Hercules Film Fund has come on-board to co-finance the sci-fi thriller “Tau,” starring Maika Monroe and Ed Skrein, alongside Ken Kao’s Waypoint Entertainment.

Federico D’ Alessandro is directing “Tau” from a script by Noga Landau, with principal photography taking place in Serbia.

David S. Goyer, writer of The Dark Knight trilogy, and “The Birth of a Nation” producer Kevin Turen are producing under their Phantom Four banner alongside Russell Ackerman and John Schoenfelder for Addictive Pictures. Rhea Films will co-produce, with Terry Dougas and Jean-Luc De Fanti serving as executive producers along with Ken Kao, Dan Kao and Luc Etienne will serve as executive producers.

Bloom is handling international sales and WME is representing the U.S. rights.

Monroe is playing a street-smart grifter who’s the latest victim kidnapped and held captive in a fatal experiment. The only thing standing in the way of her freedom is an advanced artificial intelligence developed by Skrein’s character.

Monroe starred in “Independence Day: Resurgence” and Skrein starred in “Deadpool.”

Hercules Film Fund financed Tom Cruise’s “Mena,” directed by Doug Limas. The fund was set up to bring European investors, including Greek entrepreneur Paris Kasidokostas-Latsis, to Hollywood to finance wide release films.

Waypoint Entertainment recently acquired the rights to two Mark Millar properties, “American Jesus” and “Supercrooks.” It’s teamed with Bloom on Martin Zandvliet’s “The Outsider,” starring Jared Leto; Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles,” starring Christian Bale; and Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s “Woodshock,” starring Kirsten Dunst.

Phantom Four produced Fox Searchlight’s “The Birth of A Nation,” which is due to open Oct. 7. Goyer is an executive producer on the film, which Nate Parker directed and stars in. Phantom Four is also developing “Miles” with Open Road and Lakeshore Entertainment and Max Landis’ “Deeper,” starring Bradley Cooper, with Addictive Pictures for MGM.

“I think it’s really good to get the adrenaline pumping,” says Maika Monroe—actress, professional kiteboarder, brave adventurer. “Do stuff that scares you on a regular basis. I think it’s good for the body and for the mind.”

Monroe is specifically talking about skydiving. She celebrated her 23rd birthday by breaking the sound-barrier from 13,000 feet. She could also, fairly, be describing her maturing roster of movies. In 2014, Monroe starred in two acclaimed horror movies back-to-back, The Guest and It Follows. This summer, she faces two different impending world-invasion apocalypses in Independence Day: Resurgence and The 5th Wave.

Before she started acting, Monroe was a professional kite-boarder—the sport where you stand on a board in the ocean, steering with a high-flying kite, and doing all sorts of jumps and tricks. “After school my dad would pick me up and we would go straight to the beach. The other thing I loved is that no other girls were doing it,” she says. “I would be the only girl out there.”

She was also one of the few women on the set of the second Independence Day, where she got along best with Jeff Goldblum. “We’re BFF, big time, oh yeah!” she says. “I think he’s a magical person, I’m pretty sure he has hidden super powers.” Even with some 18-hour days, Goldblum was a source of positivity. “He’s so positive all the time. He would sing and dance and play games, and dancing—he loves tap dancing. We would be singing Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline, stuff from plays that I had no idea what they were, but he knows all the words.”

Though she’s in six movies in 2016 (six!), she found time for vacations. Or rather, by “vacations,” she means pursuing extreme sports and other high-flying adventures. For her next pursuit, she says, “I really want to go swimming with sharks.”

“To this day I haven’t seen Jaws,” she adds. “Because I was always in the ocean, when I was a kid my mom said, ‘See the movies that you want to, but I’m telling you, do not ever see Jaws.’”

So she wants to swim with sharks, but still won’t see Jaws? “Yes. Precisely, precisely,” she says laughing. “I think it’s good to conquer the fears.”

Maika and the cast of Independence Day Resurgence were in Japan for the press tour, we have added various new photos to the gallery…

We have updated the gallery with x21 new photoshoot photos…

‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ makes up ground overseas with $102.1 million; elsewhere in the U.S., ‘The Shallows’ has a sharper bite than expected, while ‘Free State of Jones’ and ‘The Neon Demon’ are D.O.A.

Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day: Resurgence failed to ignite big fireworks at the North American office over the weekend, where it came in behind expectations with an estimated $41.6 million from 4,068 theaters.

While that’s hardly a disastrous start, the long-awaited sequel to the 1996 blockbuster will need to do sizeable business overseas to land in the black for Fox. So far, the tentpole seems to be getting its wish, debuting to $102.1 million from 57 foreign markets, including China, for a global debut of $143.7 million.

Resurgence placed No. 2 behind Finding Dory in North America. Overseas, it topped the weekend foreign chart, led by China with $37.3 million. But in China itself, it placed No. 2 behind Now You See Me 2, which raced to a dazzling $43.3 million, a record for Lionsgate and bringing that movie’s global total to $159.8 million.

Independence Day: Resurgence skewed heavily male for an all-audience tentpole (58 percent), helping to explain the subdued results, while 64 percent of ticketbuyers were over the age of 25. Generally speaking, the film underperformed on the East Coast.

Resurgence is set two decades after the events of the original pic (including the spectacular destruction of the White House and other iconic landmarks) and sees the same menacing aliens once again wreaking havoc.

Smith might be absent, but a number of other stars appearing in the first film reprised their roles, including Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch. Newcomers include Liam Hemsworth, who plays a hot-shot military pilot whose parents died in the first alien attack and who is now dating the former first daughter (Maika Monroe), and Jessie Usher, who plays the stepson of Smith’s character, now deceased.