The Solutrean, which will be the first film to come out of the Sony-owned Studio 8, has finished up casting. Kodi-Smit McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) will star in the film, with Jóhannes Haukur Johannesson (A.D. The Bible Continues), Jens Hultén (Skyfall), Natasha Wilson (Darc), Marcin Kowalczyk (The Lure) and Spencer Bogaert (Vincent) also joining the cast.
Directed by Albert Hughes, the movie will detail the story of a hunting expedition gone horribly wrong, with its lead characters on an epic mission of survival to make it back home amidst a harsh and brutal landscape. Specifically, the title “Solutrean” is a nod to a hypothesis written by scholars who believe that Europeans settled America somewhere around 20,000 years ago.
The genesis of the project? Hughes came up with the idea and went to Studio 8’s Jeff Robinov who, in a previous incarnation, represented the filmmaker when the latter was an agent at ICM. Hughes brought Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt on board to write the spec screenplay, which Studio 8 then optioned. Hughes is producing it with Andrew Rona and they also previously worked together when Rona was president of Silver Pictures and Hughes directed the company’s Book of Eli.
The Solutrean will begin shooting as early as Monday in the appropriately wintry conditions of Canada and Iceland. The filmmakers are said to be looking to produce a large-scale flick, with the studio planning to take advantage of the IMAX-3D format. No specific release date was given, but we’ll let you know when we hear more.
