Arachnophobia Horror Sting to Be Unleashed on Cannes Buyers

Posted by Martina Birk on Thursday, January 18, 2024

Arachnophobes, beware, you’re in for a scare.

A new horror about a super-sized spider is hitting the Croisette from Cornerstone Films, which will handle worldwide sales and introduce the pic to buyers in Cannes.

From writer and director Kiah Roache-Turner (“Wyrmwood: Apocalypse,” “Nekrotronic”), “Sting” centers on a spider hatched from a mysterious object that falls from the sky into a New York City apartment building. When 12-year-old Charlotte finds the spider, she decides to keep it as a pet, and name it Sting. But as her fascination with Sting grows, so too does the arachnid’s size — and appetite for blood.

Neighbors’ pets start to go missing, and then the neighbors themselves. Soon Charlotte’s family and the eccentric characters of the building realize that they are all trapped, hunted by a ravenous spider with a taste for human flesh, and Charlotte is the only one who can stop it.

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Oscar-winning Weta Workshop, led by creative director Richard Taylor (“Blade Runner 2049,” “King Kong”), will create the physical puppet effects out of their workshop in New Zealand. The company has been recently working on Scott Walker’s “The Tank,” which is also being sold by Cornerstone.

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“Sting” is produced by Jamie Hilton (“Sleeping Beauty”) and Michael Pontin (“June Again”) through See Pictures together with Pictures in Paradise’s Chris Brown (“Daybreakers”). Principal photography will begin in Sydney, Australia, in late 2022.

Roache-Turner began his career in the commercial world and in 2015 he released his debut film “Wyrmwood,” which premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin. His follow up feature “Nekrotronic,” starring Monica Bellucci, premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival and “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” won the Audience Award at the 2021 Sydney Film Festival.

Cornerstone’s Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder said: “Kiah has written a hugely entertaining script that delivers multiple thrills and twists in an extremely audience-friendly way. We are very excited to release ‘Sting’ into the Cannes market.”

“Sting” follows in the footsteps of Frank Marshall’s 1990 skin-crawler “Arachnophobia,” about a deadly South American spider that hitched a ride to the U.S. in a coffin and began to breed and kill humans. The movie starred Jeff Daniels, Julian Sands and John Goodman.

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