Genre regular Asia Argento, daughter of the legendary Dario Argento, has signed on to star in the French-language supernatural thriller Interstate (La Saveur De La Mort), which has been scripted by The Shallows writer Anthony Jaswinski. Argento’s co-stars will include rapper JoeyStarr (Polisse) and Riccardo Scamarcio (John Wick: Chapter 2).
Jean Luc Herbulot, whose Senegalese action film Saloum will be showing at the Toronto International Film Festival this month, is attached to direct Interstate, which is expected to begin filming this winter. It’s aiming for a late 2022 release.
The story Jaswinski crafted is about what happens when
a hitman (JoeyStarr), facing an existential crisis, decides to exit the game and leave town with the woman he loves, but his plans are disrupted by a mysterious young man and his ruthless former boss.
That sounds like a straightforward crime thriller, and the sort of crime thriller we’ve already seen many times over, but the Deadline report assures there’s a supernatural element somewhere in there.
Interstate is being produced by Jean-Jacques Neira for Fontana, Christophe Mazodier for Polaris Films, and Hicham Benkirane for HBK F.C. Matt Smith and Lawrence Mattis of Circle of Confusion and Todd Brown and Maxime Cottray of XYZ Films serve as executive producers. The film has already secured distribution from KMBO Distribution in France and Belga in Belgium. XYZ will be presenting the project to other potential distributors at the Toronto market.
Asia Argento’s previous genre credits include Demons 2, The Church, Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome, The Phantom of the Opera (1998), Mother of Tears, Dracula 3D, and George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead. Her father was involved with nearly all of those, either as director or producer.
In addition to The Shallows, Jaswinski has also written Backwoods, Vanishing on 7th Street, Kristy, Satanic, and Mary.