EXCLUSIVE: Emile Hirsch is set to star in Past Life, a psychological thriller scheduled to start shooting in March 2023. LA-based company Disrupting Influence will launch worldwide sales next month at AFM.
Simeon Halligan, head of Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, will direct the pic. Halligan’s previous feature directing credits includes White Settlers (2014).
Written by Dean Lines and Ray Bogdanovich (Hounded, The Banishing), Past Life follows Jason Frey, an investigative reporter who reluctantly agrees to attend a hypnotism event with his pregnant wife Claira. Under hypnosis, Jason witnesses a murder through the eyes of a killer. Haunted by what he has seen, Jason uses past live regression techniques to investigate a series of unsolved murders from the eighties while unwittingly reawakening a psychopath’s killer tendencies.
The film is produced by Rachel Richardson-Jones of Grimmfest films (Habit), Pierre Romain and Susan Michels of SWE (Son Of The South), and Michael Laundon of M2 Productions (Endless). Executive producers are Michael Bassick (Hacksaw Ridge) for M2, Sarada McDermott (Bridgerton), Angus Finney (The Mother) and Glenn Kendrick Ackermann, Jason Piette, and Ewan Dunbar of Disrupting Influence.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be working with Emile, on Past Life a superb actor who has proved his versatility and breadth in an array of movies,” said Glenn Kendrick Ackermann of Disrupting Influence.
“His depth as a performer will bring nuance to Jason’s complex character. We can’t think of a better actor to play the role in this brilliantly conceived thriller.”
Emile Hirsch is best known for his performance in Sean Penn’s 2017 film Into The Wild. He has also had supporting roles in films like Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and The Comeback Trail, starring Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman.
Disrupting Influence’s current sales slate includes genre shark movie Ghost Divers, LGBTQ WW2 resistance doc Willem & Frieda, and WW2 espionage thriller Lives in Secret, starring Hugh Bonneville and Charlotte Gainsbourg, from writer-director John Hay and producer Jeremy Bolt.