Movies
‘My Week With Marilyn’ Producer Spooks Over Genre Pic
While there’s not much here just yet, Colin Vaines (My Week With Marilyn) is working with UK chiller specialist David Pirie on a feature ghost story Vaines described to Screen Daily as a “classic genre piece given a fresh treatment.”
The script, currently in the development stage, is already generating buzz: “David has written a brilliant outline and I’ve got people interested in the development of the piece. We could go into production very quickly at the right price,” Vaines told Screen.
Pirie was nominated for a BAFTA for his 1997 adaptation of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and has written episodes of “Murderland,” “Inspector Lewis,” Agatha Christie’s “Poirot” and “Murder Rooms.” He also worked (uncredited) on the screenplay of Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves.
In 2011, the prolific Vaines produced W.E. and Coriolanus and executive produced The Rum Diary and My Week with Marilyn, which was nominated for two Oscars this past Sunday.
Movies
‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts
In the wake of Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man back in 2020, Universal has been struggling to achieve further box office success with their Universal Monsters brand. Even in the early days of the pandemic, Invisible Man scared up $144 million at the worldwide box office, while last year’s Universal Monsters: Dracula movies The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield didn’t even approach that number when you COMBINE their individual box office hauls.
The horror-comedy Renfield came along first in April 2023, ending its run with just $26 million. The period piece Last Voyage of the Demeter ended its own run with a mere $21 million.
But Universal is trying again with their ballerina vampire movie Abigail this weekend, the latest bloodbath directed by the filmmakers known as Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream).
Unlike Demeter and Renfield, the early reviews for Abigail are incredibly strong, with our own Meagan Navarro calling the film “savagely inventive in terms of its vampiric gore,” ultimately “offering a thrill ride with sharp, pointy teeth.” Read her full review here.
That early buzz – coupled with some excellent trailers – should drive Abigail to moderate box office success, the film already scaring up $1 million in Thursday previews last night. Variety notes that Abigail is currently on track to enjoy a $12 million – $15 million opening weekend, which would smash Renfield ($8 million) and Demeter’s ($6 million) opening weekends.
Working to Abigail‘s advantage is the film’s reported $28 million production budget, making it a more affordable box office bet for Universal than the two aforementioned movies.
Stay tuned for more box office reporting in the coming days.
In Abigail, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
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