Michael Bay's COVID-19 thriller Songbird lands premium VOD release date

Director Adam Mason's Michael Bay-produced thriller Songbird — which was filmed this summer amid the global outbreak — is headed for VOD services at a premium price, STXfilms announced Monday.

Beginning Friday, Dec. 11, the film will release on all transactional platforms for $19.99 before the project's premiere on a major, unannounced streaming service later in 2021.

"The pandemic has affected every aspect of our business, from production to release, but Songbird demonstrates that a nimble studio like STX can find effective and profitable ways to make their movies work, as we have similarly with Greenland and My Spy during these challenging times," said Adam Fogelson, STXfilms Motion Picture Group Chairman, said in a press statement. "The show must go on. Songbird is a thrilling movie that will speak to audiences in this moment as it keeps them on the edge of their seats."

Starring KJ Apa, Sofia Carson, Craig Robinson, Peter Stormare, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Walter Hauser, Bradley Whitford, and Demi Moore, Songbird imagines the world in the year 2024, when COVID-23 has mutated to an even higher mortality rate than COVID-19 (over 50 percent), forcing infected Americans from their homes and into government-run quarantine camps. There, Apa's Nico falls in love with Sara (Carson), despite having never actually met due to strict lockdown protocols.

"It's a dystopian, scary world, but it's a romantic movie about two people who want to be together, but they can't," Mason previously told EW of the film, which he co-wrote with Misconduct's Simon Boyes. "It's Romeo and Juliet, but they're separated by her front door and by the virus."

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