Less than a year after a small group of entertainment professionals joined together to shoot an off-the-cuff sci-fi web series, the Apocalyptic Playground project has outgrown its web origins and is being developed as a feature film. AP helmer James Rhodimer, who’s also the writer and creator of the project, has been spending every waking moment fine-tuning the script, the website and the Facebook Fan Page in preparation for a $100K crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo to fund the passion project.
The Apocalyptic Playground story has grown from avant-garde, visually eclectic vignettes that border on experimental to an epic interstellar hero’s journey. Merging aspects of fantasy and astronomy with science fiction, Apocalyptic Playground tells the story of an eccentric inventor living in a dystopian future whose invention threatens the authority of the New World Government. When the inventor refuses to cooperate he’s banished and forced to develop his intricate plan for revenge from another planet.
The passion behind Apocalyptic Playground extends beyond the project’s creator. Equally excited about the feature film version of AP is an arsenal of award-winning producers and a stellar cast. Producers are in talks with Mark Gantt, the award winning actor & co-creator of The Bannen Way, an online series by Crackle.com and Sony, for the leading role upon the completion of the script. Carly Jones and Courtney Merritt are also attached to the project. Carly appeared in the hit web series Lonelygirl15 and Courtney Merritt has a recurring role on the ABC series, “Suburgatory,” and was a lead in the CMT series “Working Class.” AP also features Brendan Bradley, the creator and leading actor of the successful web series Squatters (shot by Rhodimer), and Cooper Harris of Amy Alyson Fans, Meteor Apocalypse and Resurrection of Serious Rogers (executive produced by Rhodimer).
“The reason I decided to get AP going again was because of the cast,” said writer/director James Rhodimer. “After we shot eleven episodes of the web series everyone asked, when would we shoot more?” Shortly after completing the first season of the web series James met with notable talent agencies and began developing a sci-fi series for the networks but eventually returned to his indie filmmaking roots. “Virtually everyone from the web series wanted to reprise their role in the feature film,” said James. “This showed me that we are all vested in taking this project to the next level. It’s not just my passion, it’s our passion.”
James Rhodimer has completed several independent film projects in the past few years, most notable are Battery Row, a neo-noir thriller, String of Pearls, a spine-tingling ghost story and Gameface, a dramedy about relationships from a man’s point of view. The Producers on Apocalyptic Playground have collectively completed over 25 films in the last decade.
The producers of Apocalyptic Playground have launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to fund the film. If you would like to contribute please visit ApocalypticPlayground.com or Indiegogo at http://igg.me/p/65653