Black Bear is at the Cannes Market handling international sales for horror White Elephant. The project comes with an impressive cast and some serious genre pedigree to back it.
It’s an eight-person ensemble of Nick Jonas, Kathryn Newton, KJ Apa, Alexandra Shipp, Ashley Park, Justice Smith, Josh Brener, and Madeleine Arthur. And for a horror film, that sort of cast is a rarity. It tells you there’s real commercial potential.
About White Elephant
White Elephant is the first project under the RSPX partnership between Radio Silence and Project X, focusing on innovative horror and thriller projects. MRC is studio financing the film.
Eli Craig, who directed Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, directed the film based on a script from JT Billings of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, with additional writing from Craig.
The pitch is simple. The plot follows “eight friends competing for a prize when their annual holiday gift exchange spirals into a cutthroat game of carnage.” It’s squarely in the holiday slasher territory, but with a sharper crew and film team with genre experience.
Radio Silence and Project X
Newton is re-teaming with Radio Silence and Project X after working with Samara Weaving in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the sequel to their 2019 Searchlight horror film Ready or Not. It’s already her third collaboration with the company.
Jonas is also playing lock down. He just premiered Power Ballad, a musical dramedy with Paul Rudd to rave reviews at SXSW, set for a Lionsgate release on June 5. He will appear with Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Kevin Hart in the latest Jumanji film from Columbia Pictures.
William Sherak, Paul Neinstein and James Vanderbilt are producing for Project X Entertainment. Spencer Berman and Jonas are producing for Powered by Jonas with Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin. Exec producers include Billings, Ryan McDonough, Amanda Drake, Newton, Scott Levine and Chad Villella.
Newton has been pretty upfront on why she keeps coming back.
(They’re) “just so collaborative” and that she likes how “they let me be a bit weird.”
Newton
She credits her horror film work on Paranormal Activity 4, Freaky, and Lisa Frankenstein.
Black Bear is now aggressively promoting White Elephant to foreign buyers in Cannes. It seems the holiday horror is clearly being positioned for a worldwide roll-out.
