Today is really not a good day for arachnophobes. Deadline have revealed a first look at Sting, the upcoming spider-horror from Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood), as well as revealing that Cornerstone is handling worldwide sales and distribution on the pic.
Sting – which recently wrapped production in Sydney, Australia – stars Ryan Corr (House of the Dragon, Wolf Creek 2), Alyla Browne (Three Thousand Years of Longing), Penelope Mitchell (Hellboy), Robyn Nevin (Relic), Noni Hazlehurst (Candy) and Jermaine Fowler (Retreat).
One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spiderโฆ The creature is discovered by Charlotte, a rebellious 12-year-old girl obsessed with comic books. Despite her stepfather Ethanโs best efforts to connect with her through their comic book co-creation Fang Girl, Charlotte feels isolated. Her mother and Ethan are distracted by their new baby and are struggling to cope, leaving Charlotte to bond with the spider.
Keeping it as a secret pet, she names it Sting. As Charlotteโs fascination with Sting increases, so does its size. Growing at a monstrous rate, Stingโs appetite for blood becomes insatiable. Neighboursโ pets start to go missing, and then the neighbours themselves. Soon Charlotteโs family and the eccentric characters of the building realise that they are all trapped, hunted by a ravenous supersized arachnid with a taste for human fleshโฆ and Charlotte is the only one who knows how to stop it.
Alison Meese, SVP of UK acquisitions & production at STUDIOCANAL (who will release Sting in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Switzerland and Benelux) had this to say about the upcoming arachnid epic: ‘We fell for Kiahโs wildly effective script which, united with his inventive direction, WETAโs unbeatable creature FX work and the near universal primal fear of spiders, weโve got a treat on our hands for horror audiences across the STUDIOCANAL territories.’
Bringing the giant spider to life with physical effects is the New Zealand-based, Oscar-winning Wฤtฤ Workshop (appropriately named after one of the world’s largest insects) who are most famous for their work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, Blade Runner 2049 and more recently on X and M3GAN. Based on the quality of their past work, Sting is about to be one skin-crawlingly spectacular spider show.
