Michael Bayis set to produce the indie movieSongbird, a pandemic thriller that will be shoot during the actual pandemic in just five weeks.
Adam Mason(Into the Dark) will direct from a script he co-wrote withSimon Boyes, and former Paramount executiveAdam Goodmanwill produce via his Invisible Narratives banner alongside Bay.Eben Davidsonwill also produce for Invisible Narratives, which is producing with Catchlight Studios.
Production is slated to start within five weeks in Los Angeles despite the lockdown, andDeadlinereports that Hollywood’s guilds have already signed off on the production even though they’re still compiling their own safety protocols to allow production to resume. If you’re not sure how that works, there may be an explanation.
Deadline describes Songbird as being in the vein ofCloverfieldandParanormal Activity, both of which were early entrants in the found footage genre that became popular for a time before burning out. The film is set two years in the future, and the pandemic has not gone away, as the virus has continued to mutate amid ongoing waves of lockdown periods. It’s unclear whetherSongbirdwill be positioned as a found footage film or something else entirely, but Deadline claims that rather than a supernatural element, the movie is more of a government conspiracy thriller about paranoia and how it infects the cast of characters during a lockdown.
Mason and Boyes are currently casting the movie, and plan to provide remote training for the actors. In advance of the upcoming Virtual Cannes Market, they’re currently making the rounds with a proof-of-concept sizzle reel that WME and ICM Partners will use to sell the movie, though Bay is certainly a big part of that sell as well.
Consider this Bay’s revenge on the pandemic that has already forced Paramount to delay the release ofA Quiet Place Part II, and seenThe Forever Purgetaken off of Universal’s release schedule. He’s a producer on both projects, and though he last directedSix Undergroundfor Netflix, we last saw him playing the wedding MC inBad Boys for Lifein a nod to his past films in that franchise. As a matter of fact, the thirdBad Boysmovie is the year’s highest-grossing movie and may end the year with the box office crown, so in the end, Michael Bay could still get the last laugh against the ‘rona.Click hereto read our enthusiastic review of the sequel.
