Cate Blanchett to Play Alien Invader in Zellner Brothers’ Comedy ‘Alpha Gang’
Cate Blanchett has signed on to star in Alpha Gang, the new comedy from David and Nathan Zellner, the sibling duo behind wacky Sundance entry Sasquatch Sunset.
The two-time Oscar winner is set to star as Alpha One, the leader of an alien gang sent on a mission to conquer Earth. She arrives disguised in human form together with her fellow extraterrestrials, posing as an armed and dangerous 1950’s leather-clad biker gang. But their ruthless plan is disrupted when the gang catches “the most toxic, contagious human disease of all: emotion.”
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David and Nathan Zellner will direct Alpha Gang as well as produce. Blanchett and Coco Francini are also on board as producers, through their Dirty Films outfit. Other producers include Ryan Zacarias for Fat City, and Gina Gammell for Felix Culpa. The film is set to being shooting this fall.
“The Zellner brother’s work never fails to surprise and delight us,” said Blanchett and Francini in a joint statement. “In Alpha Gang, they have created a far-out world in order to lampoon something much closer to home: The hilarious, absurd, and peculiar truth of the human condition.”
French sales group MK2 Films, hot off Anatomy of a Fall, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes last year, en route to crossover box office success (and an Oscar for best original screenplay) will launch international presales for Alpha Gang at the Cannes market next week. CAA Media Finance is handling sales for North America.
“We’re thrilled to be working with the visionary Zellner Brothers,” said mk2 managing director Fionnuala Jamison. “Their script for Alpha Gang seamlessly blends the spirit of 1950s rebellion with an intergalactic revolution. And with the incomparable Cate Blanchett in the role of the effortlessly cool Alpha One, leading an exceptional ensemble cast, we expect buyers to be fighting to join the ranks of the Alpha Gang.”
The Zellners’ Sasquatch Sunset, a comedy about a family of Bigfoot-style creatures, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough but shot without a single line of intelligible dialog, was a surprise Sundance breakout and is currently on release in the U.S. via Bleecker Street.
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