EXCLUSIVE: Actor Mark O’Brien (Ready or Not) has set cast around him for Nice People, his next directorial feature, in which he’ll also star. Joining him in the ensemble are Sosie Bacon (Smile), Chloe Bennet (Dave), Keean Johnson (Euphoria), Skylar Astin (Pitch Perfect), Ayden Mayeri (Confess, Fletch), Ella Travolta, and Matias Lucas (The Order).
Based on an original screenplay by Arwen Elys Dayton, Nice People is a darkly comedic horror film in which seven former friends reunite at an abandoned clinic that hides their terrible secret. The evening spirals into paranoia, dark humor, and deadly choices as, one after another, they begin to die.
Producers on the project include Damiano Tucci, Dayton, Sophia Banks, Luke Watson, Vinny Lingham, Kevin Carter, and Mark O’Neill. Bacon and Kevin Hussey will exec produce, with production kicking off in September.
The project hails from Getaway Entertainment, H20 Studios, Panoramic Pictures and PictureNL, a Crown Corporation of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Mark Bennett (Zero Dark Thirty, Longlegs) is the casting director.
In a statement to Deadline, O’Brien said, “I couldn’t be more excited to work with these incredible producers, actors and creatives. This film is a wild ride, a relentlessly propulsive story that I have no doubt will give audiences a unique thrill–lingering long after they’ve seen it.”
Best known for his acting work, O’Brien has previously been seen in films like Marriage Story, Ready or Not, The Front Runner, and Arrival, as well as series including Perry Mason, City on a Hill, and Halt and Catch Fire. His most recent credits in front of the camera include Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils, the upcoming Nuremberg from James Vanderbilt, and The Copenhagen Test for Peacock.
As a writer-director, O’Brien is in post on The Voices of Our Mother, headlined by Women Talking‘s Sheila McCarthy, a horror film that tells the story of a family brought together when their matriarch falls ill, only to find that their lineage is connected by more than blood. Previously, he wrote and directed The Righteous, a psychological thriller in which he starred opposite Henry Czerny and Mimi Kuzyk, which sits. at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. He is repped by UTA, Thruline Entertainment, The Characters Talent Agency, and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.
Bacon is repped by Gersh, Range Media Partners, and Schreck Rose Dapello; Bennet by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; Johnson by Verve, Entertainment 360, and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; Astin by Gersh, Entertainment 360, and Felker Toczek Suddleson; Mayeri by Gersh, Untitled Entertainment, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; Travolta by Gersh and Mosaic; and Lucas by Innovative Artists, The Characters Talent Agency, and Mosaic.
