A24, the home of acclaimed films likeRoomandAmerican Honey, is taking the mystery box approach for an upcoming release. As such, we know very little on an “official” capacity, but here are some buzzwords to pique your interest:Chance the Rapper. Pizza boy. Serial killer. Outlaw.Slice. If that wasn’t enough, the first teaser video is also online.
The movie is calledSlice, which Chance the Rapper (a.k.a. Chancellor Johnathan Bennett) filmed in secret in Chicago with music video directorAustin Vesely, who’s worked with the artist for some time. The story takes place in a “mysterious city” and features “an enigmatic outlaw framed for a killing spree that targets unsuspecting pizza delivery boys.”
Vesely offered up a lot more details on the project during an interview withRedEyein 2015. But if you want to keep the mystery box closed, you may watch the teaser below and leave it at that.
For those still reading, Vesely said the concept is based on a short film he wrote years ago. For theSlicefeature film, he was inspired by authorGeorge Saunder’s novellaCivilWarLand In Bad Decline, which involves ghosts, and Vesely incorporated “these supernatural elements that people accept as reality.”
The director went on to explain that Chance the Rapper “is actually a werewolf who is a former Chinese food delivery driver. Basically, these murders start happening and they hearken back to an incident that happened with him years before, and they arouse the town’s suspicions.”
On enlisting Chance for the role, he said:
Being friends and colleagues with Chance the Rapper was cool because he’s interested in movies too. He basically told me that when the time comes that I could make something, he’d be there for me. So I wrote a role for him in the piece. While he wasn’t involved in the writing up to this point, I told him what the general idea of the role I had for him was, and he was cool with that.
