Stunt professional and film and TV director Ben Hernandez Bray (El Chicano, “Arrow,” “The Cleaning Lady”) is eyeing a production start in May for The Black Demon: Atlantis, per announcements in Berlin on Friday.
The sequel to Adrian Grünberg’s 2023 inaugural shark thriller is also enlisting a cast that includes Jack Kesy (Deadpool 2, Hellboy: The Crooked Man), Julio Cesar Cedillo (Netflix’s The Harder They Fall, Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, The Black Demon) and Kate Del Castillo (Telemundo’s “La Reina del Sur,” Fox’s “The Cleaning Lady,” upcoming Trap House).
News of the sequel comes after the success of The Black Demon starring Josh Lucas, which, following its theatrical release in 2023, claimed the #1 spot on Amazon’s streaming rankings for seven consecutive days. Bray will direct from a script is written by Aaron Benjamin and returning The Black Demon scribe Boise Esquerra.
“After the big splash of The Black Demon, the beast returns – faster, fiercer, and hungrier than ever,” according to the film’s logline. Kesy will play Jerry Simms, an undercover DEA agent who teams up with his cellmate, Chato (Cedillo), in a maximum-security prison stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to dismantle a massive drug operation run by the notorious crime boss Diego Nunez. Their mission quickly becomes one of survival when the legendary creature, The Black Demon, tears through the prison, which sits atop a decaying desalination plant polluting the ocean. In a desperate move to protect his empire, Diego unleashes his own giant sea predators to take down the beast. What follows is an epic clash of monsters, where only the strongest will prevail.
Javier Chapa and Phillip Braun are producing for Mucho Mas Media, next to Jon Silk for Silk Mas, and Highland Film Group. Sherrese Clarke Soares is exec producing for Harbourview Equity Partners, and Robert Muñoz, Simon Wise, Bruce Barshop and Vincent Cordero for Mucho Mas Media.
Mucho Mas Media is financing the pic along with Highland Film Group who are handling worldwide sales rights to the film in Berlin.
“It’s great to be teaming up again with producers Javier Chapa, Phillip Braun and Jon Silk following the success of our first creature collaboration. We have a fantastic ensemble cast led by Jack Kesy and we look forward to introducing this sensational new installment to audiences around the world,” said Highland Film Group COO Delphine Perrier.
“Helmed by the action and stunt maven Ben Hernandez Bray, The Black Demon: Atlantis will feature stunning action sequences – the scale of the project is quite immense and even bigger than the first film!” added Highland Film Group CEO Arianne Fraser.
“We’re excited to reunite with familiar faces while introducing a fresh new cast in The Black Demon: Atlantis. Expanding the mythology and adding new creatures from the pantheon of Aztec monsters makes this chapter even more thrilling—we can’t wait for audiences to dive into this new adventure,” commented Chapa, Braun and Silk.
Kesy is repped by Paradigm and Range Media Partners; Cedillo is repped by Spellbound Entertainment and Buchwald; Castillo is repped by Sweeney Entertainment, Buchwald, and Felker Toczek Suddleson McGinnis Ryan; Esquerra is repped by Sandra Avila at Inclusion Management.