Mark Coles Smith, Sam Delich, and Lee Tiger Halley will play WWII soldiers hunted by a great white shark in Kiah Roache-Turner’s Beast Of War, which has commenced production across NSW and Queensland.
Roache-Turner wrote the story, which centres on a warship carrying hundreds of Australian soldiers across the Timor Sea in 1942. After an attack by Japanese bombers, the ocean becomes a hellscape of steel, fire, oil, and blood.
With their vessel destroyed, a handful of soldiers construct a makeshift raft from floating debris, clinging to their lives amidst rising tensions. However, their greatest battle is yet to come as a great white shark, drawn to the scent of blood, hunts them in the wreckage below.
Smith, Delich, and Halley are joined in the main cast by Sam Parsonson, Maximillian Johnson, Tristan McKinnon, Steve Le Marquand, and newcomer Joel Nankervis.
Bronte Pictures’ Blake Northfield and Pictures in Paradise’s Chris Brown are producing the film, with assistance from Mind the Gap film financing. Shooting will take place in the sub-tropical region of New South Wales’ Northern Rivers and Screen Queensland Studios, Brisbane, where production has built Australia’s largest indoor water tank.
There are also contributions from FX, animation, and virtual production studios Model Farm, which will use volume screens to bring the open ocean to life, and Formation Effects director Steven Boyle, who is supplying the creature effects. Other crew include DOP Mark Wareham, production designer Esther Rosenberg, 1st AD Jamie Crooks, gaffer Storm Ashwood, and costume designer Tracey Rose Sparke.
Screen NSW is backing the production via the Regional Filming Fund, while also supporting post, digital, and visual effects.
Cornerstone Films launched Beast of War for sales at last year’s American Film Market, securing distribution deals with Signature Entertainment in the UK and Well Go in North America. Other territories include Dea Planeta (Spain), Just Entertainment (Benelux), NOS (Portugal), GPI (Baltics), Capella (CIS), TVN (Poland), Karpat Media (Romania & Hungary), Italia Film (Middle East), Tanweer (Turkey), and Filmfinity (South Africa). The film will be distributed by Galaxy Pictures in Australia and New Zealand.