While the producers of the planned documentary on George Miller’s aborted superhero adventure Justice League Mortal await approval from Warner Bros., director Ryan Unicomb is pressing ahead with his first narrative feature.
A sci-fi thriller scripted by New York based J.E. (Janet) Clarke, Stream follows Dr Saul Aaron, who invents technology which makes telepathy possible. The key question: Is the invention a path into the world of the mind or a glimpse into something far stranger?
Unicomb and the producers, Purryburry Productions' Aaron Cater and Steven Caldwell of Caldwell Entertainment, are keen for Rutger Hauer to play the lead but there is no deal yet.
David Breen has agreed to play a lab assistant to Dr Aaron, with whom there is a deep trust on a project most others deem a waste of time.
The plan is to shoot in Brisbane and the Gold Coat in the second quarter of 2016 with Andrew Conder (Bullets for the Dead, Red Billabong) as the DoP. JMB FX Studios will build the machine at the centre of the plot.
Purryburry and Caldwell collaborated last year on Gifted, a short co-directed by Unicomb and Jordan Bailey, which followed the rise and fall of the world’s first superhero Guardian and featured Breen, Cameron Robbie, Rachel Gobel, Brad Kendrick, Nic Hamilton and Wade Boyes.
Producers Kennedy Miller Mitchell advised the filmmakers to reach out to WB, which owns the rights to the DC Comics characters that would feature in the documentary.
“We decided that instead of just sitting on our hands waiting to hear back from Warner Bros and everyone involved in the Justice League Mortal documentary that we would push ahead with Stream," Unicomb tells IF. “Janet is a very talented writer. I’m excited to get started.
“We waited to find the right screenplay for our debut feature. Seeing smaller films like Infini and The Suicide Theory succeed overseas has been a real inspiration for us to push ahead.”