The Canyons from Schrader and Ellis shoots in July

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It was just over a month ago when we reported Brett Easton Ellis working with Paul Schrader on a noir film. Ellis had teased on Twitter that it would be a sexy thriller of some kind, and he’d ideally want male pornstar James Deen to play one of the leads.

Now it’s official: the movie is called The Canyons, Schrader is set to direct, and it starts shooting in Los Angeles on July 9th. The Playlist learned that the film is a psycho-sexual thriller about a group of LA twenty-somethings. They also have a character list from an open casting call, which goes as follows:

  • Christian: trust fund kid and film producer who makes sex tapes of his three-ways
  • Tara: Christian’s girlfriend and ex-model
  • Ryan: actor (aka bartender who acts) that wants to be in Christian’s horror film
  • Gina: Ryan’s co-worker and would-be girlfriend who also wants to be in the horror film
  • Lindsay: yoga instructor and ex-actress who’s falling hard for Christian

I like none of them already. Maybe that’s the point. The Playlist also notes the film will be financed by Schrader, Ellis, and producer Braxton Pope, the trio avoiding studios so they can make the film without any compromises on the material.

In the gallery we have the banner image (is that what you kids call it?) for the film’s official Facebook page. The original photo is by Lauren Farmer. You can check out more of her work on Lauren Farmer’s website.

[Via The Playlist, The Canyons (Facebook)]

Hubert Vigilla
Brooklyn-based fiction writer, film critic, and long-time editor and contributor for Flixist. A booster of all things passionate and idiosyncratic.