Brooke Bunny
Netflix announced that principal photography commenced this week on filmmaker Duncan Jones’s (”Warcraft: The Beginning”, ”Moon”) thriller ”Mute” in Berlin, Germany. Starring Alexander Skarsgård (”Tarzan”, ”The Diary of a Teenage Girl”), Paul Rudd (”Ant-Man”, ”Anchorman”) and Justin Theroux (”The Leftovers”, ”The Girl on the Train”), the feature film, which will be produced by Jones’s longtime business partner Stuart Fenegan for Liberty Films, will join Netflix’s growing 2017 Original Film slate.
The much-anticipated project comes from a story Jones created twelve years ago. The film follows Leo (Skarsgård), a mute man searching for a missing person in the year 2052 in Berlin while dueling with two rogue villains played by Rudd and Theroux. Jones co-wrote the script with Michael Robert Johnson (Sherlock Holmes). Charles J.D. Schlissel serves as executive producer along with co-producers Henning Molfenter, Charlie Woebcken, Christoph Fisser of Studio Babelsberg.
“Mute is an encapsulation of everything I am fascinated by; noir, science fiction, and unique people in trouble because of who and what they are. I’m delighted to be able to return to Berlin for the shoot, a place I lived for a period of time growing up, and I’m excited to be working with Netflix on a film that is so close to my heart,” said Duncan Jones.
“Duncan Jones is such a dynamic directing force, and the team he has assembled in-front-of and behind-the-camera will continue to reinvigorate the science fiction genre. It will be exciting to share this film with Netflix audiences around the world next year,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer.
Producer Stuart Fenegan added: “Duncan handed me a version of Mute at our very first meeting together 13 years ago and I have wanted to bring it to life ever since. We just had to make Moon, Source Code and Warcraft in between, and in that time Netflix has become the place for original films. The perfect home for Mute.”
