Movies
UPDATED: Eli Roth’s ‘Cotton’ Announced, New Yorkville Ripper Film
Update: Eli Roth adds a little more details, which can be found inside! StudioCanal is adding genre fare to its traditionally arthouse-oriented lineup for AFM. They’ve scored the rights for two films that will be of interest to Bloody-Disgusting readers. The first is Red Riding, a thriller featuring “the Yorkshire Ripper,” while they’ll also be getting behind Eli Roth’s latest horror venture (as a producer), Cotton, which was inspired by CLOVERFIELD’s success. You can read all of the juicy details inside.
UPDATE: Eli Roth writes in, “This is a project that Eric Newman from Strike and I have been putting together for a while. Eric and I have been looking for projects to produce together for a while now, and this will be our first venture,” Roth tells Bloody-Disgusting. “The success of CLOVERFIELD and QUARANTINE definitely helps show the foreign buyers that there’s still a market for a film made for a film in this style.
“In short, COTTON is the scariest script I’ve read in years. I’m a huge fan of the filmmakers, who made a brilliantly funny, sick, and rarely-seen film called MAIL ORDER WIFE. I even remember being blown away by Huck Botko’s student film when I was at NYU, he’s an incredibly talented director who has not yet broken through to the mainstream. If people have seen MAIL ORDER WIFE, then that dark, sick comedy sensibility replaced with a true sense of terror and you’ll have COTTON. It’s very difficult to describe or sum up in a few words, but I have not come across a script this terrifying in years, and neither has Eric Newman. We’re really, really, really excited about this film and can’t wait to get shooting.”
Read the announcement below:
The Paris-based sales company has nabbed international rights to “Red Riding,” a three-part thriller penned by Tony Grisoni (“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,”) and co-produced by Channel 4 and Andrew Eaton and Michael Winterbottom’s Revolution Entertainment.
Adapted from David Peace’s novel, the trilogy is based on the six-year police investigation of Peter William Suttcliffe, aka “the Yorkshire Ripper,” who killed 12 women in Northern England in the 1970s.
The three pics will be released separately and will be directed by three different helmers: Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker.
In post-production, the first pic stars Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall and Sean Bean.
StudioCanal also picked up “Cotton,” a horror film in the vein of “Cloverfield” and “Blair Witch Project” that was directed by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland and produced by Eli Roth for Strike Entertainment.
Story concerns an evangelical minister who turns against religion and decides to participate in a documentary in which he practices his last exorcism.
Movies
‘Werewolf By Night 2’? Michael Giacchino Says It’s Being Talked About But “Everything Takes Forever”
It was Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino who sat in the director’s chair for Marvel’s Disney+ Halloween special Werewolf by Night back in 2022, which was released in both throwback black & white as well as full color. But are we ever getting a sequel?
Giacchino tells Screen Rant in a new chat this week that he remains hopeful.
“We’re talking about it,” Giacchino explains. “Everything takes forever to do. There’s a lot of planning that has to happen. Everything has to fit in a particular place at a particular time.”
He adds, “So, nothing moves as fast as we’d like it to. But I hope one day that you will be sitting there watching another Werewolf by Night. That’s my hope.”
Inspired by horror films of the ’30s and ’40s, Marvel Studios’ Werewolf by Night takes place on a dark and somber night as a secret cabal of monster hunters emerge from the shadows and gather at the foreboding Bloodstone Temple following the death of their leader.
In a strange memorial to the leader’s life, the attendees are thrust into a mysterious and deadly competition for a powerful relic—a hunt that will ultimately bring them face to face with a dangerous monster.
Meagan Navarro wrote in her review for BD, “The MCU kicked the horror into overdrive with Werewolf by Night. The nearly hour-long feature presents as a classic horror movie, dropping viewers into the middle of a secret world of monster hunters. Film composer Michael Giacchino directs the special, penned by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron. Giacchino focuses on evoking the classic horror vibe to assist in the initial worldbuilding. The events play out in monochrome, save for the vibrant red glow of the Bloodstone. Cigarette burns and film grain get added for that retro look. The rules of the hunt get relayed to the cutthroat candidates by way of reanimated dead, albeit in a much campier and family-friendly way via animatronics.”
“Aside from the aesthetics, Werewolf leans heavily into the mysterious,” Meagan continued. “The black and white cinematography more than sets the retro vibe; it allows the feature to remain accessible to a wider audience even as it lets its monsters and monster hunters spill plenty of blood. Toss in a Jack Pierce-inspired beast with practical application, and you’ve got a modern superhero story with a classic Universal Monsters makeover.”