He’s been in almost 150 films over the last four decades, directed almost 40, and is huge in Hong Kong. He’s Sammo Hung and he’s in negotiations to star in the Dark Horse Indie horror/comedy, War Monkeys, in 2009. Hung, who is trained in kung fu, will be fighting off combat trained monkeys.
THR reports that Kevin Munroe (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) will direct. Monroe is building up cred as a horror geek, as he will just be coming off directing the horror comic book adaptation, Dead of Night when he attacks War Monkeys. Monroe tells THR “Monkeys, guns, explosions. As a genre freak, I couldn't ask for anything more.” Maybe some kung fu?
Friend of Munroe, Cleve Nettles (the upcoming Cat Town) penned the script while Dark Horse Indie producer Chris Patton (Destination Mars) came up with the story. The film will follow two hapless janitors who get stuck in an Area-51 type research facility over Christmas vacation. The two inadvertently let loose a crop of military-trained monkeys and have to fend for their lives against the crazed simians.
Munroe tells Sci Fi Wire “It's almost like a modern-day Abbott and Costello movie.” He then says, “It’s basically like Aliens.” Wait what? He explains that “Whenever I spoke to Cleve, Cleve had a high concept: It’s sort of like if Tarantino wrote Gremlins… I was like, ‘It’s exactly it.’” Ok, so “high concept” horror meets classic buddy comedy with lots of physical humor.
The monkeys will be a mix of live monkeys, CGI and puppets. Munroe explains WWhat we're planning on is sort of a mix of live monkeys. One of the producers, Chris Patton, he calls me up and he says, ... 'I've got a lead on a guy who can train rhesus monkeys.' ... [They] like to hold prop guns and wear helmets and stuff. And so there's going to be a mix of live [and puppets]. I'm a real big fan of prosthetics, sort of puppets and stuff, and we'll probably have a little bit of CGI, you know, like for whenever it makes sense and stuff." Sounds like the film is shaping up to be humorously badass.
