Emma Roberts (The Hunt) and Jack Whitehall (Good Omens) have signed on to play the leads in a new independent sci-fi comedy called Robots.
Based on a short story by Robert Sheckley, Robots is set in a near future America and follows a womanizer (Whitehall) and a gold digger (Roberts) who trick people into relationships with illegal robot doubles of themselves. When they unwittingly use this scam on each other, their robot doubles fall in love and elope, forcing the duo to team up to hunt them down before the authorities discover their secret.
The movie will mark the feature directorial debut of long-time Sacha Baron Cohen collaborator Ant Hines, who wrote the scripts for Borat, Bruno, Who is America? and Da Ali G Show.
“When this project was first conceived, it seemed relevant — at the risk of sounding incredibly self-important — it now seems almost necessary,” Hines told Variety. “Set against a backdrop of an America seeded by the current administration, empathy has been devalued and one underclass has been expelled, only to be replaced by another: Robots.”
Hines also penned the screenplay with Danish comedian Casper Christensen. The project is being developed by Stephen Hamel (Passengers) under his Company Films banner, with Elevated's Cassian Elwes (Mudbound) producing.
No other details were provided, but we assume filming is scheduled for later this year or early 2021.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.