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North American release set for ‘Nekrotronic’

‘Nekrotronic.’

Kiah Roache-Turner’s sci-fi horror comedy Nekrotronic will be released in the US in select cinemas and on VOD and digital HD on August 9 by Momentum Pictures.

“I’m really excited: I think day-and-date is the future for most independent films in the US,” Kiah tells IF. “Some say it is the end of cinema but it’s not: it’s a different way of delivering films to eyeballs.”

One advantage of the day-and-date strategy is limiting the potential for piracy. The Roache-Turner brothers’ Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead was available on iTunes in the US before the Australian release. “Piracy killed us,” he says.

Produced by Andrew Mason and Troy Lum for Hopscotch Features and Tristan Roache-Turner for Guerrilla Films, Nekrotronic stars Monica Bellucci as Finnegan, CEO of the sinister Daemokon corporation, who is determined to feast on every human soul on the planet via a new smartphone app.

Ben O’Toole and Bob Epine Savea play waste disposal workers Howard and Rangi, who get caught up in the conflict between Finnegan and a trio of Nekromancers: Luther (David Wenham) and his daughters Molly (Caroline Ford) and Torquel (Tess Haubrich).

When Howard finds out the truth behind Finnegan’s past and her dark plans, he teams up with his new friends and discovers he is the ultimate Nekromancer, the only one with the power to defeat her and save the world.

The film had its world premiere last year in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Australian distributor Universal Pictures, which inherited the film co-funded by Screen Australia and Create NSW from eOne, is yet to set a release date. Sierra/Affinity is handling worldwide sales.

Owned by eOne, Momentum Pictures released Stuart McDonald’s Oddball and Greg McLean’s Jungle and it pre-bought US rights to British director Francis Annan’s South Australian-shot thriller Escape From Pretoria, which stars Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber.

The Roache-Turner brothers hope to start shooting the Wyrmwood sequel later this year. Set several years after the original, it will again star Jay Gallagher as Barry and Bianca Bradey as Brooke. The brothers are talking to the “usual suspects” among distributors and co-financiers.