Chris Sparling's first attempt at writing a nail-biting thriller feature, Buried, was such a hit at Sundance that it was the first major acquisition of the festival. Now that he's successfully written a thriller that takes place entirely inside a coffin, setting things inside an ATM vestibule should feel positively epic, right?
That seems to be the gamble he's working with, at least, for ATM, which THR reports has finally picked up a cast after starting pre-production back in February. Brian Geraghty, Josh Peck and Margarita Levieva have signed on to play the three co-workers trapped at an ATM by an unknown man. You know all of those actors from roles in various recent indies, from Geraghty as the third member of the bomb team in The Hurt Locker to Levieva as sultry Lisa P in Adventureland to Peck's marvelous star turn in The Wackness, a movie that, criminally, no one seems to have seen. ATM likely won't be huge, but with Buried poised to make a big splash with its October release, it could be another smart horror alternative for people who like Hitchcockian tension instead of Saw-inspired gore.
They've aiming to start shooting this September in Winnipeg, of all places, so count on seeing this one slip in almost under the radar sometime next year.
