Movies
TV: SyFy Spins Horrific Fairy Tales on Saturday Nights
Syfy is reinventing fairy tales and pop culture characters as part of its Saturday night TV movie franchise. The network is airing five titles that give a contemporary twist on a classic story, from “Hansel & Gretel” (years after escaping the witch in the haunted forest, Hansel returns seeking revenge) to “Little Red Riding Hood” (a descendant of Little Red discovers her family secretly hunts werewolves). Syfy’s Saturday movies continue to be one of the last bastions of regularly produced made-for-TV movies. Each film is typically an international co-production made with a budget of about $2 million and shot on 35mm film. Syfy works with about 10 indie studios, which also distribute the titles on DVD. Each tends to average about 1.8 million viewers Saturdays during the network’s twice-monthly original airings. Syfy’s series of fairy tale titles kick off with “Beauty and the Beast” on Feb. 27.
Movies
Julia Garner Joins Horror Movie ‘Weapons’ from the Director of ‘Barbarian’
In addition to Leigh Whannell’s upcoming Universal Monsters movie Wolf Man, Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel) has also joined the cast of Weapons, THR has announced tonight.
Weapons is the new horror movie from New Line Cinema and director Zach Cregger (Barbarian), with Julia Garner joining the previously announced Josh Brolin (Dune 2).
The upcoming Weapons is from writer/director Zach Cregger, who will also produce alongside his Barbarian producing team: Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces.
The Hollywood Reporter teases, “Plot details for Weapons are being kept holstered but it is described as a multi and inter-related story horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.”
Cregger was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe “The Whitest Kids U’Know,” which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The award-winning group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC-TV and Fuse. He was also a series regular on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC series “Guys with Kids” and the TBS hit series “Wrecked,” and was featured in a recurring role on the NBC series “About a Boy.”
Weapons will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.