Director Duncan Jones released Warcraft earlier this year, but the initial plan was to first made a smaller-scale indie sci-fi film called Mute. “It was meant to be my very first film, and it was just a little too ambitious in scale back then,” he told Collider previously. “Now, I can do it, so that’s really good fun.” Now, just about three months since Warcraft hit theaters, production on Mute will finally commence.
Jones announced over Twitter that filming will commence one week from today in Berlin, as well as posting a piece of previously released concept art. Ant-Man’s Paul Rudd and Tarzan’s Alexander Skarsgard star in Mute, which is described as follows:
Berlin. Forty years from today. A roiling city of immigrants, where East crashes against West in a science-fiction Casablanca. Leo Beiler (Alexander Skarsgard), a mute bartender has one reason and one reason only for living here, and she’s disappeared. But when Leo’s search takes him deeper into the city’s underbelly, an odd pair of American surgeons (led by Paul Rudd) seem to be the only recurring clue, and Leo can’t tell if they can help, or who he should fear most.
Mute is part of Jones’ Moon trilogy, which began with his eponymous debut film, starring Sam Rockwell, from 2009. It was then followed up by Source Code in 2011 starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and before the filmmaker could complete the trilogy, he became wrapped up in the fantasy world of Warcraft. Some concept art for the film was released back in 2009, but Jones previously mentioned 14 years in describing how long Mute has been in the works.
Jones further described the film to Empire magazine as “a thriller with a very weird tone. It goes very dark, then it also goes very darkly funny. It’s science-fiction urban, so it certainly owes some of its influence to Blade Runner.”
