Movies
[EFM ’12] ‘Stake Land’ Director Bites Into ‘We Are What We Are’ Remake
Stake Land director Jim Mickle is set to sink his teeth into a remake of cult cannibal picture We What We Are (one of my favorite films of 2010), Paris-based Memento Films International has announced.
Mickle will transpose Mexican director Jorge Michel Grau’s picture about a family of cannibals from its original setting of Mexico City, to a poor part of the Catskills region in New York State. Principal photography starts in June.
“It’s a cool challenge to do justice to Jorge’s story, but also explore things from an unexpected angle,” said Mickle, who is writing the script with Nick Damici.
Andrew Corkin of New York-based Uncorked Productions (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Afterschool) and Bolivian director/producer Rodrigo Bellott (Sexual Dependency) are producing alongside MFI’s Nicholas Shumaker and Linda Moran and Rene Bastian of Belladonna Productions, who produced Mickle’s first two films.
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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