Top Filipino film director Mikhail Red (“Birdshot,” “Rekorder”) is set as series director of “Dreamwalker,” a live-action book-to-series adaptation of a story about a monster-slaying vlogger. The project is being set up by London- and Singapore-based 108 Media.
The show is an adaptation of the “Dreamwalker” action-fantasy graphic novel by Filipino-American pop culture blogger Mikey Sutton and artist Noel Layon Flores. The novel topped the comics charts in The Philippines and was auctioned for TV adaptation. 108 Media envisages the show as a multi-season universe which will begin to find its way to regional audiences in Asia from early 2024.
Season one will focus on the origin story of the Filipino-American protagonist Kat who returns to the Philippines under mysterious circumstances. She survives a bus crash and finds herself gifted with the ability to enter dreams of others and being able to extract weapons temporarily to wield against supernatural beings from Filipino folklore as she investigates the source of the monster wave while attempting to help those affected by the looming threat.
ContentAsia Award Best Director winner Treb Monteras II is set as showrunner and director, Red is series director and Los Angeles-based genre icon Kaitlyn Fae Fajilan is head writer. GMA’s popular star Kate Valdez (“Unica Hija”) will take the lead role.
Executive producers for the series are Justin Deimen (president of 108 Media), Monteras, Kirstie Contrevida (creative producer at 108 Media), Abhi Rastogi (CEO of 108 Media) and Sutton.
Sutton says the role was effectively written for Valdez long before her attachment. “I randomly discovered Kate Valdez in 2018 while recovering from a near-fatal stroke. I saw her on the GMA drama ‘Onanay’ and her emotionally rich performance and timeless beauty made me declare her the Next Big Thing. I modelled and named ‘Dreamwalker’ after her,” he said in a statement.
“The goal is to create an original mind-blowing and visually dynamic series that dives deep into the horrors in our dreams vs. the horrors of our world. We will utilize different mediums and techniques to create breath-taking designs that capture Philippine folklore’s intricate universe,” said Monteras.
108 Media has had a busy and expansive year. It acquired the formerly AIM-listed DCD Rights and its subsidiaries; invested in Singapore-based animation IP specialist Robot Playground Media, secured a majority stake in one of Asia’s top scripted production companies Revolution Media and purchased management control of one of the U.K.’s most prominent film/TV financing firms Piccadilly Pictures.
On the content front, it recently struck a co-financing deal with BritBox International on series “Inspector Singh,” that is currently in production and announced a showrunner partnership with horror maestro Neil Marshall on “Nightshade.” 108 Media is also in pre-production on a feature adaptation of the hit novel Mango Bride,” with Sharon Cuneta attached to executive produce and star.
