Not content to let Cake Tom DeLonge steal his thunder, Real Tom DeLonge, the Blink-182 guitarist-turned-UFO guru, has announced that he’s making his directorial debut with Monsters Of California, a coming-of-age sci-fi story set in Southern California. The film follows his recent forays into TV, which include a History Channel docudrama and an in-development sci-fi series with TBS.
Leading the cast are a pair of names we wouldn’t think to associate: Richard Kind and Casper Van Dien. Kind, a veteran character actor, has appeared in everything from The Carol Burnett Show to Curb Your Enthusiasm while the steel-jawed Van Dien is a D-movie icon, having pivoted his starring role in Starship Troopers into a prolific career playing heavies in delightful VOD fare. The rest of the cast is rounded out by newcomers—Jack Samson, Jared Scott, Jack Lancaster—and a Sports Illustrated model, Camille Kostek.
Deadline describes the movie as a “coming of age adventure with a science fiction twist,” writing that it “follows teenager Dallas Edwards, played by Samson, and his derelict friends on a quest for the meaning behind a series of mysterious, paranormal events in Southern California.” It continues, “The truths they uncover begin to unravel extraordinary secrets held tightly within the deepest levels of the Government.” DeLonge co-wrote the script and will write and perform original music for the film’s score.
“I have been playing this story in my dreams for decades,” DeLonge, who co-wrote the script with Ian Miller, told Deadline. “It represents all aspects of my strange existence, including growing up in San Diego suburbia as a disaffected teenage skateboarder. I had a tight tribe of friends who never missed an opportunity to piss people off and made me laugh so hard I would cry. The camaraderie, curiosity, angst and irreverence is everything that led me to Blink-182 and this story is layered with my obsession with the tightly blurred lines between science and science fiction.”
Production is underway. The CIA, we imagine, is watching closely...