Ben Wheatley is the man who directed Meg 2. I’ve not had the chance to see it yet, but I want to as it looks like silly summer blockbuster fun. I have been a fan of Wheatley from his early days though.
His smaller, independent movies are generally a bit weird, but at the same time, fascinating. I have bigged up A Field in England and will continue to do so. He did a remake of Rebecca in 2020 starring Lily James and it was a solid remake of the Hitchcock movie of the same name.
Wheatley’s next project looks to be a zombie TV series called Generation Z. It is set to be a satire that will:
“…mix flesh-eating zombies into a story that satirizes how Brexit has divided the UK.”
It’s also been described as hilarious, frightening, and political. The series didn’t make it into production first time around because of the pandemic shutdown, but now he has the chance to bring it to the screen. During an appearance for an Empire VIP screening of Meg 2, Wheatley said:
“What I’m doing next is six hours for Channel 4, [a] TV series, a horror-based thing […] In the same way I did In The Earth after Rebecca, I’ll do something that’s back to [the] Kill List-y, Sightseers-y world.“
The sound of something like Kill List intrigues me greatly. The Kill List is a wonderfully bizarre movie with a devastating twist in the tail. I have only seen it once, but I remember liking it. I need to sit down and watch it again. It’s not been officially confirmed, but a synopsis for Generation Z online says:
The future looks bleak for today’s youth – seemingly-endless austerity, astronomical house prices, insurmountable student debt, a political system which appears intent on destroying itself… And to add insult to injury, their hard-earned taxes are being eaten up by the old – smug, self-satisfied, small-minded, “Little Englander” pensioners whose remaining sole purpose in life is to make it a misery for everyone else.
In a small British town, tensions come to a head when a mysterious military convoy crashes outside the Sunnywise Retirement Home. The vehicles were carrying a toxic substance, which, as a result of the crash, leaks into the local environment and infects the residents of the retirement community. The symptoms of this infection quickly manifest – an overwhelming appetite for raw flesh. They’re old, they’re angry and they’re on the rampage. As the military scrambles to control the outbreak and keep everything out of the media spotlight, a group of regular teenagers find themselves in the thick of the battle against these flesh-eating baby boomers.
It sounds interesting. If Wheatley is making it, I will give it a chance. Generation Z is being made for Channel 4, with no release date set as yet. Meg 2: The Trench is in cinemas right now.
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