Hollywood still remains largely shut down despite some regions of the United States encouraging citizens to go about “reopening” amid the coronavirus pandemic. Timelines for pretty much everything remain uncertain, and in the movie industry we learned on Tuesday that the Oscars may be postponed as a result of the various juggled release dates and productions still shut down across the industry.
We also learned, however, of a title that may be the first to start filming despite Stay At Home orders and public health concerns still keeping most on lockdown. According to Deadline, a Michael Bay production hopes to begin filming in Los Angeles in as little as five weeks. The movie, titled Songbird, reportedly takes place two years into the future in a world still beset by disease and largely on lockdown.
Former Paramount production chief Adam Goodman’s Invisible Narratives has teamed with Michael Bay to produce Songbird, a pandemic thriller that plans to take an unusual approach to shooting a movie in Los Angeles during the lockdown. It will begin production within five weeks, and might be the first film to shoot in the city.
The film will be directed by Adam Mason (Into The Dark), who wrote the script with Simon Boyes (Misconduct). The filmmakers are providing remote training for the actors. None of the participants would say exactly how they plan to shoot a movie at a time when the guilds are still compiling their own safety protocols so that production can resume.
Financing for the “low budget” film is reportedly secure, and the various guilds involved have apparently given the go-ahead but there are many unknowns about exactly how it will film and who will be on location. The Deadline piece compares the film to Cloverfield, which had a distinctly found footage style. The piece indicates that casting is underway, so it remains unknown who will be involved in the film, but it would be one of the first properties to come out of quarantine and given the subject matter seems a direct result of the last few months of our existence.
