Director Kiah Roache-Turner‘s Australian zombie movie Wyrmwood, a.k.a. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, earned an 8/10 review from our own Jake Dee when it was released in 2015. Six years later, XYZ Film is now presenting the sequel, Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, to potential distributors at the American Film Market. XYZ will be releasing Wyrmwood: Apocalypse on their own in the United States sometime in 2022.
Scripted by Kiah and his brother Tristan Roache-Turner, Wyrmwood: Apocalypse follows
Rhys, a soldier in a zombie-infested Australian wasteland who has dedicated his life to tracking and capturing survivors for the Surgeon General in hopes of finding a cure. Rhys teams up with a group of super-powered survivors to save a young woman from death by military experimentation.
Luke Mckenzie, Shantae Barnes-Cowan, Tasia Zalar, Jake Ryan, Nicholas Boshier, Jay Gallagher, and Bianca Bradey star.
Studiocanal will be releasing Wyrmwood: Apocalypse in Australia in February or March of next year, before the U.S. release. Content Cafe reports that the filmmakers wanted to make sure the film would be released in Australia first, because Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead was hit hard by piracy when it was released digitally in the U.S. months before it was released in Australia. Australian genre fans were not happy they had to wait longer than other countries to see a movie that was made in their country. So that issue is being avoided this time around.
Kiah Roache-Turner had this to say about Wyrmwood: Apocalypse:
If the first one was like Mad Max, the second had to be Mad Max 2: bigger, bolder and genuinely pumping, with zombies, car chases, explosions and a giant cyborg. It’s basically the film we wanted to make in 2014 but didn’t have the money.”
Co-funded by Screen Australia and Screen NSW, the sequel was produced by Guerilla Films’ Tristan Roache-Turner and Bronte Pictures’ Blake Northfield.
If Wyrmwood: Apocalypse is successful, Kiah Roache-Turner has plans to make a third film in the franchise.
I’m already writing it in my head. We’d be crazy not to repeat this as soon as possible.”
A short teaser for Wyrmwood: Apocalypse can be seen below: