Ash, the next science fiction horror thriller directed by Flying Lotus, will feature Tessa Thompson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus, is an American record producer, musician, and filmmaker, and this will be his second feature film as director. According to Deadline, South African science fiction filmmaker Neill Blomkamp has joined the project as an executive producer, and he has cast Thompson and Gordon-Levitt in the lead roles (District 9). “An absolute dream come true to cooperate with some of the most gifted performers out there,” Flying Lotus said of the casting. Gordon-Levitt will portray the man who saves Thompson’s character when she awakens on an unknown world to discover the crew of her space station killed.
But things aren’t what they appear, and her saviour begins to fear she may have been complicit in the terrible murders of her crew. As a result of their inquiry, a nightmare scenario unfolds that they must both escape. The multi-talented Flying Lotus has not only recorded seven studio albums but his music can also be heard on the interstitial bumpers of Adult Swim and in the 2018 science fiction film Perfect and the 2021 anime series Yasuke. Kuso, his first feature as director, is a post-apocalyptic body horror comedy that had its world premiere at Sundance in 2017, and next month, his segment of V/H/S/99, the latest instalment of the lo-fi found-footage horror anthology series, will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Thompson had a busy summer, reprising her roles as Valkyrie in Thor: Love and Thunder and Charlotte Hale/Dolores Abernathy on the just finished the fourth season of Westworld. In 2023’s Creed III, she’ll be back as Bianca Taylor, Adonis Creed’s wife.
Gordon-Levitt will be heard as Jiminy Cricket in Disney Plus’ forthcoming live-action Pinocchio remake, and he recently featured as Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick in the first season of Showtime’s Super Pumped. This past year saw the release of Blomkamp’s fourth feature film, the science fiction horror film Demonic. Ash will be co-produced by XYZ Films (an American independent studio) and GFC Films (located in Auckland, New Zealand), with Blomkamp and Echo Lake Entertainment (also American) serving as executive producers. Jonni Remmler wrote the original script for this. Flying Lotus is not only the film’s director but also its composer. A month from now at TIFF, XYZ Films will be shopping it across the world. New Zealand is set to begin producing ash in the coming year.