Neill Blomkamp's "District 9" and "Elysium," Joe Carnahan's "The A-Team," the sci-fi epic "Europa" and Spike Lee's "Oldboy" remake: South African thesp Sharlto Copley — who has or will feature in all those mentioned projects — hasn't exactly done small-scope features has he?
The actor will finally get a piece of the (much smaller) pie by toplining Timur Bekmambetov protégé Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego's "Open Grave," which he hopes will make his previous effort, the largely-panned "Apollo 18," a distant memory. The film will see Copley star as a man who has woken up with no memory in a pit full of rotting bodies. Rescued by another group of amnesiacs, he must figure out how he got there and, due to some strange flashbacks, whether he is in fact the killer.
Sounds like a another high-concept story which is nothing new for Lopez-Gallego. "Apollo 18," of course, centered on the idea that another Apollo mission was sent to the moon with found footage detailing what exactly transpired — our review described it simply as "dumb & derivative." So yeah, we have reservations about this one.
Due to lens soon in Hungary, Lopez-Gallego's "Open Grave" also stars "Contagion" actress Josie Ho and Thomas Kretschmann ("Wanted," "Valkyrie"). [Deadline/BloodyDisgusting]