Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Dead of Night

3/26/09 - Shock Till You Drop reports that Taye Diggs will play a vampire leader in the upcoming Dead of Night movie opposite Brandon Routh.  The movie, based on the Dylan Dog Italian supernatural comic-book series by Tiziano Sclavi, also stars Sam Huntington. It is currently shooting in the New Orleans area.

3/3/09 - Sam Huntington has joined the cast of Kevin Munroe's Dead of Night, which began shooting in New Orleans last week.  The film, based on the Italian comic book Dylan Dog, stars Brandon Routh as Dylan Dog, a reluctant private investigator who is drawn into the world of vampires, werewolves and the undead. Huntington will star as Marcus, sidekick to Routh's Dylan.

2/26/09 - The supernatural horror film Dead of Night starts production today in New Orleans, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Hyde Park Group and Platinum Studios is producing the vampire/werewolf/zombie movie, which stars Superman Returns' Brandon Routh and is adapted from the top-selling 1986 Italian comic-book series Dylan Dog by Tiziano Sclavi.  Routh plays a private investigator who stumbles onto the world of the undead. Kevin Munroe is directing a screenplay by Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly, who moved the action from the United Kingdom to the deep bayou of Louisiana.  Gilbert Adler, Platinum Studios chairman and chief executive Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and Ashok Amritraj of Hyde Park Entertainment Group are producing.

1/28/09 - Director Kevin Munroe told SCI FI Wire he is about to start filming his supernatural superhero movie Dead of Night (formerly Dylan Dog) in New Orleans, presuming his financing comes through as hoped this month. Based on an Italian comic-book series, Dead of Night is the story of a supernatural private eye named Dylan Dog who fights crime in his signature outfit of red shirt, black jacket and blue jeans. Munroe hopes to begin scouting locations in New Orleans next week for a shoot slated to begin at the end of March or in early April.  Dylan Dog, to be played by Superman Returns star Brandon Routh, is a vegetarian alcoholic superhero with an Oedipus complex and a sidekick who resembles Groucho Marx. The rest of the cast has yet to be announced, but Munroe calls it a "fun genre cast" and says that everyone is really excited about the film.  "What's cool about the project is that it's such a familiar story in the sense that it has vampires and werewolves and everything, but it's against this backdrop of New Orleans that you don't really see often in this kind of a movie," Munroe said in an interview on Monday. "Most movies set in Louisiana and New Orleans are very 'bayou' and very 'jazzy.' This is a little bit more of a rock-and-roll, vampire, werewolf movie. And it's fun."  Munroe says he plans to use as little CGI as possible. "I want everything practical," he said. "Werewolves, ... vampires, ... the whole point to me is to do everything as practical as possible. The movie is about how these things exist in and around our world, and to do that, I think you need something that's tangible."

11/17/08 – SCI FI Wire reported Kevin Munroe is finishing Dead of Night, which is based on the best-selling Italian comic-book series Dylan Dog. Brandon Routh will star in the movie, based on a script by Sahara writers Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly. Routh will play a private investigator who is drawn into the world of the undead.  Dead of Night stars Routh as a detective of the paranormal. "He actually is this guy who's a detective who works in the world of vampires, werewolves, zombies, all of these supernatural creatures," Munroe said. "And he's ... an expert, basically. But we actually meet up with him at the beginning of the story, after he's gone through all that, and the whole course of the story is basically him going back into that world whenever a case comes across his desk, so ... we hit him at his lowest point at the beginning of the movie."

AlienAlmanac.com 2009