Uwe Boll is back from the dead.

The cult B-movie director has begun production on 23 Years Later — The Castle of the Dead, a zombie horror film the German director bills as an “unofficial sequel” to his 2003 video game adaptation House of the Dead.

Boll is set to begin principle photography of the film on September 5 in Germany, with Jonathan Cherry and Ona Grauer, the original stars of House of the Dead, returning for the new feature. Officially, the film has no connection to the Sega House of the Dead video game as Boll does not have the adaptation rights.

Boll is directing 23 Years Later from a script co-written by Lutz Geiger, with long-term partner Michael Roesch producing. Boris Wolffgardt is a co-producer on the project.

The first House of the Dead film follows a group of students who book a boat trip to an island to attend a rave only to discover the place is infested by zombies centered. The bulk of the action takes place in a derilict house where the survivors hold up to fight off the undead onslaught.

Boll is keeping the plot of the new film under wraps but said 23 Years Later will be based in a castle. “So in a way,” said Roesch, “we’re upgrading from a house full of zombies to a castle full of zombies.”

House of the Dead, like most Boll movies, was trashed by critics on release but went on to gross more than $10 million on domestic release and, according to Boll, has earned over $100 million on home video and VOD worldwide to date. Michael Hurst directed a straight-to-video sequel, House of the Dead 2 (2005).

The new zombie movie comes amid news that Paul W.S. Anderson is working on an official House of the Dead reboot for Sega. Boll’s mockbuster move feels like a deliberate trolling of the Resident Evil director.

“When I heard that Paul Anderson is rebooting House of the Dead, I immediately knew that it will be a soulless CGI orgy”, said Boll in a statement. “And I want to do a completely different zombie movie: Bloody, gory and handmade.”

Boll has also announced plans for an official reboot of Alone in the Dark (2005), another of his early video game adaptations. Boll´s Event Films has optioned the film rights to survival horror video game series from publisher THQ Nordic. The original Alone in the Dark starred Christian Slater and Tara Reid.

The ever-prolific Boll has the action thriller Citizen Vigilante, starring Armie Hammer, releasing this summer, via Quiver, and is in post-production on two back-to-back sequels of his 2024 cop thriller First Shift, which was a surprise hit on Paramount+.

Oscar-winning Cannes habitué Marion Cotillard returns to the festival with Guillaume Canet’s Karma and Bertrand Mandico’s Roma Elastica. These titles bring her Official Selection tally to 16 films since 2011, eight of them in Competition, including Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night and Leos Carax’s Annette. Karma revolves around a woman with a troubled past whose new life is upended by a child’s disappearance, while Roma Elastica follows an actress caught up in a crazy film shoot in Rome in the 1980s. Cotillard says both roles appealed to a desire for challenges during a period of transition in her life.

DEADLINE: You’ve been coming to the Cannes Film Festival nearly every year since the late 1990s, making your first appearance in the Official Selection in 2011. What does the festival mean to you?

MARION COTILLARD: When I was a kid, it was kind of a dream to see what was happening during the festival. The first time I came, I was so excited to be part of this very magical place

DEADLINE: Do you ever get to watch films when you’re at the festival?

COTILLARD: No… I used to a long time ago when I didn’t have movies in the festival… I remember seeing Moulin Rouge. One of my biggest shocks at the festival was Matthias & Maxime [2019], Xavier Dolan’s movie. I’m a big fan. To this day, it’s one of my favorite movies about love of all time. That was a very special screening for me. 

DEADLINE: Can you tell us a bit about your role in psychological thriller Karma?

COTILLARD: Guillaume wrote the movie for me. I had a few years raising my kids and not finding anything strong enough for me to go away from them. He said, ‘I really want to write a movie for you with a very, very strong character, with something different from what you did before.’ He came up with this character whose past comes back and turns her life into something that is totally different from what she’s been living for years. He wrote a very, very strong and twisted script for me. She’s a woman who slowly reveals herself, who thinks she’s weak but discovers she’s not. 

DEADLINE: This is your sixth film with Canet after Little White Lies, Blood Ties, Rock’n Roll, Little White Lies 2 and Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. Do you think you will work together again?

COTILLARD: He is one of my favorite directors. He’s explored many genres, but always with a very intimate touch. He writes movies that, even if it’s not his life, are always connected to his life. He’s one of the best directors for actors I ever worked with, and I trust him with my life. He’s passionate and precise. Watching him on set is something that I will never be tired of. So, yeah, I really hope we will continue working together.

DEADLINE: The tale of an actress who heads to Rome in the 1980s for a film shoot, Bertrand Mandico’s Roma Elastica is in a very different vein. How did you get involved? 

COTILLARD: It’s a very artistic movie. When I received the script, it was a very special script with images, and a mood board. At first, I was like, ‘Ooh, what’s this?’ I didn’t know anything about Mandico. I had never watched his movies. I read the script without knowing who he was and what his work was. At first, I was thinking, ‘I don’t know if this is the kind of movie for me.’ But it was silly of me to think that way. It was just all those pictures of the ’70s and the psychedelia. I loved the character right away, the way it was written, the dialogue, everything. The next thing I did was watch his movies. I loved them, and then we met. He’s such a special human being, a very, very strong and interesting artist.

DEADLINE: You’re joined in the cast by Noémie Merlant and an eclectic group of Italian actors including iconic stars such as Isabella Ferrari, Ornella Muti and Franco Nero. How was that? 

COTILLARD: They all have, like, crazy, beautiful and very peculiar characters. Isabella Ferrari, I fell in love with her. She’s so amazing in the movie, as is Ornella Muti. She’s such an icon. They fit into Mandico’s universe perfectly. I already knew Noémie Merlant. We did Lee [2023] together with Kate Winslet. The relationship between our characters is beautiful and intense. I was so happy to be able to have this connection with her. She’s more than good, she’s insanely good, and really creates a very special character, who is moving and funny at the same time. It’s the kind of movie that you will maybe do once in your life.