Latest news with #Dastmalchian
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
David Dastmalchian, Georgina Campbell Teaming for Horror ‘The Shepherd,' Anton Launching Sales in Cannes (EXCLUSIVE)
The stars of horror hits 'Late Night With the Devil' and 'Barbarian' are uniting to take another potentially hair-raising step into the genre world. 'The Shepherd' is set to team David Dastmalchian ('Oppenheimer,' 'The Dark Knight,' 'Dune') and Georgina Campbell ('The Watchers,' 'Black Mirror'). The horror-thriller comes from Spooky Pictures — Image Nation (also behind 'Late Night With the Devil'), with Anton launching sales in Cannes. More from Variety Leslie Grace to Play Diver Swallowed by Giant Sperm Whale in Survival Thriller 'Propel,' Altitude Launching Sales in Cannes (EXCLUSIVE) Cynthia Erivo-Led 'Prima Facie' Film Adaptation Heading to Cannes Market, With Embankment Launching Sales Andrew Karpen Remembered: Bleecker Street Media Founder Was a Force in Indie Film, Beloved for Integrity and Kindness The film is being directed by John Hyams ('Sick,' 'Alone,' HBO's documentary 'The Smashing Machine') and written by Alexander Gustaveson. Anton is handling worldwide rights and co-repping North American rights with UTA Independent Film Group and Cinetic. Set in the desolate Nevada night, 'The Shepherd' follows a young woman in labor fleeing an abusive past who has her escape hijacked by a mysterious stranger hiding an ominous threat in the back of her car. Reuniting the producers behind the box-office hit 'Late Night with the Devil,' 'The Shepherd' is produced under the Spooky Pictures – Image Nation partnership with Steven Schneider ('Paranormal Activity,'' Insidious,' 'Split') and Roy Lee ('It' franchise, 'Barbarian,' 'A Minecraft Movie') for Spooky Pictures ('Strange Darling,' Chloe Okuno's 'Watcher'); Ben Cornwell, Jordan Foley and Nick Smith for Paperclip Ltd. ('Alone,' 'Snack Shack') along with Jonathan Rosenthal ('Alone,' 'The Abandon'); and Sébastien Raybaud ('Fuze,' 'Greenland: Migration,' 'Greenland,' 'The Night House') for Anton. The film is executive produced by Dastmalchian under his Good Fiend Films banner, Campbell, Ben Ross and Derek Dauchy for Image Nation, Rami Yasin for Spooky Pictures, and Yeardley Smith for Paperclip Ltd. Anton and Image Nation are financing the film, with production set to start on 'The Shepherd' in the fall, 2025. 'Once I turned the first few pages of 'The Shepherd' I was hooked,' said Dastmalchian. 'I immediately wanted to see this high-octane, horrifying world brought to life and John is the perfect person to make it happen. After collaborating with Roy and Steven on 'Late Night with the Devil,' I have been looking forward to getting back in the sandbox with them and I can't wait to bring the genre force of Good Fiend Films into the equation.' 'Following the success of 'Late Night with the Devil,' we're excited to be working with David Dastmalchian once again on 'The Shepherd,'' added Image Nation CEO Ben Ross. 'David brings a distinctive energy and depth to every project he's part of, and this film marks another strong collaboration in our ongoing partnership with Spooky Pictures.' 'The Shepherd' is part of a slate of upcoming projects from Spooky Pictures and Image Nation including Charlie Polinger's 'The Plague' starring Joel Edgerton, which will premiere in Cannes' prestigious Un Certain Regard competition, Randall Okita's 'Menace' starring Isabel May, and Damian McCarthy's 'Hokum' starring Adam Scott. Dastmalchian is repped by Atlas Artists. Campbell is repped by UTA, Entertainment 360, Independent Talent Group and Felker Toczek Suddleson McGinnis Ryan LLC. Best of Variety Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
Gizmodo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
10 Excellently Weird Sci-Fi and Horror David Dastmalchian Performances
He's one of the hardest-working genre actors right now—so let's pause for some Dastmalchian apprecia-chian. It's not every actor that can say they made their big-screen debut in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, playing one of the Joker's freaky henchmen, but David Dastmalchian is not every actor. He's been appearing in movies and TV for years, though his big leading-man breakout came fairly recently, in 2023's Late Night With the Devil. With that, he went from being 'that guy' to a face with a name everyone recognizes. Along the way he's done some interesting side gigs, including writing comics and hosting a YouTube series (Grave Conversations) in which he and his celebrity guests chat while reclining in coffins. His earlier work has been interesting too, with credits in Twin Peaks: The Return, the reboot of MacGyver (as the recurring baddie), Netflix horror hit Bird Box, and Hulu true crime tale The Boston Strangler (as the title character, or one of them at least). Apparently not being fond of sleep or vacations, Dastmalchian has more coming very soon, including roles in Mike Flanagan's Life of Chuck, Bryan Fuller's feature directorial debut Dust Bunny, season two of One Piece, and Dexter: Resurrection, to name a few. Currently, though, he's co-starring on one of our new favorite TV shows: Murderbot. And that's what's inspired this list of Dastmalchian's most excellently weird sci-fi and horror roles so far. 1. Murderbot On the current Apple TV+ sci-fi show, Dastmalchian plays Gurathin, the 'augmented human' member of the survey team Murderbot is assigned to protect. Though he has more in common with the resident robot than anyone else, Gurathin is still very suspicious of the AI in their midst, to the point of being antagonistic—long before he realizes, as the audience learns early on, that Murderbot has hacked its programming and doesn't actually have to obey any orders. Gurathin's a complicated guy, something the show explores more in later episodes, and Dastmalchian infuses him with a blend of skepticism and vulnerability that feels appropriately awkward for the character. 2-3. Early DC TV: The Flash and Gotham While Dastmalchian's collaborations with James Gunn pre-date Gunn's ascension to the top job at DC Studios—and we'll get to those!—so too does his association with DC Comics characters. In 2017, he had a two-episode run as Dwight Pollard (a morgue worker who's secretly a cultist trying to revive the show's proto-Joker character) on Gotham; and he popped up twice on The Flash playing supervillain Abra Kadabra. 4. The Suicide Squad In a misfit team-up that also included King Shark, we're still leaning toward Dastmalchian's meta-human, pustule-popping Polka-Dot Man as the most ridiculous character in James Gunn's 2021 DC Studios film. There's some poignancy that goes with that, yet, but ridiculous all the same. In 2016, Dastmalchian also had a small role amid the office-building carnage in the Gunn-scripted action-horror tale The Belko Experiment. 5. Ant-Man and Its Sequels Not one to just stick with DC Studios, Dastmalchian also popped up in all three of Marvel's Ant-Man movies, playing Scott Lang's Russian computer hacker buddy Kurt in the first two. The character's accent and distinctively tacky style of dressing (not to mention hairstyling) made him stand out among the ensemble cast. The fan favorite even popped up on Marvel's animated alt-reality series, What If…?, though seeing as how it was the 'What If… Zombies?!' episode, he ended up eventually succumbing to an undead Wanda Maximoff. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania brought back Dastmalchian as a slimy Quantum Realm dweller named Veb, because you can't spell 'Ant-Man' without 'Dastmalchian.' Metaphorically speaking. 6. Denis Villeneuve times three In Prisoners, he's a creepy as hell, maze-obsessed suspected child kidnapper who shoots himself before cops can thoroughly vet all the repulsive and seemingly irrefutable evidence tying him to the crimes. In Blade Runner 2049, he's the crime lab tech who confirms the mysterious buried skeleton is a woman who gave birth—and a replicant at that, a detail so startling he's killed for being associated with it. In Dune, his computer-like brain, talents with poison, and sadistic tendencies are put to good use the Harkonnens. Basically, if Denis Villeneuve needs to fill a small role with a talented actor capable of bringing nuance to a ghoulish sort of character—he goes straight to Dastmalchian. 7. The Boogeyman Another 'disturbed guy' role, this time in Rob Savage's 2023 tale of a father and two young daughters grieving the recent loss of the family matriarch. Dastmalchian plays a man who's suffered his own terrible loss, and shows up early in the movie to deliver a macabre warning about evil spirits—before passing on the great beyond himself. As in many horror movies past, a whole lot of trouble that follows might have been avoided, if only the main characters had paid closer attention to what they assume is a raving lunatic. 8. Rosario This recent horror indie lends genre cred to the proceedings by casting Dastmalchian as the greasy neighbor of an elderly woman who dies amid a blizzard—trapping her estranged granddaughter in with the corpse. While supernatural forces supply the majority of the menace in Rosario, Dastmalchian's character is there to add even more unease to the situation. He's quirky, too; let's just say if you borrow his air fryer, he'll be very interested to get it back sooner than later. 9. Last Voyage of the Demeter Dastmalchian tests his sea legs aboard the same ship bringing Dracula from Bulgaria to London, playing the ill-fated but determined quartermaster on the similarly ill-fated voyage. Ahead of the film's 2023 release, his status as not just a horror actor, but a diehard horror fan, came through in an interview with Fangoria: 'I'm grateful to be a part of making the first, in my opinion, absolutely scary Dracula film to come along in a very, very, very long time,' he said. 'The fact that I'm a part of not only a Dracula movie, but a Universal Pictures Dracula movie, and the fact that it's going to be in cinemas and that people are going to get to go and be on the ship, the Demeter, which I've always dreamt of telling that story.' 10. Late Night With the Devil With retro style that perfectly captures its late 1977 talk-show setting, this 2023 found-footage tale imagines a TV host has decided to film a live program in honor of Halloween with carefully selected spooky guests. It's a gimmick that backfires when the host's own dark past reaches out from beyond the grave—but the ride to get there is entertaining as hell, with Dastmalchian giving an outstanding performance as a man whose glib exterior hides some rather terrifying secrets. What are your favorite Dastmalchian performances to date? Share them (genre and non-genre too!) in the comments below.
