Peachtree City Writer’s Giant Snake Movie Slithers Into Theaters Nationwide

Peachtree City filmmaker Tony Giglio had an idea during the early days of COVID: When people finally returned to movie theaters, maybe they wouldn’t want small stories that reminded them of real life. Maybe they’d want to escape from it completely.

How about a gigantic prehistoric snake hunting people in the Amazon?

That idea eventually became Beware Boiuna, a new R-rated action-horror creature feature arriving in theaters this week, with preview screenings beginning Thursday, Oct. 1, ahead of its official Oct. 2 release.

For Giglio, who has been writing and directing movies since 1999, seeing his name on the poster carries particular meaning.

“The idea that people would go to the theater and see something I created, that still brings me more joy than anything,” Giglio told The Citizen. “This is really what I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid.”

From an idea to a giant snake

Giglio originated the project after producer Jeremy Bolt challenged him to come up with a creature movie. Bolt, whose credits include Resident Evil and Event Horizon, had been watching the success of movies built around enormous creatures.

“I want to make a creature movie,” Giglio remembered Bolt telling him.

So Giglio started researching.

He found Titanoboa, the largest known snake to have ever lived, and began imagining how something like it could conceivably still exist. His research led him to the Amazon and eventually to South American legends surrounding Boiuna, a giant snake associated with the region.

“Boiuna is a real legend,” Giglio said.

The concept that emerged was not simply a monster wandering into human territory. Giglio wanted the humans to be the intruders.

“The idea was that outsiders who aren’t supposed to be there, who don’t care about the people, the land, the history, these people need a protector, and this snake is a protector,” he said.

Giglio pitched the idea to Constantin Film, which bought it. He said he wrote six drafts, including the version that moved the project from development toward production.

Then COVID intervened.

The movie was paused, executives changed, and eventually director Mike P. Nelson came aboard. The screenplay continued evolving, as Giglio said screenplays often do, and Giglio was no longer closely involved when production headed to South America.

His final film credit is a shared “story by” credit with Alan McElroy.

“I’m very proud of that credit,” Giglio said. “Story by is a writing credit, and for me, the most meaningful thing is seeing an idea that I started in my head actually become a movie audiences can go see in theaters.”

The finished film, directed by Nelson, follows a group venturing into the Amazon before encountering Boiuna, an enormous ancient predator defending its territory. It stars Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe, and Logan Marshall-Green, and releases on 1500 screens nationwide.

Finally seeing his movie

Giglio saw the finished movie at its world premiere during Fantastic Fest in Austin in September.

Going to the premiere felt strange at first. He had started the project, but he hadn’t endured the South American shoot with the cast and crew.

“I felt a little like Matt Damon,” Giglio joked, comparing himself to Damon’s character in Saving Private Ryan, whose fellow soldiers endured hardship without him. “I wasn’t in the trenches with them. I didn’t get bitten by bugs at like two in the morning in the middle of the jungle.”

The reception quickly erased that feeling.

“Everybody was so welcoming,” he said. “Everybody was putting it together of who I was and made me feel really part of it.”

The finished movie immerses audiences in the jungle environment — although Giglio admitted he might not have been particularly eager to experience those filming conditions himself.

“I could walk home and see, like, open the door, and there could be like a jaguar ready to pounce, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, kitty,’” Giglio said. “But if I see a little bug, I go freaking out.”

And then there is the snake.

Once Boiuna truly enters the action, Giglio warns, things get intense.

“It doesn’t spare anybody,” he said. “Once that midpoint hits and the snake unloads, it’s a wild ride.”

A filmmaker calls Peachtree City home

Giglio and his family moved to Peachtree City during the COVID era after deciding California was no longer where they wanted to raise their daughter.

Georgia’s film industry helped draw him here. Friends who had worked around Atlanta and Senoia had spoken highly of Peachtree City, including longtime friend Greg Nicotero, known for his work on The Walking Dead.

Giglio’s own route into filmmaking began with a letter to one of his heroes, director Sam Raimi. Raimi responded and hired Giglio as a production assistant on The Quick & the Dead. Giglio went on to learn the business working on major productions including Heat, The Rock, Liar Liar, and Dante’s Peak.

His career since then has taken him across genres and around the world. His directing credits range from the family film Soccer Dog: The Movie to the Jason Statham crime thriller Chaos. He wrote and directed Doom: Annihilation, directed S.W.A.T.: Under Siege and Extraction, and has screenwriting credits on three Death Race films. He has also worked as a second unit director on productions including The Walking Dead and Resident Evil: Afterlife.

“I’ve been all over the place,” he said.

That versatility has sometimes made him harder to categorize in Hollywood, he said, where filmmakers can become closely associated with a particular genre. But it also means Giglio keeps choosing projects he actually wants to spend years living with.

“Do I want to see it?” Giglio said of how he approaches potential projects. “I have to spend the most time with it. I have to stress over the script, and if I’m directing, that’s another bunch of stresses. So I have to love the project and think that there’s something fun to do with it.”

Another movie on the way

Giglio has already completed his next film, Cipher, a psychological supernatural thriller he wrote and directed starring Terrence Howard, Paula Patton, Britt Robertson, Christopher Lloyd, and Joel David Moore.

Giglio described it as the story of an author who suffers a tragedy and is given an antique typewriter. Whatever he types comes true — just not necessarily in the way he wants.

The independently financed movie was filmed in Kentucky. A distributor is now on board, Giglio said, but no official release date has been announced. Giglio expects it sometime in 2027.

For now, though, Giglio gets something he has never had quite like this before: a movie born from his own idea playing widely in American theaters.

“It was a lot of fun to see my name on a big movie poster like that,” he said. “I’m excited for everybody to enjoy it.”

Where to see it locally

Beware Boiuna officially opens nationwide Friday, Oct. 2, with Thursday evening preview screenings beginning Oct. 1.

Locally, the movie is playing on both sides of The Citizen’s coverage area: at Cinemark Tinseltown Fayetteville 17 and XD in Fayetteville and Regal Georgian at Ashley Park in Newnan.

The film is rated R and runs 1 hour, 44 minutes. Moviegoers should check individual theaters for current showtimes.