Little has been revealed so far of Joe Cornish’s project “Attack The Block” other than being a hoodies-centered actioner with an alien invasion plot. Cornish is a well-known comedian in the U.K. as well as an Edgar Wright collaborator and co-writer for “Ant-Man” and Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn”
But with film’s production scheduled to begin this month, Twitch now have the film’s first artwork and a full synopsis for Cornish’s directorial debut which has evidently adopted the amusing tagline of “Inner City versus Outer Space.”
Attack The Block is a fast, funny, frightening action adventure movie that pits a teen gang (“hoodies” as they are sometimes known in the U.K.) against an invasion of savage alien monsters. It turns a housing estate into a SCI-FI PLAYGROUND. A tower block into a fortress under siege. And weapon wielding teenage thugs into heroes. Think ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 only with monsters and a tower block. Or LA HAINE crossed with ALIENS. It’s inner city versus outer space.
Trainee nurse Sam is walking home to her flat in a scary South London tower block when she’s robbed by a gang of masked, hooded youths. She’s saved when the gang are distracted by a bright meteorite, which falls from the sky and hits a nearby parked car. Sam flees, just before the gang are attacked by a small alien creature that leaps from the wreckage. The gang chase the creature and kill it, dragging its ghoulish carcass to the top of the block, with they treat as their territory.
While Sam and the police hunt for the gang, a second wave of meteors fall. Confident of victory against such feeble invaders, the gang grab weapons, mount bikes and mopeds, and set out to defend their turf. But this time the creatures are bigger. Much bigger. Savage, shadowy and bestial, they are hunting their fallen comrade and nothing will stand in their way. THE ESTATE IS ABOUT TO BECOME A BATTLEGROUND. And the bunch of no-hope kids who just attacked Sam are about to become her, and the block’s, only hope.
As expected, the synopsis has a touch of Edgar Wright to it — Cornish developed it with frequent Wright producing collaborator Nira Park with Wright himself executive producing — and definitely has the cult flavor to it a la zom-rom-com “Shaun Of The Dead” or “Hot Fuzz.” Whether Cornish has learned enough from Wright to execute it on screen remains to be seen but the project is definitely one to keep an eye on.
Cornish actually had small cameos in both of Wright’s film so far so don’t surprised if Wright, Simon Pegg or Nick Frost return the favor with appearances. No official cast has been announced but the film’s IMDB page does list two names, Luke Treadaway and Adam Leese. Leese is a regular on U.K. television while Treadaway has roles in “Killing Bono” and “Clash Of The Titans” on the horizon. If his face (on the left) looks familiar, you may be mistaking Luke for twin brother Harry who has starred in such films as “Fish Tank,” “City Of Ember” and “Control.”
“Attack The Block” is being backed by Film4 with a late 2010 release expected, at least in the U.K.