Sci-Fi Movie Casting: Colin Farrell Teams Up With Kogonada for A24’s ‘After Yang;’ Mahershala Ali Signs on to ‘The Sovereign’

Prestige sci-fi films are all the rage these days, and two of our best working actors have just signed on to two more. Colin Farrell has just teamed up with Columbus director Kogonada to star in the A24 sci-fi family drama After Yang, while Mahershala Ali is following up is recent Oscar win by signing on to star in The Sovereign, an independent sci-fi flick from the producers of Arrival.

After Yang

Colin Farrell continues to work with some of the most intriguing auteurs today, following up appearances in Steve McQueen’s Widows, Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, and two acclaimed Yorgos Lanthimos movies with Kogonada, whose sublime debut feature Columbus promised great things to come. The two are teaming up for After Yang, an A24 film that “follows a father and daughter as they try to save the life of their robotic family member,” according to Deadline.

Based on the short story Alexander Weinstein called Saying Goodbye to Yang, After Yang will be written and directed by Kogonada, and produced by Theresa Park and her Per Capita Productions alongside Cinereach.

Just the combination of Farrell and Kogonada, and the brand power of beloved indie studio A24, is enough to get me excited for this film. Kogonada earned an instant fan with me with Columbus, which was a tender and ponderous film starring John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson that showed the rising director had a knack for pulling subtly moving performances out of actors in addition to an eye for sleek aesthetics. I’m fascinated that he’ll jump from an indie drama like Columbus to a sci-fi film, but judging by his first film, it will be more of a subdued character-driven genre film than a straight-up sci-fi flick.

The Sovereign

Meanwhile, Variety broke the news that Mahershala Ali’s next project after his Oscar-winning turn in Green Book will be a sci-fi movie from the producers of Arrival, Sovereign.

21 Laps Entertainment’s Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, and Dan Cohen, the team behind Arrival and Stranger Things, are keeping busy putting their names behind projects, this time producing the Ali-led project from director Marc Munden. The synopsis for the film is being kept under wraps, but it will be penned by A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who took on the project after Greg Weidman and Geoff Tock wrote the original draft of the script, with revisions by Jack Thorne.

Ali is no stranger to the sci-fi genre, having recently appeared in a supporting role in Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel and starring in several Hunger Games movies. But this will be his first lead role in a major sci-fi flick, and the first following his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar win.

“We have long loved this project and have been patiently waiting until we found the right leading actor, which we no doubt have found in the incredibly talented Mahershala Ali,” Nick Meyer, eOne’s president of film, said in a statement. “The cast is clearly shaping up well and is backed by a creative team with a proven track record and the ability to tell a story that will resonate with audiences around the world.”

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