A short movie depicting a telekinetic man’s battles against robotic police droids in a near future dystopia is about to get a whole lot longer.
Ricardo de Montreuil’s short film The Raven appeared on the internet back in April, and won acclaim from all quarters. Now the movie, which was filmed in two days and cost just $5,000 to make, has attracted the attention of Universal Studios, who wants to expand it into a full length feature film.
In The Raven, Chris Black is on the run from the authorities in a futuristic Los Angeles. Black has telekinetic powers that – according to the film makers – could lead to the destruction of the current regime, and so is marked for death and relentlessly pursued. Black is forced to use his powers to defend himself, ending with him building up a massive surge at the end of the short.
It seems like a safe bet that the short was meant to be a movie pitch, much like the impressive Mortal Kombat short from last month. The pitch was clearly successful, which hopefully means that in a year or two we’ll have an exciting new sci-fi movie to watch.
Universal is apparently talking to Mark Wahlberg to produce and star in the big screen version, with de Montreuil directing and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li writer Justin Marks working on the script. This will be de Montreuil’s first Hollywood movie, although he has a number of other short films and two Spanish language feature films under his belt.
Source: Latino Review via io9
