RUSSIAN SCI-FI HORROR ‘SPUTNIK’ TO GET ENGLISH LANGUAGE REMAKE

By Jeremy Nguyen

Matt Reeves’ (The Batman) 6th & Idaho Production company is joining forces with Village Roadshow Pictures (The Matrix, Joker), along with XYZ Films (Mandy) to develop an English-language remake of the 2020 Russian sci-fi horror Sputnik, according to Deadline. The remake is currently in development.

“We believe Sputnik will translate well to English-speaking audiences and continue to captivate moviegoers worldwide with its thrilling story. We are eager to begin production and believe we have some of the best partners in the industry to reimagine Egor’s original vision while staying true to the film’s journey,” said Jillian Apfelbaum, Village Roadshow Pictures’ Executive Vice President of Feature Film.

Set in the Soviet Union in the 1980s during the Cold War, the film follows a young female doctor who is recruited by the military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him.

“Sputnik was the first big Russian release to go straight to digital platforms during the lockdown, everyone was staying at home and an unprecedented amount of people watched it, the release created a lot of buzz in both Russia and globally. I’m very proud that Sputnik now is a rare Russian film to get an English-language remake,” said Russian producer Fedor Bondarchuk, who also stars in the original.

The original Sputnik was directed by Egor Abramenko and written by Oleg Malovichko and Andrey Zolotarev. The movie starred Oksana Akinshina, Fedor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov, and Anton Vasiley.