A vertical eyed alien from Occupation.Photo: Saban Films
What happens you blend Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Signs, Cloverfield, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and District 9, along with a dash of first-person shooters and a sprinkle of Jango Fett? It’s called Occupation, and we’ve got your exclusive look at the new trailer.
[Full disclosure: Saban Brands founder Haim Saban has ownership interest in Univision Communications, which itself owns Gizmodo Media Group, the network of websites io9 is part of.]
Written and directed by Luke Sparke, Occupation follows a group of strangers forced to band together to save the world after aliens who’ve been scouting the Earth for centuries finally decide to invade. Check out the trailer debut below:
Now that just looks like fun, right? For a movie that doesn’t have the budget of a big Hollywood alien invasion movie, it’s obvious that a lot of care was put into the effects and production value. That second to last shot of the helicopters chasing the alien ships? Pretty cool stuff.
Occupation is being distributed by Saban Films and is an Australia-based production, so many of the actors are new to most of us. Of course, there are a few exceptions. There’s Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett from Attack of the Clones; Stephany Jacobsen from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; as well as Bruce Spence, whose name you may not know, but who has been playing key character roles in genre films since the ’70s, including Revenge of the Sith, the Mad Max series, Matrix Revolutions, and more. Here’s the poster, which we’re also debuting.
The poster for Occupation.Photo: Saban Films
What you’ve got here is a passion project that’s a scifi action film, and it feels like it’s filled with potential. Occupation will be in theatres, on-demand, and digital HD on July 20.