Newly Formed Artists Film Group Sets ‘Pretty Little Liars’ Actor Drew Van Acker For Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Back Home’

EXCLUSIVE: Artists Film Group, the recently launched film investment and production company set up by Wes Hull (Zone 414), Robert Rippberger (The Inventor) and David Lugo (Welcome Home), has unveiled details on two of its debut projects.

The company has acquired sci-fi spec script Back Home, written by Anne Vithayathil, and has set Drew Van Acker (Pretty Little Liars) to star, with Drew Mylrea (Spy Intervention) attached to direct. The pic is a contained thriller with heavy VFX components and the team is fast-tracking with an aim to go into production in the fall. The movie will be produced by Hull, Lugo and Rippberger with Sunil Perkash (Premonition) and Van Acker.

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“Back Home is a riveting thriller where the audience is always one step behind, guessing what will happen next. Director Mylrea’s vision can best be described as if Hitchcock made a modern sci-fi thriller where the audience delights in the created tension,” said Perkash. “We very much look forward to working with AFG to bring this unique mashup of sci-fi and whodunit to the big scream in the very near future.”

Artists Film Group is also producing the feature Those Who Walk Away, written and directed by Rippberger and starring Nils Allen “Booboo” Stewart Jr. (Twilight) and his father Nils Allen Stewart. The pic, billed as a high-concept horror themed around male sexual assault, is aiming to begin filming next month.

The company’s mission is to develop and produce both film and TV projects and to provide structured finance and debt financing to back them into production.

Scribe Vithayathil and Rippberger are both repped by manager Daniel Brandt at Plain-Text, Van Acker is repped by ICM Partners as well as by Luber/Roklin and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher, along with Mylrea and Perkash.

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