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SEBASTIAN SPENCE
as Cade Foster
Cade Foster, an engaging and capable man in his early 30s, is a former thief who has discovered a vast conspiracy of alien infiltration on our planet. Unwittingly chosen as part of an alien experiment to test the willpower of the human race, Cade Foster is the only human to survive the test and escape from the aliens. The aliens know him as Subject 117.
Framed for the murder of his wife, Hannah, Foster is pursued by the police for a crime he didn't commit. He also is sought by the aliens, who view him as a deadly variable in the capacity of the human race to fight back. Foster launches a desperate quest to expose the alien plan, adapting his thief skills and using the lost prophecies of Nostradamus as a guide to the alien "first wave." Nostradamus speaks of a "twice-blessed man" who is the key to humanity's salvation. Cade Foster is believed to be that man. He may be the Earth's only hope of avoiding a fiery Armageddon.
Sebastian Spence, a native of St. John's, Newfoundland, got his start as an actor in local theatre. Because his father was a playwright and his mother was a successful local actress, acting seemed a natural career choice for Spence. His numerous stage credits include Later That Same Life, Wolf in the Fold, The Ones That Got Away, Crime and Punishment, King Lear and The Great Fire Show.
Spence's first film was the multiple-award-winning, critically acclaimed The Boys of St. Vincent, which painted a realistic portrait of the true-life horrors of Mount Cashel Orphanage, in Spence's hometown, where children endured years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their care. The travesty was exposed only several years before the film aired. The Boys of St. Vincent, which was nominated by Rolling Stone magazine and USA Today as one of the top movies of 1994, consisted of two parts, the latter subtitled Fifteen Years Later. It is in the difficult role of a young man living with memories of child abuse that Spence earned praise. The accolades are richly deserved and, in light of this work, it is understandable why filmmakers sought out the talents of the gifted young actor.
Spence's television credits include the Showtime series Fast Track, starring Keith Carradine, in which Spence played series regular Stevie Servine; Family of Cops and Family of Cops II, for CBS; The X-Files; The Outer Limits; Sliders; Madison; Two; and Robin's Hoods.
ROB LABELLE
as Crazy Eddie Nambulous
Crazy Eddie Nambulous, the high-strung publisher of the web tabloid "The Paranoid Times," is a cyber-savant to whom daily life is a giant conspiracy. A self-professed "super-genius," Eddie was highly skeptical about Foster's experience with the aliens until he and Foster uncovered the secret lab where cloned human husks were grown and stored, each waiting to be infused with an alien consciousness. Eddie learned the horrible truth: The aliens are here, walking among us, laying the groundwork for an impending invasion.
Eddie agrees to help Cade in his quest to stop the invasion. Traveling from city to city in his techno-junkmobile, Eddie helps Foster fight the aliens as an armchair cyber-detective from the safety of his airstream trailer. To do this, Eddie has scanned the prophecies of Nostradamus into his computer, which he uses to analyze and cross-reference the quatrains with bizarre current events to which they may be connected.
Rob LaBelle stars as Eddie Nambulous (a.k.a. "Crazy Eddie"), the publisher of The Paranoid Times who teams up with Foster in his quest to save the planet from alien takeover. LaBelle's feature-film credits include The Prince of Mulberry Street, Goodbye Lover, Murder in Mind, City Hall, Broken Trust, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, What's Love Got to Do With It, And the Band Played On, The Temp, Late For Dinner and Poison.
LaBelle's television credits include Profiler, High Incident, Star Trek: Voyager, The John Laroquette Show, N.Y.P.D. Blue, Murphy Brown, The X-Files, Amazing Live Sea Monkeys, Married With Children, Danger Theatre, Quantum Leap and the ABC telemovie Those Secrets.
LaBelle, who holds a Master's Degree in Fine Arts from New York University, has also appeared on stage in Sincerity Forever, Beau Jest, MacBeth, Coriolanus, King John, The Odyssey and Anais & Henry.
ROGER CROSS
as Joshua
Joshua, a troubleshooter of alien activities and a member of the elite "acolyte" class, is a disgruntled alien. On his homeworld, he is known as one of their finest warriors and a true patriot. But during the time that he's been on Earth, his doubts about the aliens' mission here have grown. Joshua is loyal to his species; however, he has begun to question their objectives in this potential war and is secretly fearful of defeat at the hands of the enemy. He has a certain respect for the human race, much of it stemming from his knowledge of Subject 117. Joshua knows that if one out of every 117 humans is like Foster, the aliens might have a serious fight on their hands.
Before appearing as the alien Joshua in First Wave, Roger Cross appeared in the feature films Free Willy III, Limbic Region, Gold Diggers, Hideaway, Lethal Obsession and Look Who's Talking Now.
His television-movie credits include Oklahoma City, Captains Courageous, The Killing Point, The Surrogate, Tailhook, On Wings of Fear, The Disappearance of Vonnie, The Winter Garden, Spoils of War, Deliver Them From Evil, When a Stranger Calls and Woman on the Ledge.
CHRIS BRANCATO
Writer/Creator
Sexy science fiction (First Wave, Species II), period gangster action (Hoodlum), gripping suspense-drama (Thieves) — one thing each of these have in common is Chris Brancato, a rising screen and television writer who is interested in taking traditional commercial genres into new and exciting territory.
Brancato has already honed his sci-fi skills on such television series as The Outer Limits and The X-Files. Now he is the imagination behind a startling and sexy vision of human-alien interaction on First Wave, which he created and for which he serves as executive producer, with Francis Ford Coppola and Larry Sugar. The series is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Another project focused on the fascinating concept of contact with alien life from beyond our planet was Brancato's feature Species II. In this sequel to the 1995 runaway hit, Natasha Henstridge reprised her role as a gorgeous but lethal alien-human hybrid whose genetic mating urge threatens everything in her path. Brancato's script updated the story to 1998, as the world's first manned journey to Mars landed triumphantly on the planet's surface — but brought back more than the astronauts bargained for.
But don't get the idea that Chris Brancato is "a sci-fi writer." Brancato has already told many different kinds of stories. In his 1997 film Hoodlum, he went back in time to tell the true-life adventures of black gangster Bumpy Johnson. Brancato also wrote Universal's Thieves, about a group of retired con artists forced to return to safecracking. Warner Bros. backed Brancato's most ambitious and personal project to date: Weathermen, the true-life story of a group of best-and-brightest '60s students who became bomb-throwing terrorists intent upon the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Brancato always knew he was going to be a writer — but not for the movies. He grew up in Teaneck, N.J., with school-teacher parents. After graduating Brown University, Brancato helped to build Steve Rubell's Palladium in New York City — as a construction worker. Later, while trying to figure what kind of writing he wanted to do, his mother found him on the couch and said, "Since you watch so much television, why don't you become a television writer?"
And so he did. Working his way up from a production assistant on Tales from the Darkside to Warren Beatty's assistant on Ishtar, Brancato began to learn the business and sell scripts. He got his first big break in 1991, writing for Aaron Spelling's Hearts Are Wild. Spelling continued to be a mentor to Brancato, giving the new writer a chance on such series as Beverly Hills 90210, Burke's Law and Robin's Hoods. Brancato then made his motion-picture debut with Hoodlum.
Brancato lives in Los Angeles.
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
Executive Producer
The son of composer and musician Carmine Coppola, Francis was born in Detroit, Mich., on April 7, 1939. He grew up in Queens and Long Island, N.Y., where his family settled shortly after his birth. As a young boy, he turned out 8mm "features," edited from home movies, with such titles as The Lost Wallet and The Grass Is Very Dark. A bout with polio left him almost paralyzed for a year at age 9. Bedridden and isolated, he developed an interest in comic books, puppetry, ventriloquism and television. The Coppola family specialized in music, but Francis was only able to develop a proficiency in the tuba and squeaked by with a musical scholarship to the New York Military Academy.
Coppola's early interest in the arts led to a major in theater at New York's Hofstra University and an M.F.A. in film from UCLA. Coppola entered Hofstra in 1955 to major in theater arts and became a driving force in the drama department. However, when Coppola viewed Eisenstein's seminal film Ten Days That Shook the World, cinema became his passion.
After earning his B.A. in theater arts in 1959, Coppola enrolled at UCLA for graduate work in film, and supported himself by occasionally working as an editor on the new fad of the day: nudie films. As an editor, he was in charge of preparing the titles for films that were usually a hodge-podge of previous failed efforts and European nudies. Thinking that he'd possibly never see his name on the screen, he listed himself as director of Tonight for Sure, and The Bellboy and The Playgirls — which, he explains with great chagrin, is why most lists of his directorial credits erroneously begin with those titles.
While still at UCLA, Coppola worked as an all-purpose assistant to B-movie master Roger Corman on a variety of modestly budgeted but lucrative films. Coppola then wrote an English-language version of a Russian science-fiction movie, transforming it into a monster feature that American International released in 1963 as Battle Beyond the Sun. Impressed by the 22-year-old Coppola's adaptability and perseverance, Corman made him the dialogue director on The Tower of London (1962), soundman for The Young Racers (1963) and associate producer of The Terror (1964).
In 1962, on a budget of a fistful of dollars, Coppola directed — in a period of just nine days – Dementia 13, his first feature film, from his own original screenplay. Somewhat superior to the run-of-the-mill exploitation films being turned out at that time, the film recouped its shoestring expenses and went on to become a cult film among horror buffs.
In 1969, Coppola and George Lucas established American Zoetrope, an independent film-production company based in San Francisco. The establishment of American Zoetrope created opportunities for other filmmakers, including John Milius, Carroll Ballard and John Korty. At Zoetrope, Coppola produced THX-1138 and American Graffiti, both directed by Lucas.
In 1971, Coppola's masterpiece The Godfather became one of the highest-grossing movies in history, and earned him an Oscar for best original screenplay, with Mario Puzo. The film also received an Academy Award for Best Picture, and garnered Coppola a Best Director nomination.
In 1975, Coppola began his most ambitious film, Apocalypse Now. This acclaimed movie won a Palmes d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and earned two Academy Awards. Coppola was nominated for director and writing Oscars.
Coppola pushed the horror genre to new levels with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which won an Oscar for Best Costumes. He directed fellow San Franciscan Robin Williams in Jack, one of the top-25-grossing films of 1996. Coppola also directed and wrote the screenplay for John Grisham's The Rainmaker.
LARRY SUGAR
Executive Producer
Larry Sugar has enjoyed a successful career spanning more than 30 years in the motion-picture business, specializing in the international licensing, marketing and distribution of feature films for such media giants as Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Lorimar, CBS and Republic Pictures. After receiving his law degree from USC School of Law in 1971, Sugar began his career with Warner Bros., where, as director of legal & corporate affairs for the International Division, he oversaw the preparation of international licensing for films, as well as joint-venture agreements with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures.
In 1974 Sugar moved to 20th Century Fox, where he split his time between business affairs, international licensing and production
After founding a successful independent distribution agency, Serendipity, which represented major studio releases as well as their licensing and marketing, Sugar became president of Lorimar International, in charge of distribution and acquisition
From Lorimar, Sugar moved to CBS Productions in 1985, as vice-president of distribution and acquisition. In that capacity he was responsible for the placement of all feature films in all media and supervised CBS Broadcast International, the television-licensing arm of CBS.
In 1987, Sugar gained invaluable experience as the executive vice-president of Weintraub Entertainment Group, where he was responsible for the distribution in all media not only of the new feature productions, but also the Thorn-EMI 2,000-title film library, for which he negotiated licenses in all media worldwide.
In 1989, Sugar served at the president of Republic Pictures International, where he was responsible for the distribution of all feature films in all media worldwide as well as for supervision of co-productions and acquisitions.
Sugar has been producing and writing since 1993. In 1994, he produced, wrote (or co-wrote) three feature films in association with premium cable network Showtime, as part of a series of films that he created. One films that he wrote and produced was Robin of Locksley, which, on airing, was the highest rated of all of Showtime's family films. In 1998, Sugar oversaw production of 22 episodes of First Wave, produced in association with Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope and Pearson International. Sugar also produced a pilot called Too Weird, for the Disney Channel.
For the past eight years Sugar has been an adjunct professor at the College of Sante Fe, where he teaches a course entitled "The Business of Entertainment." He has lectured at many colleges and universities, including Brandeis, USC, UCLA and Tulane.
Sugar's Canadian company, Sugar Entertainment, Ltd., was acquired by Vidatron Entertainment Group, Inc., to helm its entertainment division. Sugar served as a consultant for various companies and as a consultant for Showbiz Expo. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild, the Writer’s Guild of Canada, the Director’s Guild of Canada, the British Columbia Motion Picture Association and various other associations.
Sugar currently resides in Vancouver, Canada.
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