Netflix Preempts Sundance Pic ‘His House’, Midnight Thriller With Timely Immigration Premise

Mike Fleming Jr

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EXCLUSIVE: On the eve of the start of the Sundance Film Festival, Netflix has gotten on the board early by making a preemptive world rights acquisition of His House, a film written and directed by Remi Weekes that premieres Monday in the Midnight Section and fuses genre to a most timely premise. A young refugee couple makes a harrowing escape from war-torn Sudan, and then struggle to adjust to their new life in a small English town that has an evil lurking beneath the surface. Weekes wrote the script with Felicity Evans and Toby Venables.

The film, which stars Wunmi Mosaku (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Sope Dirisu (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) and Matt Smith, is a co-production between New Regency and BBC. Pic is produced by New Regency’s Arnon Milchan, Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee, Martin Gentles and Edward King of Starchild Pictures and Aidan Elliott in association with BBC. The exec producers are New Regency’s Yariv Milchan, Michael Schaefer and Natalie Lehmann; BBC Films’ Eva Yates; Stuart Manashil; and Steven Schneider.

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Weekes is a co-founder of Tell No One, a production outfit specializing in experimental short-form video content. His shorts and commercial campaigns have garnered millions of hits, won numerous awards including a Gold Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival, and have been exhibited in galleries and film festivals. He directed his first short film Tickle Monster, which premiered at SXSW last year.

For New Regency, it is the latest example of the company’s efforts to break new filmmakers with films that include the Robert Eggers-directed The Lighthouse and the upcoming Jonathan Butterell-directed Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

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