Movies
First Casting For Goddard, Whedon’s ‘Cabin in the Woods’
Shrouded in secrecy just like his last project (Cloverfield), writer Drew Goddard is keeping his upcoming horror collaboration with Joss Whedon top secret. While details are being kept under wraps on The Cabin in the Woods, the first official casting has been announced for the film said to be “the horror movie to end all horror movies.”
Richard Jenkins (The Broken) and Bradley Whitford are moving to “The Cabin in the Woods.”
Jenkins is on board and Whitford is in final negotiations to star in the mystery-shrouded MGM/UA horror project written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, who also is directing. Whedon is producing.
Much like “Cloverfield,” which Goddard scripted, the “Cabin” story line provides a new twist on a classic scenario — in this case the young-people-stranded-in-the-woods horror trope.
“It’s really just your basic typecasting: When you need two actors to run through the woods in low-cut nighties, you immediately think of Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford,” Goddard joked.
Whedon said the casting signals what kind of movie they are hoping to make. “They’re the first proof that though ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ is a classic horror film, it isn’t one you’ve seen before.”
While the studio and filmmakers were loath to provide character details, it is understood that Jenkins and Whitford will play white-collar co-workers with a mysterious connection to the cabin.
The UA production is prepping for a spring shoot and will open wide February 5, 2010, with MGM distributing.
MGM, which Worldwide Motion Picture Group chairman Mary Parent spent much of 2008 rebuilding, has a lot riding on Whedon and Goddard’s genre effort. It will be — after the planned September opening of the studio’s “Fame” revamp — only the second homegrown production of the recharged Parent regime.
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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