Damn, it must be a good day to be Canadian director Bruce McDonald.
Variety is reporting that Palomar Pictures and Foundation Features are recruiting the “Hard Core Logo” director to take on their large scale supernatural thriller “Dark Highway.” The picture follows a man on the run from a pursuer, who’s trying to reach a certain location while he struggles to find out if his current situation is real or imaginary. If that doesn’t make much sense, check out the article, it doesn’t read much better.
The project is budgeted at $25-million, which, looking at McDonald’s resume, could be the most he’s ever worked with in his career. Producer Sigurjon Sighvatsson, who’s also behind the middling action thriller “The Killer Elite,” says in the piece “I’m excited to bring Bruce to an international mainstream audience. It will be great to see him direct this elevated drama.” Hopefully McDonald can pull off something great for that kind of money.
While his early independent films “Highway 61” and “Roadkill” seem to have quite a following, lately he’s directed smaller scale fare like the Ellen Page thriller “The Tracey Fragments,” the Broken Social Scene concert docudrama “This Movie Is Broken” along with various episodes of popular shows like “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and “Queer as Folk.” His latest film, a sequel to the Quentin Tarantino-approved “Hard Core Logo,” is playing TIFF this week, but without much buzz surrounding it. Then again his recent TIFF entries, the horror film “Pontypool” and rock drama “Trigger,” picked up some decent reviews, so maybe he’s still got it.
Perhaps this is the sort of project McDonald needs to get back on track, and we’re all for giving an independent spirit a shot at a film with a budget. “Dark Highway” is currently casting, with production set to begin early next year.
