Dune's David Dastmalchian has been cast to lead the upcoming indie horror film Late Night With the Devil, Variety reports. The film takes place in 1977 and the actor plays a late-night talk show host whose show goes horribly wrong, and unleashes evil into viewers' homes. Late Night With the Devil is directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, the Australian writing and directing team behind Australian horror films 100 Bloody Acres and Scare Campaign.
In a joint statement, the Cairnes brother discussed the upcoming film, saying:
“In the ’70s and ’80s there was something slightly dangerous about late-night TV. Talk shows in particular were a window into some strange adult world. We thought combining that charged, live-to-air atmosphere with the supernatural could make for a uniquely frightening film experience."
Spooky Pictures founders Roy Lee and Steven Schneider, Derek Dauchy and Future Pictures’ Mat Govoni and Adam White and John Molloy all serve as producers for Late Night With the Devil. Australian filmmaker Joel Anderson, Rami Yasin, and Dastmalchian serve as executive producers. Late Night is a collaboration between Future Picture, Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Abu Dhabi. Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Abu Dhabi recently collaborated on the thriller Watcher, starring It Follows' Maika Monroe.
No information regarding release dates for Late Night With the Devil is currently available. The film is currently shooting in Australia.
David Dastmalchian's Previous and Upcoming Projects
On film, Dastmalchian most recently played Mentat Piter de Vries in Denis Villeneuve's Dune adaptation, but he began his acting career on-stage with several Chicago theater companies. For his stage performances, he received praise for his roles in The Glass Menagerie and Buried Child. His feature film debut came in 2008, when he appeared as Thomas Schiff on Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight, opposite Heath Ledger's Joker.
In 2014, Dastmalchian starred in Animals, a semi-autobiographical independent film he wrote. That March, he was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Courage in Storytelling at the South by Southwest Film Festival. The film and his performance, were praised for depicting a realistic view of substance abuse. Dastmalchian has appeared in television and film, including both Ant-Man films, The Suicide Squad, A Million Little Pieces, and the CW's The Flash. The actor has collaborated with director Villeneuve on Prisoners, Blade Runner 2049 and Dune.
Dastmalchian will appear in three films scheduled for release in 2023: André Øvredal's Last Voyage of the Demeter, a horror film adaptation of a chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula; in Christopher Nolan’s J. Robert Oppenheimer biographical film Oppenheimer; and Rob Savage's The Boogeyman, a horror film based on Stephen King's 1978 short story of the same name.