J.T. Petty teams with David S. Goyer for missing child film Appetite

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

J.T. Petty has had an interesting career over the last couple decades, directing horror films like SOFT FOR DIGGING, MIMIC: SENTINEL, S&MAN, THE BURROWERS, and HELLBENDERS, while also branching out into the video game world to script games, including Batman: Vengeance, Splinter Cell, Outlast, The Walking Dead: Season Two, and the BATMAN BEGINS tie-in game. It's been a few years since Petty's last directorial effort, but he has a new film project set up now – and this one involves him teaming up with BATMAN BEGINS co-writer David S. Goyer. 

Goyer and Keith Levine will be producing Petty's new film APPETITE through their company Phantom Four. Petty has written the screenplay for the "missing persons thriller", which tells the story of 

a mother who investigates her daughter’s disappearance leading to inexplicable and terrible consequences.

Productivity Media is fully financing the project. CAA Media Finance arranged the financing and will be representing APPETITE's domestic rights, while Celsius Entertainment will bring it to potential international distributors.

Goyer says, 

J.T. has crafted a unique vision that completely upends the missing child genre in a fresh and unpredictable way. We are excited to help him bring to life this truly original tale."

I look forward to finding out what sort of "fresh and unpredictable" ideas Petty has brought to the concept. Who has an "appetite" in this story, and for what? 

The casting process is now underway, as APPETITE is expected to begin filming in the first quarter of 2020.

In 2015, Petty made a VR series called Gone, which was about a couple whose child vanished (that's why the image is at the head of this article), so it's intriguing that he is already going back to the "missing child genre". Goyer has been one of the biggest names in the screenwriting industry since the '90s. His most recent writing credit was on TERMINATOR: DARK FATE.