Filming has begun on DEATHGASM director Jason Lei Howden's GUNS AKIMBO, a project we first heard about just a couple weeks shy of one year ago, at which time Daniel Radcliffe had signed on to star in the film. Now that cameras are rolling, it has been revealed that Radcliffe is being joined in the cast by Samara Weaving, an actress who is quickly establishing herself as a genre regular. In recent years she has had roles in Ash vs. Evil Dead, THE BABYSITTER (pictured above), and MAYHEM.
Details on Weaving's character have not been shared, but we do know that Radcliffe is playing
Miles, who spends his days in a dead-end job, pining for his beautiful ex-girlfriend Nova. His mundane existence is turned upside-down when he finds himself enrolled on a dark net website that forces complete strangers to fight in a city-wide game of death so that their gladiatorial battles can be live-streamed worldwide to a fanatical audience.
Contestants are chosen by a clandestine gang known as Schism, who handicap the weaker contestant to further stack the odds against them. Initially, Miles’ lifetime of running from his problems pays off as he manages to elude his first opponent but when Nova is kidnapped, he must finally stop running and overcome his fears to fight for the girl he loves.
I'm assuming Weaving has been cast as Nova.
Described as an "adrenaline-fuelled, balls-to-the-wall original action comedy", GUNS AKIMBO is currently filming in Auckland, New Zealand. Production will also take place in Munich, Germany.
Radcliffe has said that he is "massively excited" to be working on GUNS AKIMBO:
Jason Lei Howden has written a brilliant and delightfully insane script, and working with him as director and alongside the fantastic Samara Weaving to bring it to life is going to be a lot of fun. If you see me around Auckland looking very worse for wear and covered in blood and bruises, don't worry, this is probably for filming."
Joe Neurauter and Felipe Marino of Occupant Entertainment are producing the film with Tom Hern of Four Knights Film. Philipp Kreuzer and Joerg Schulze of Maze Pictures are co-producing, with Hyperion Entertainment's Michael Mailis, Electric Shadow's Jay Taylor and John Jencks, Miscellaneous Entertainment's Joe Simpson, Umedia's Adrian Politowski and Bastien Sirodot, Koch Films' Stefan Kapelari and Mortiz Peters, and Altitude Films' Will Clarke and Andy Mayson serving as executive producers. Pump Metal Films and Ingenious Media are also behind the production, which has the support of the German Federal Film Fund, the FilmFernsehfonds Bayern, and the New Zealand Film Commission.
After DEATHGASM, I'm guaranteed to see anything Howden makes, but this sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun, especially with Radcliffe and Weaving as the leads.