo Lake Entertainment will executive produce. The original script is by Jonni Remmler. In addition to directing, Flying Lotus will also compose the film's score. It will be shopped for worldwide sales by XYZ Films at TIFF next month.
Ash will go into production in New Zealand next year.