Attention all financiers, we need to get this movie made.
Last year, a really hot package hit the Cannes market — Kristen Stewart, Oscar Isaac, and Elizabeth Olsen were attached to star in “Flesh of the Gods,” a vampire thriller to be directed by Panos Cosmatos (“Mandy”).
A year later, here we are again: the film has hit the Cannes market for the second year in a row, and still no word yet on when it’ll get made. Turns out, according to Stewart, via IndieWire, the film is still looking for financing. Yikes. You’d think that with that cast, Cosmatos could muster up some funding, but apparently not.
“Flesh of the Gods,” which is being described as “wildly commercial” and “wildly artful,” was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Se7en”), based on a story by Cosmatos and Walker. Per the producers, the story follows a married couple, Raoul (Isaac) and Alex (Stewart), who descend each evening from their luxury skyscraper condo and head into an electric nighttime realm of ’80s LA. When they cross paths with a mysterious and enigmatic woman (Olsen) and her hard-partying cabal, Raoul and Alex are seduced into a glamorous, surrealistic world of hedonism, thrills, and violence.
I love how Cosmatos has described this project:
Both propulsive and hypnotic […] it will take you on a hot rod joy ride deep into the glittering heart of hell
The psychedelic visuals in Cosmatos’ 2018 film “Mandy” remain etched in my memory. He absolutely delivered on the potential he showed in his 2010 debut, “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” and then some. Recently, I asked around about another project of his, “Nekrokosm,” produced by A24, which is apparently still in the “early stages of development.”
And I really hope “Flesh of the Gods” gets made, because it sounds delightfully bonkers — the kind of fever-dream genre vision only Cosmatos seems capable of pulling off.