Movies
‘The Gate’ Remake Gets Financed, Shoots This Summer!
After loads of loads of talk, H20 Motion Pictures has finally received financing for their forthcoming remake of The Gate, which will be shot in 3-D by actor-turned-director Alex Winter (who you might know from the Bill and Ted movies and Lost Boys. You can read the details inside. No word on any casting yet.
Frankfurt’s HessenInvestFilm and Stuttgart-based MFG Baden-Württemberg have allocated $1.9m (e1.35m) to Germany’s first 3D live action film, Alex Winter’s The Gate.
The UK-born actor-director’s remake of the 1987 horror film will begin production at the MMC Studios in Cologne in the late summer. The film has also received $1.2m (e900,000) from Düsseldorf’s Filmstiftung NRW.
The original, which starred Stephen Dorff, followed three young children who accidentally release a horde of nasty, pint-sized demons from a hole in a suburban backyard. What follows is a classic battle between good and evil as the three kids struggle to overcome a nightmarish hell that is literally taking over the Earth.
It is the second collaboration between the studios’ production arm MMC Independent and Andras Hamori’s H20 Motion Pictures after they co-produced Stephen Frears’ Cheri last year.
Visual effects for The Gate will be handled by the Frankfurt and Stuttgart studios of Pixomondo. Its recent credits include Niki Muellerschoen’s The Red Baron, Roland Emmerich’s 2012 and James McTeigue’s Ninja Assassin.
In addition, HessenInvestFilm awarded $384,523 (e250,000) for UK writer-director Mark Cairns’ mystery thriller Cold Storage, which is being planned as a 3D feature by Frankfurt’s MagnaManaProduction.
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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