TRON: ARES Director Joachim Rønning Takes on Horror With New Film SYSTEM

After spending years making big-budget Disney movies, Joachim Rønning is heading into horror with his next project, System, a mysterious new film from Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios.

The Norwegian filmmaker, who most recently directed Tron: Ares, is currently shooting the movie in London, but there's a catch. Nobody's revealing what the story is about, and even the cast is being kept secret. That's an interesting way to introduce a horror movie, especially with the talent involved.

Rønning is directing System from a script he co-wrote with his brother, Andreas Rønning. He's also producing through his company, The Saga Company.

The project has some solid horror talent on the producing side, with Spooky Pictures' Roy Lee, whose credits include Weapons and It, and Steven Schneider, known for Paranormal Activity and Insidious.

Image Nation Studios CEO Ben Ross (Watcher, Company) and Spooky Pictures' Rami Yasin (Hokum) are serving as executive producers.

Rønning has spent much of his career directing major studio productions, including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and Young Woman and the Sea, which was a great movie!

However, my favorite film of his is still Kon-Tiki, the Academy Award-nominated adventure drama he co-directed with Espen Sandberg. It's a fantastic film that showed what Rønning could accomplish with a compelling story and strong characters.

I'm curious to see what he can do with a horror movie, especially one that appears to be keeping so much of its story a secret.

Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios have also built an impressive lineup of genre projects through their ongoing partnership. Their previous collaborations include Late Night with the Devil, Charlie Polinger's The Plague, Hokum starring Adam Scott, Casey Affleck's Company, and Guy Nattiv's The Liberation.

The companies also recently announced V/H/S: SCP, an upcoming horror film based on the SCP Foundation, in partnership with A24.

With producers responsible for some great modern horror movies involved, System has my attention. It's also cool to see Rønning step away from Disney's blockbuster filmmaking and try something different.