Movies
‘Paranormal’ Producer Talks ‘Amityville,’ ‘Lords of Salem,’ ‘Area 51’ and More
A lengthy interview has appeared over at Shocktillyodrop where they talk with Jason Blum, producer on all Paranormal Activity projects, Insidious, The Lords of Salem, The Bay and many other genre offerings. While he skirts the issue on a few forthcoming releases, below you’ll find the juicy tid-bits.
When asked if Paranormal Activity 3 would be yet another prequel, Blum unsurprisingly gave ZERO info: “Can’t comment on that one! You will just have to see. [laughs]” He also gives no information on potential directors for ABC’s series “The River”.
As for Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem, he explains that it will be 100% a Rob Zombie movie: “He’s going to shoot in the fall. I think it’s fair to say it’s going to feel like a 100% Rob Zombie movie. That’s why I approached him, that’s why I’m lucky to be working with him. We’re encouraging him to do it just like he wants.” As we’ve seen in the past, Zombie flourishes when he’s not being clamped down by the studio.
Blum completely filibusters around what’s going on with Oren Peli’s directorial follow-up to Paranormal Activity. Back in 2009 Peli directed another lower-budgeted cinema verite genre film, Area 51, about a group of kids who end up in the midst of the Nevada landmark. While we already reported on reshoots and additional writing (April), Blum explains why it’s still not in theaters: “ ‘Area 51’ is like ‘Paranormal Activity’. The additional photography for ‘PA’, we went back 50 times. The great thing about doing extra shooting for inexpensive movies is that the cost is low, so we screen and shoot and screen and shoot. Oren and I were pulled away from ‘Area 51’ a lot for the second ‘PA’. Once that came out, we ramped up on ‘Area 51’ again. I anticipate the movie will be mostly done in about three or four months. They can’t set a release date yet until we do all of that.” When asked about a 2012 release he added that “it will depend on the competitive release schedule all the way around. It could be sooner.”
Lastly, he talks a bit about how The Amityville Tapes ended up moving so quickly: “Dan [Farrands] and Casey [La Scala] came to me and said they wanted to do a found footage version of ‘Amityville’ and they had the rights to do it. I knew Bob [Weinstein] had the rights to do it. I said, lets take it to Bob and not fight him but join him – I worked for Bob and Harvey for five years – and we pitched it to Bob and he threw it into production.” I wish it were always that easy!
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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