Premonition
with Sandra Bullock
The eerie, time-bending, emotionally charged thriller "Premonition" stars Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon, Nia Long, Kate Nelligan, Amber Valletta and Peter Stormare. German filmmaker Mennan Yapo directs the film, based on Bill Kelly's script.

Sandra Bullock plays Linda Hanson, a woman with a loving husband and two adorable daughters. Her life is perfect, until the day she receives the devastating news that her husband Jim (Julian McMahon has died in a car accident. For this devoted wife and mother, it's the worst news she could imagine. But did she imagine it? When Linda wakes up the following morning her husband is very much alive. At first, Linda believes the accident must have been a nightmare. Then it happens again; some days Linda awakens to find Jim is next to her alive and well, while on others, she awakens a widow.

Hitchcockian Thriller

When the first draft of "Premonition" was submitted to producer Ashok Amritraj and his company Hyde Park Entertainment, he thought the screenplay had all the ingredients of a twisty picture. What sparked Amritraj was not just the opportunity to mix a domestic drama with a time-shifting suspense movie, but the chance to keep an audience engaged without the violence so often associated with thrillers.

"The movies that keep you on the edge of your seat aren't about blood and gore, but have a psychological angle that really unnerves you, like old Hitchcock movies," says Amritraj. "This is an extremely original story and script."

"Premonition" began as a simple idea: how would it feel to lose the most important persons in your life, only to wake up the next day and find them alive? Would you assume it was a dream or regard it as a foretelling of tragedy yet to come? When producer Sunil Perkash posed these questions to writer Bill Kelly, he took the idea a step further. What if the days of that week were like playing cards, you throw them up in the air and however they land is how they play out? By taking the emotional tension of such an incredible loss, and adding this component of uncertainty, the story questions notions of fidelity, love and fate. "If Linda had become so complacent about her life, such that every day felt the same," says writer Bill Kelly, "then this phenomenon she experiences becomes the conduit for making her realize what is important to her."

Founded upon the premise of a woman unsure of her surroundings, torn between the complete control by which she has been leading her life, and accepting her fate, the narrative was inherently cinematic. It also had a strong female protagonist who is placed in an extraordinary situation, which she must solve in order to right her world. "It has this wonderful premise about an everyday housewife who is faced with the possibility of her husband dying and the power to prevent it," Amritraj explains. "We thought that was something both men and certainly women could relate to."