Haley Joel Osment is Ready to 'Wake the Dead'
Wake the Dead, the first of three projects to emerge from Slasher Films – the production company formed by legendary guitarist Slash – is apparently lumbering forward even more quickly than expected. According to an article in Variety, casting is already underway for the modern-day Frankenstein tale, with Haley Joel Osment (famed seer-of-dead-people from The Sixth Sense) now signed on for the lead role. Hit the jump for more details about this and other similar productions, including a possible big-studio rival for the Franken-throne...
The Variety article pointed out there are currently several Frankenstein-inspired movie projects making the rounds in Hollywood lately, which suggests a new monster trend trying stake out its own silver-screen claim. If this casting announcement is any indication, Slash's project is picking up more traction than most of its peers at the moment, so we'll see how that pans out.
Based on the 2004 comic series by Steve Niles (F.E.A.R. 3), Wake the Dead is slated to go before the cameras this fall, directed by Jay Russell (who co-wrote the script with Jim Hart), with Osment playing Victor Franklin, a college student tinkering with the whole reanimation gig – basically he's seeing dead people all over again, only this time he's jump-starting them. Slash, best known as the Guns N Roses axe-god, is co-producing with Michael Williams (Session 9).
Other Slasher scripts in the works include the occult tales Nothing to Fear and Theorem, and zombie flick The Other Kingdom. Variety also reported that Fox is working on its own modern Frankenstein film, written by Max Landis (son of John), and several high-profile directors – including Ron Howard, Paul Greengrass and David Yates – have been approached.
