Movies
‘Thirst’ Begins Theatrical Run This July
While the PR team behind the film was teasing a potential date, it was confirmed this afternoon that Thirst, Park Chan-wook’s vampire flick and a recent Cannes jury prize winner, will be released in the U.S. on July 31, the film’s North American distributor Focus Features said Wednesday. The screenings start in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York and will gradually expand to include other states for a wider release. Check out the Korean trailer below.
“Very few films I’ve ever seen, going back to Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo,’ have that kind of feel of love and at the same time has horror and a terrifying philosophical exercise in thinking through the greatest extremes of what human emotions and human ambitions can lead to,” said James Schamus, the CEO of Focus Features in an earlier announcement of the company’s collaboration with CJ Entertainment in March, referring to Park’s film.
Locally, the film, since opening in early May, has attracted 2.2 million spectators and was sold to 20 countries in Europe, Asia and South America.
The story finds Korea’s leading man, Song Kang-ho, as a much-loved priest who becomes a vampire after a failed medical experiment; he becomes a tortured and depraved soul. The title refers to a craving for sex, blood and love.
Movies
‘Desperation’ – Sam Raimi and ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Directors Teaming for Stephen King Movie
Stephen King’s 1996 novel Desperation is headed back to the screen, with Jeff Sneider breaking the news on The InSneider that Sam Raimi, Stephen King, and Final Destination Bloodlines directors Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky are coming together for the film.
Sam Raimi will produce the upcoming Desperation movie, while Stein and Lipovsky are on board to direct. Searchlight Pictures is the studio attached to the feature film project.
Published in 1996, Stephen King’s novel Desperation was previously turned into a made-for-TV movie starring Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Steven Weber back in 2006.
Wikipedia reminds, “Desperation is a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to ‘rescuing’ a family from a nonexistent gunman. It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive.
“They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from which he came.”
Desperation was published at the same time as Stephen King’s own “mirror novel” titled The Regulators, which shares characters but takes place in an alternate universe.
The union of Sam Raimi and Stephen King is an exciting one for fans of both Raimi and King, and there’s a nice bit of full circle history there too. As you may recall, it was Stephen King’s review of The Evil Dead that Raimi credits for saving and legitimizing his indie debut feature.
And the rest is history! Stay tuned for more on this developing story.
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