Orion Pictures, recently relaunched by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) as a new, stand-alone U.S. theatrical marketing and distribution company, has acquired the North American and Latin American rights to John McPhail’s award-winning zombie holiday musical Anna and the Apocalypse. The announcement was made today by John Hegeman, President, Orion Pictures. Orion plans to release Anna and the Apocalypse in the 2018 holiday season.
The film stars Ella Hunt (Our Robot Overlords) as Anna, Mark Benton (The Halcyon), Paul Kaye (Game Of Thrones) and a breakout group of emerging talent including Malcom Cumming, Ben Wiggins, Sarah Swire, Christopher Leveaux and Marli Siu. Embraced by fans and critics alike, the film’s world premiere at Fantastic Fest this year was met with critical acclaim. It also played at Sitges Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Midnight X-Treme Feature Length Film.
Anna and the Apocalypse is based on the 2010 BAFTA winning short film Zombie Musical; directed by John McPhail (Where Do We Go From Here); written by Alan McDonald and the late Ryan McHenry (Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal viral series); with original music by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly. The film was produced by Naysun Alae-Carew and Nicholas Crum of Blazing Griffin in association with Tracy Jarvis of Parkhouse Pictures and Creative Scotland.
Hegeman said, “The team at Orion can’t wait to work with Blazing Griffin in making Anna and the Apocalypse a holiday spectacular for the ages. Nothing gets the blood flowing like a good holiday musical.”
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