Garry Maddox of Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Maverick Aussie director puts up $1.6m of his own money — for killer robot movie.

“Longtime Australian commercials director and cinematographer Mark Toia came up with a preposterously ambitious idea for a debut film: a CIA test of military robots goes disastrously wrong when a group of American doctors arrive in a Cambodian jungle for humanitarian work. Toia, 56, then shot it around the world – starting in Cambodia then moving on to Vancouver, New York and Brisbane. And he and his wife put up $1.6 million of their own ‘hard cash’ to make it, without a cent from government agencies or the film industry. He spent a year seeing whether he could get backing in the US before he and wife Carolyn decided to do it all themselves. ‘I thought, you know what, I don’t really need the money. Screw it. I’m going to do this as a bit of an indie film now for the masses and sell it ourselves.‘”

The result, Monsters of Man, begins streaming online on December 8, 2020.

Do they think they’ll make any profit?

“I have no idea. I decided that if I was going to do a movie, I’d just do my own just for more of a therapy, relaxation type thing. And it was therapeutic. Because we funded it ourselves, I didn’t have to listen to anyone. Because I was a painter as a child, it was like a painting for me. It was like working in my garage, painting away.“

Check out the movie’s website.

My take: that’s a great concept! And kudos to Mark and Carolyn for putting up their own money. If the movie is anything like the trailer it could be good! I’m slightly spooked by the running time, though.