IM Global's Octane boards Barry Levinson zombie thriller The Bay

The Bay centres on the aftermath of a viral outbreak on the Eastern Seaboard. The story is told via a series of recordings on camera phones, 911 calls and other scraps of video as the town of Claridge, Maryland, is engulfed by chaos.

Jason Blum is producing alongside Oren Peli, Steven Schneider and Brian Kavanagh Jones, who runs Automatik, IM Global’s production joint venture with Alliance Communications.

Levinson recently earned acclaim for his HBO special You Don’t Know Jack, about the euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian. He won the best director Oscar for Rain Man and his many credits include Wag The Dog, Diner, Sleepers and Good Morning, Vietnam,

Octane’s slate includes two films premiering in official selection at Toronto, namely James Wan’s Insidious and Brad Anderson’s Vanishing On 7th Street.

The other main sales focus in Toronto for Stuart Ford’s IM Global, whose international sales team is led by Jonathan Deckter, will be Dredd, the 3D adaptation of the 2000AD comic strip that it is financing alongside parent company Reliance.

The $45m action thriller starts shooting in Cape Town in November. Pete Travis is directing, DNA Films is producing and Karl Urban stars as the futuristic law enforcer.

IM Global is also gearing up for an October start on the $30m thriller Safe starring Jason Statham, which the company is fully financing and sold out in Cannes.

Boaz Yakin is directing and Lawrence Bender is producing alongside Automatik and Trigger Street Productions.