It’s been almost one full year since Shane Abbess’ Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child made its world premiere at Fantastic Fest late September 2016. Whether there was something in the air at the fest, or simply the joy of seeing this retro styled sci-fi spectacle on the big screen among hundreds of genre fans, I can’t tell. But I loved Abbess’ film (check out our glowing review here), and when I say that, when the film ended, I was screaming for more, that’s not some witty outro – I was literally screaming for more. And if you love ’80s inspired action epics, and ones that have a great story and characters in addition to showy visuals (key distinction there), you will, too!
We recently caught up with Shane to talk about his film. In our hour-long session, we talked about everything from production design, to music, even that awesome looking EXOr logo. Abbess also discussed the economy of the film – the team’s efforts getting shots both done in budget in a timely manner – which is odd because, aside from a handful of scenes, you’d expect that he had the luxury of resources to build this fascinating world. All in all, the film was a labor of love for all involved, and the proof is on the screen.
Culled from favorite childhood films, cherry-picked tropes from specific genres, and aimed at giving the audience things they’ve never seen before, the result of Abbess’ work is one of the most impressive sci-fi films of this decade. A long time coming for those of you who missed it on the festival circuit, but this ambitious sci-fi gem is making its stateside theatrical debut on October 6.
Enjoy the entirety of our time with writer/director Shane Abbess.
GoSeeTalk: Shane, glad to finally be speaking with you. It should be no surprise to you that we’re huge fans of the film.
Shane Abbess: Oh, I know! [laughs] I remember your review of it very, very well. Your Fantastic Fest review (which ran over at TheFilmStage) became a bit of a theme for us. After you do a film, and everyone sees it, you think, “I hope someone gets it because it’s literally been years of our lives working on it.”
You just hope someone understands what that was. We saw your and others’ tweets about it at the world premiere, and we were thrilled. But shortly after that, your review went up and I was sitting at Shake Shack reading it with Dan MacPherson, and he got very emotional because of all the work we put into it. It was your review that really told us we did our job right and you really, really got the film. It was amazing, so thank you for that!
That means a lot. I can tell that this was a labor of love, and thanks for allowing my pull quote to grace the poster. [laughs]
You and the team have shown us how great you are at world building, but you still keep the focus of the story small and relateable. One of the more noteworthy components is the dynamic between the three leads. Maybe it’s because I have a two year old girl, but I gravitated to Indi and Kane. But I also loved how Sy fit into that. What did you want the focus to be?
Well, a lot of our choices were based on money and time. It was a great challenge because the budget was tight, and so was the schedule. But I always knew I wanted to focus more on the characters and the moments rather than the spectacle.
So even though we have some really cool things in the film, I spent a lot more time than other films would just focusing on these characters to find out who these people are in the truth of their moments. And all the actors were very committed to wanting to pull that off. It was tough to juggle that across the course of the film because of the chapters, and because we shot things out of order.
Things were all over the place, but my fantasy was that when you got it on Blu-Ray, you could literally watch it in ten different ways, and get a different experience each time.
Christopher Nolan and Nacho Vigalondo had done that, respectfully, with Memento and Timecrimes. But they also believe that audiences are smarter than we get credit for, so spelling things out for them isn’t entirely necessary.
True, but we really chopped it up, and when we showed it to audiences they thought it was too crazy. They couldn’t get their heads around it, so [laughs] we made a more streamlined version like it is now. It’s still in chapters, but it’s a lot easier to digest.
When you’ve gotten to the core of a character, you get to the meat of their moments, and
you’ve identified them down to their connective tissue. You know who these people are and you can jump around with them without fear of losing the audience. You don’t have to follow them from point A to point B – you can go from A to G to Zed in three chapters – and that was helpful for the actors as well because we would have to talk a lot about what would happen between the moments and hope that the audience was smart enough or invested enough to fill in the blanks.
It was a big challenge when you have actors with different styles they drew from, especially Teagan Croft who’s never done a film before in her life. Kellan Lutz has come off all these action movies, and I didn’t want any of that – I wanted to get to Kellan’s soul and heart. Then you have Dan who is a very committed person and he’s climbed his way through the ranks. They are all at different points in their career, and it was really wonderful working in this [laughs] Bermuda Triangle of talent.
Let’s break down some of the varied but talented supporting cast. There were plenty of outlandish characters who served as the back drop to the more centered and focused players.
Rachel Griffiths is a tremendous dramatic actor, and I loved the notion of her doing a sci-fi film. She added a real kudos to the film, and we were like, “If Rachel
Griffiths is doing it, we must have something real fun here.” She’s got a great energy about her, and she’s a Golden Globe-winner and Oscar-nominee. So we knew she added a certain weight to the character.
As for Temura Morrison, I’ve loved that guy since Once Were Warriors, and I’ve seen all the films he’s done since, but I felt that none of them gave him the room or space to let him get back to those warrior roots he brought to that great role. So I really wanted to give him a playing field to explore to do just that.
Bren Foster I’ve known for a while and he’s a good friend of mine. He’d done Infini with me and he’s one of the most elite martial artists in the world. The Discovery Channel did a special on him and he can strike with more pounds per square inch than a tiger! Everyone casts him as a fighter, but I really wanted to give him a big challenge playing a crazy character, and he went for it. I always want actors to explore their characters.
As far as crazy, it’s hard to get more over-the-top than Isabel Lucas or Luke Ford in this film.
She’s one that really impressed me. I had given Isabel a bunch of tattoos, but I told her to show me her interpretation of the ballpark of ideas I’d given her. So she sat in makeup for three hours and talked through all the tattoos on her body and what
they meant to her, as well as the coat she wanted to have and wanting to shave half her head. She would tell me many times along the way, “This is who the character is to me. What do you think?” And we went with most of her ideas. It was perfect.
That’s what you find though. Most of the time, actors want to let loose, and be free, and be supported. Often times, they’re not really allowed to. They’re treated like cattle – hit your mark, say your line, and go home. So they were very excited to be able to come and really play. They were able to own their character, and take them home.
Luke Ford is one of the best actors out of Australia. He doesn’t like to wrap the character on the set – he likes to take it home and have a burial. [laughs] It’s an interesting process, but it’s all supporting and loving and it’s how we got everyone involved. It was empowering.
I was really surprised by Sy’s arc. Kellan Lutz brought a whole different level to the film. His reason for looking after Indi was so emotional. How was it working with a first-time child actor among all these adults?
Kellan grew a lot as an actor, and we wanted his character to be his own. We pushed him a lot, and it was very confrontational
at times, but he responded very well. By the time we got to the end, he was a very different actor. He was very raw, and very spontaneous. The process changed him for the better.
For about 99% of the film, Teagan is not acting. She’s 11 years old and she’s just reacting to what’s happening. She’s not drawing from years of experience, so everything is in the moment and responding to what’s happening in front of her.
It’s difficult for her because she’s not an adult who’s made the choice to become an actor. The scenes with her at the end are so raw that we have to talk with her after each scene – and her Mom was there, too – just to make sure she understood there was a big difference between real and not. But when you get to a moment of truth like that, it’s beautiful. It’s the art form at its best when the character owns you completely and it reacts for you.
I’m sure you have plenty of heartfelt, funny and memorable stories. Any that really stand out?
This might be the first time I’ve told this, but we were on the shore shooting the first scene with Sy and Kane. Sy, played Kellan Lutz, starts to walk away, and Kane, played by Dan MacPherson, stands up and says that he has to save his daughter. It
was late in the day, and everyone was tired, and it was the first time I didn’t have anything for Dan to help him really nail his line. I said, ”I don’t know what to tell you. We’re not getting it, but I can’t find the thing that’s not working. I don’t sense the desperation of having to get your daughter.”
So we talked about it, but couldn’t figure it out. We played music, and tried a number of things, and then when we got down to the shore, I told him, “I’m out of ideas.” All of a sudden, he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder, and I go right into the lake.
I’m 6’-3”, but I went right over and under the water. I cut my back on a rock, and as I was under the water I saw Dan over me, and I started punching him in the ribs. I knew what he was doing: he was trying to get the energy out of a true confrontation. I remember thinking, I’m bleeding, I’m drowning, and I’m wailing body blows on one of my lead actors, but I realized that this is exactly the level of trust I’ve built with my team over many years…this is what’s needed. As soon as he jumped off me, and my head cleared the water, I pointed to my DP on the hill and gave him the “roll” signal. Dan walked to his spot, squatted down and then, with cameras rolling, stood up, did his line and that was perfect! [laughs]
Now you can’t do that everyday. The thing about those shots is that they have to be real and unrehearsed. But it changed us, and Kellan, too. He was like, “Ok, so that’s how far these guys will go to find a moment.”
Sure, it could be strange or physical, and that could be dangerous, but it’s wonderful when you have that level of trust. Dan and I have done so many crazy things after Infini so we knew what we could handle. I mean, I wouldn’t do that to Al Pacino…until I knew him. [laughs]
As we’ve seen in other films, just because a character dies, it doesn’t mean they can’t come back in a follow-up story. Kingsman: The Secret Service and its sequel are perhaps the best and most recent outlandish case of someone coming back to life. Who would you like to see come back, and who could come back? I was really liking the characters played by Bren Foster, and Vincent Andriano.
Glad you asked, because right now, aside from the two characters you see at the end, there are four characters you can expect to see in the future. Two of them are characters that you absolutely assume couldn’t or shouldn’t come back, and how they do is very, very, very, very cool. But it won’t be stupid. [laughs] If someone is really dead, then they’re really dead. And if anyone is asking about Dan, he will not come back. That was the end of his journey.
The chapter breaks and the non-linear storytelling were both refreshing and innovative, especially when I found out that it came from your own experiences growing up reading comic books out of order. There’s a scene in the film where Kane (MacPherson) escapes from the floating military base – the Floatilla – and we go right from him needing to escape to, boom, he’s already escaped and now he’s in a spectacular aerial dog fight. You really cut this down to essentials which help the pace of the story.
I really wanted to get on a track and just keep going without dragging things on or making unnecessary stops. What we’re
trying to do with films over here [Australia] that are off the radar – and you see a lot of those types at genre festivals – is that you do things that are familiar. I’m doing things that are based on the types of films I grew up with – the types of films that are now are extinct. But I also do things that have enough uniqueness to them so that you can discover something new and exciting with them. It’s a good balance.
So if a 12 year old kid were to watch this [The Osiris Child] for the first time, I’d want them to feel like there’s something dated about what they’re seeing and have them wonder, “Ok, that’s cool, but what did this come from? I have to go back and discover things that I probably overlooked or missed out on.”
You look at Paul Verhoeven, who is an amazing filmmaker in his own time, but kids today will likely see the remakes of RoboCop and Total Recall. When my kids are old enough, I’ll send them back and tell them, “You have to start with the original.” I want them to get to the heart of where things they like or love today come from. Especially my films. [laughs]
I’m glad you brought up Total Recall, because when I first saw Infini – plug to all you readers to check it out – I thought it felt like a lost Verhoeven film or lost John McTiernan film. You really captured the look, feel and style of that era.
[laughs] Thanks! We got to the point with that film where we even used lenses from that era – from 79 to 82 – which was fun. We wanted the film to have a revival feel, so glad you noticed that.
The production design – from gritty to the ultra-slick – was just amazing. Everything looks and functions like it was so thought out. How long did you work on this, and how did George Liddle add to the picture?
It was a really long time, and Brian Cachia (the co-writer and composer) and I had two completely different scripts that we were working on – ideas, concepts, etc. We fleshed them both out, between whatever we were working on at the time, over many years, and we spent a lot of time looking at the tropes of sci-fi films and properties we loved. When we got together with George, we worked with a great conceptual artist as well, and the four of us really jammed a lot on the story and the world.
For me, we started with the floating space station and we talked about practical things like: what’s great about it? what does it do? how does it work? Then George would put his ideas together and come to us with ten different concepts we would put on the wall and review. We’d walk through each, and choose the best bits, but we’d also do that thinking about what could be built and what was affordable so you’d have an interior that matched the exterior so, even from a VFX standpoint, it would feel like a cohesive idea that was seamless.
The entire prison set, for me, was like eye candy, and the “solitary confinement” cells are one of the most innovative and original things I’ve ever seen in sci-fi. How did you come up with that?
On any film, you’re always trying to figure out how to keep things entertaining when you’re on a schedule, and a budget. The solitary cells were something that I really wanted to keep in the film, and every time the budget started shrinking that was always a question of whether it was needed or it could be cut. But I told them that we needed to see that – we needed to see the punishment because it was also important to the story. So it had to be interesting enough to stay in the film. We only had
enough budget for one little tube. Our storyboard artist drew an octagonal shape for the prison tunnels, but I saw that and said that it should be the solitary cells instead.
My thought is that if you’re on a prison planet, you get worked to the bone – that’s the job. Solitary shouldn’t be a break. If you got put in solitary, traditionally, it would be quite good. You’d go, “It’s peaceful, I’m by myself, I can get some rest, and it’s dark, but I’m getting fed.” It’s not a hassle, but that’s not the right kind of punishment for these guys. It would have to be something more.
So I thought about what kind of environment you could have where you couldn’t stand, you could never sleep or rest, and it was this ever revolving cylinder. Now even though we had a cool idea, we only had one day to shoot it all, so we did it like we did in my earlier film, Gabriel, and used forced perspective to make everything appear bigger. I had one corridor built, one cylinder, and we had changing lights and a revolving camera move that makes it seem like one sequence when it’s really one little part of a set constantly used over and over again. It was necessity vs creativity.
How about those Bushido inspired guards?
That was really our costume designer’s idea. We were looking for helmets and
everything we had just wasn’t working – like a bad B-movie – and we knew no one was going to buy it. Then when we looked at something where you could see the faces of the guards, it was just too many heads in a scene. So budget was what drove us to that. But here’s an example of what we were up against. You know the gold space suit that Indi wears at the end?
We asked to get that priced from the people who would do a suit like you’d see in Ridley Scott’s The Martian, or Alien: Covenant, and for one of those suits, it was triple our entire wardrobe budget for the whole film. So Nicola Dunn showed us a whole bunch of masks that exist and the Bushido had a vintage tone that worked. Functionally, they could see out of it, and it’s hard to take a hit because it offers a lot of protection.
That’s kind of like how carpenters use the same joinery details that have been around for centuries. If it works, well, why wouldn’t it stand the test of time, especially on a prison planet?
That’s exactly what we were after. When we talked about the tone of the planet, technologically, it was a place that, even though we’re in the future, you’d have to go back to simpler ideas to make sure you weren’t relying on highly technical things. Earth would always be more advanced, but the planet Ovir-619 would run on simpler technology.
What else were you thrilled to see become real on the screen?
The ships were a lot of fun, and I thought it would be great to have ships where the wings would move, then George [Liddle] would have an idea about independent engines, and then the VFX supervisor came up with an idea about how to make the whole cockpit move. It was the kind of thing that people kept adding to it in the hopes that we were making the best product for the film.
And I tried to do that with the whole film. I try to keep this process a very open thing and get people excited so that even the grips and gaffers, who are artists on set, feel like they are part of the process. It’s amazing to see people’s attitudes when they feel they’re able to contribute something.
So you get everyone involved, and that gets everyone else pumped about it. Everyone is encouraged to make suggestions all the way through. Even if it’s not their department, they could have some input or an idea you hadn’t thought of, and I’d be like, “Yeah, you’re right, let’s put that in!”
I’m glad that you’re so open to that. Sometimes you get movies that don’t gel or feel stale and it’s probably because someone didn’t want to give up control of one thing or another. Other times, you can see where something was a mess because it was designed by a committee. But this is such a great mix of ideas, and if everyone was able to contribute to something greater, well, the proof is on screen.
A lot of times you can tell someone you appreciate the support or their advice, and it means something. But in something like this film, people have put a lot more than their energy into what we were doing. They put all their money back into the film, and did so for years just to get it made. Big studios aren’t financing these types of films, people are.
Even in the independent market, it’s very difficult to do a film of this size because they’ll want you to make a low, low-budget, film – like four people in a room – not a $200 million dollar studio pic. So any support you can get that is real and truthful is beneficial, because it tells you, “Yes, there is an audience out there that wants this, and they appreciate what we’re doing.”
Brian Cachia is the co-writer and the composer on The Osiris Child. When John Carpenter shoots a film, he’s said he doesn’t even think about music until he’s editing. How does Brian work, and how much time do you two spend on the score?
On our earlier films, like Gabriel, we usually had an idea of the palette we wanted to
use. When we got to this one, we wanted it to feel adventurous. But nothing we started with really worked. So it’s the first film I’ve done where I couldn’t use a temp score because nothing was able to hit the right tone – it was either too contemporary, or not enough.
Brain was there with me every step of the way writing the story, and by the time we get to the set, he and I have talked about every aspect of the film but the music. Later, I’ll go from seeing him every day for a year, then, when he goes off and writes music, he’ll disappear for months. He’ll occasionally send me a theme or a cue, and I’ll go back with yes or no, and then when we get a couple of pieces we like, we really work together and we have a sense of collaboration again.
We’ll talk about and discuss why something does, or doesn’t fit a scene or an edit. When he has something ready, I’ll go for a day, and we’ll drink a whole bottle of wine and listen to the score. Then I’ll go away again, keep working, and then we’ll spend the last few months together – almost every day – refining those moments.
But I love working with him. He’s the kind of creative I can just let go, and for any film I’ve directed, it’s really Brian’s voice; it’s not me giving him another piece of music to try and sound like. His music is his interpretation of the vision which is the best way to do it I think.
I’m sure you have ideas where to take this story after seeing the film so many times before it’s released. But then you see it with an audience at festivals countless more times. Does their input, or what they respond to inspire you to go a different direction?
Man, that’s a really great question. We have five stories written and this is, obviously, part one. We were originally going to go
a lot bigger with part two, and get into some really fun and really heavy CG stuff with AI that was mostly related to robots. But we scaled back a bit because the story really revolves around Indi – this first film is known as the “origin story” for her and how she came to be so we want to continue that plot line.
When you meet one of the world’s greatest assassins at 15, and you’ve got this creature, which evolves a lot from the first film, you go, “Well, how the hell did you get here??” And we go, “Well, it’s actually an interesting story on how she arrived here.” [laughs]
We’re still going to commit to that story, but the things around it will be very big. It’s a little bit Star Wars, a little bit Valerian. You have to look at films people are so used to that have deep tropes as well as scale and spectacle, especially in the new sci-fi films coming down the pike. So that informs us of our next step: large audiences, not just festival crowds. No matter what, at some point, we’ll go a lot crazier.
We’ll still stick to what we’ve established with these vehicles and the look of the world, but now that we’ve rooted the story in this nostalgic kick, I think we can grow from there. We can go for some really crazy original ideas and still have it fit in the space of this story to keep making it our own. It might even be a hard R [rating]. We’re still discussing that, but it’s really interesting and things are still kind of up in the air.
Then will EXOr be featured in the next films?
EXOr will have a big role, for sure, and is still the prime focus of it all. But aside from Rachel Griffiths’ character, we’ll deal with other villains and other factions in this galactic civil war that’s happening.
What is your favorite scene, and what made it special to you?
For me, there’s a tie, but the first is the scene at the end with Sy, as The Ragged, and Indi on the ship. It completely busted me emotionally. I didn’t expect it. It was Teagan’s
last day as well as Dwaine Stevenson’s last day. He plays The Ragged, and was stuck in the suit the whole film, and he really wanted to make a great performance because he’s not just a performance artist, he’s a great actor. When he and Indi sat quietly on that ship together, and I watched them do that sign language, and then put his head in her lap. It was beautiful, and it all evolved from what this story was originally all about.
That manifestation of that monster within the man and how it emerged from all the hardship it took to get there just meant so much to me. It was so emotional to me, and I know it was to Brian as well. As a scene itself, it wasn’t crazy emotional in the movie, but it was for me while I was shooting it because it just felt like all this the darkness inside was now on the outside of that character, and so this little girl who, all she has left is The Ragged, is able to move on.
The second, and this also involves Teagan, is near the end where she has to say good bye to Dan. I remember when we were building the bus, Dan was on set and he got a little quiet. He was already Kane at that point, and so I asked him, “What’s wrong, Kane?” He said to me, “I just realized that I die here at some point. It all ends here for
me. Months from now, this is where I die.” And there was this kind of realization for me, just like the ending with Teagan, and it was that we’re leaving here, and we’re never coming back.
So when we finally shot that scene with Indi and Kane, that moment was so raw between those two. Her response was a one-off, and like lightning-in-a-bottle I couldn’t get it on any other angle, and didn’t have the right frame, but it didn’t matter. [laughs] I don’t like the fun stuff, like the ships and guns, I find the really turbulent and emotional stuff are the best things for me.
Let’s finish this up with speed round type of questions to get to know Shane Abbess. When you and Brian get together, you said you would drink wine. What’s your preference?
Merlot. I keep it simple. I’m not a wine connoisseur at all. If it’s harder than that, we go for Wild Turkey.
Are you a fan of the 101 proof?
Oh, yeah! Love it. That’ll put hair on your chest. [laughs] In Austraila, Wild Turkey is like a top shelf bourbon, so when I got to L.A., I wanted to get a nice expensive bottle. I went to pick one up and saw that it was only $20, and I couldn’t believe it. So Brian and I bought a whole case. [laughs]
What are some of the movies you find yourself going back to again and again? What were the films that defined you?
Mine are all the staples: The Dark Crystal, The NeverEnding Story, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Superman and Superman II. I had them on repeat, especially Star Wars – the original trilogy. Funny story: I was working on the sequel to The Dark Crystal for about a year of my life, and lots of people have asked me if I based The Raggeds on The Mystics. Actually it’s just an accident, because by the time you got all the safety harnesses in, their backs ended up bigger than I had designed them to be. As much as I love the movie, any similarity to The Mystics didn’t come from design, but the practical building of them.
What film was most influential to you?
Die Hard is what made me want to make films. Apocalypse Now influenced me as far as process, but Die Hard for the fact that I watched it in awe asking, “Did a bunch of people actually make that?? How do you do that??” I really wanted to know how you got to be part of something like Die Hard, and I didn’t care what department.
I couldn’t believe how that someone specifically did the writing, and editing, wrote the music, someone directed it, someone set explosives, etc. But however I could work towards something like that, I wanted in. And I want to try to give that back to someone, because that experience I got out of Die Hard was so rewarding. Man, what a gift if I could give that to someone because it changed my life!
What are you going to show your kids when they are old enough?
I’ve already shown my boy, who’s 5, The Dark Crystal and Star Wars and all that, but he accidentally woke up, and walked into the room while Aliens was on TV. He was standing in the doorway watching the Alien Queen, and so he’s jumped about ten years. [laughs] Now that he’s seen that, nothing compares. So whenever we talk about movies, he’ll go, “Let’s watch the one with the big alien!” And I’ll go, “Uh, no, not yet!”
Whether it’s Volume Two, or some other film, who is on the top of your list to work with? An actor, or D.P., or someone in particular?
As far as actors, I don’t have anybody in mind right now because I think the crazy pool that I love is drying up. I like to work with those people who don’t really care about their career, they’re just there to make the art. Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender, even Shia LaBeouf has become this wonderfully insane artist. Bradley Cooper is another, but there’s not a massive pool to be honest who are as committed as the greats of yesteryear – like Meryl Streep or Al Pacino. For me I want, jokingly, the crazies, and the ones who completely immerse themselves into the art and live it.
You’ve been in the business for more than a decade. Any observations you can offer that help you make decisions these days?
It’s very weird to think that, retrospectively, Steven Spielberg could make 1941 after Jaws and just come back because there’s a support system of the past that’s going to support Spielberg come hell or high water.
Everyone knows that he’s one of best directors ever, and a monumental success, but there used to be a level of support that if a studio liked you, or a producer had your back, they were with you on the ups and the downs, whereas now, I think, it’s so risk-averse that the downs could mean you’re done.
Even if you’ve had a good film, and then when you have a bad one, that bad one can kill you. Same for actors. If one bad misstep means you’re gone, you have actors not willing to take risks because if it doesn’t pay off, then their careers are over in a heartbeat.
If you have time off, or need a break, what do you watch or try to catch up on?
South Park, Game of Thrones, and House of Cards. They are the three things I have to watch. I just watched Ozark and think it’s amazing, and now I’m so much more excited about TV than I am the cinema. I still get pumped for Star Wars and the like. But as far as my time, and getting invested in watching things, TV has won over films for me, which is sad because I’m still in that game. Yet it’s a reason I’m supporting more of the serialized movies because if you don’t come to this movie until years later, you can get a whole body of content out of it.
I was amazed to see how the popularity for Gabriel has been, and years later it’s one of the most popular films to ever come out of Australia, and none of us expected it. But it’s because of how the audience can give things a much bigger life if they like something and want more of it.
Look at Star Wars. You’ve got books and games and movies and TV shows. If you want to invest in it, you’ve got a whole world. So it’s got me worried that if you’ve got all this great TV out there, if you just have one movie, you’re no longer an event; your movie could be something that comes and goes in a weekend. We’re working on these smaller features, but the goal is that the body of work leads up to one big thing. So we’ll see how it goes! [laughs]
Shane, thanks so much for your time. To close this out, I just want to say that even though EXOr are the bad guys, they’ve got a pretty sweet logo. Tell us about that design.
Oh, that’s a really cool story. A local school student designed that in a competition for a specific class. 30 students had to design a logo, and it was a 3rd year student at St. George College. She won, and we used the logo. We’re really happy with it!
Thanks to Shane for his time. From XYZ Films and Madman Entertainment, RLJ Entertainment will release THE OSIRIS CHILD: SCIENCE FICTION VOLUME ONE in theaters and on VOD and Digital HD October 6, 2017. The film is now available exclusively on DirecTV.
Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonization, Sy (Kellan Lutz), a mysterious drifter, meets Kane (Daniel MacPherson), a lieutenant working for an off-world military contractor, EXOR.
The unlikely pair must work together to rescue Kane’s young daughter (Teagan Croft) and reach safety amid an impending global crisis which was brought on by EXOR itself. Teaming up with a pair of renegades (Luke Ford and Isabel Lucas), Kane and Sy clash with EXOR in an attempt to escape while battling the savage creatures that roam the barren planet.
