Movies
‘The Strangers’ Director Plays Found Footage Game
Deadline and Shocktillyoudrop pick up another story from the tracking boards reporting that Universal Pictures has completed a pre-holiday acquisition of a spec script written by The Strangers writer/director Bryan Bertino.
Here’s the plot crunch sent around town: “Found footage thriller centering on three cameras that are given to three separate households on the same night with instructions to keep filming if they want to live, but as the night wears on, the characters are pulled into a deadly confrontation with each other at the behest of their unseen tormentor.”
The project was acquired to be produced by Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, and Marc Platt and Adam Siegel of Marc Platt Productions. Bertino and his Unbroken Pictures partner Adrienne Biddle will also be producers. Blum and Platt have term deals at the studio. Blum is producer of the Paranormal Activity films.
Like Paranormal Activity, the Bertino spec was being sent around town under the title Mockingbird, and is based on “found footage.” Bertino is not aboard to direct the film. Blumhouse just wrapped the Rob Zombie-directed The Lords of Salem, as well as the Ethan Hawke-starrer Sinister for Summit Entertainment and is producing the ABC series “The River.”
If you want to watch a fun movie, watch a Ryuhei Kitamura movie. Whether it’s 2000’s Versus, 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train or 2022’s underseen The Price We Pay, Kitamura always knows how to deliver a wild and crazy good time.
Up next from Ryuhei Kitamura? Deadline reports that he’ll be directing Thrill Ride, which sounds a bit like the best parts of Final Destination 3… expanded into a feature film!
Deadline details, “the English-language film will tell the story of a group of people, including two young women, who are trapped upside down on a roller coaster taken over by a mysterious saboteur threatening to drop them all one-by-one to their deaths.”
Film Bridge International is launching the project for sales ahead of the Cannes market.
Chad Law and Christopher Jolley wrote the screenplay.
“Thrill Ride is exactly the type of high-concept based thriller that our customers are looking for in the marketplace,” said Film Bridge’s Ellen Wander and Jordan Dykstra. “With Ryuhei at the helm, we know his vision and execution will deliver thrills of the highest quality.”
“As a hardcore rollercoaster fan since I was young, I immediately fell in love with this script filled with suspense, action, crazy ups and downs, turns, loops, and corkscrews at maximum speed,” adds Kitamura. “I can’t wait to get on a ride and bring life to the wildest rollercoaster imaginable.”
We’re already seated. Stay tuned for more on Thrill Ride as we learn it.
‘The Midnight Meat Train’
4 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘Late Night with the Devil’ at Home
‘Ready or Not’: Radio Silence Filmmakers Tease the “Absolute Banger” of a Sequel That’s Taking Shape
‘Sting’ Review – Throwback Creature Feature Entertains With an Impressive Practical Monster
“We Built Every Creature” – ‘Alien: Romulus’ Goes Heavy on the Old School Practical Effects!
Looking for New Episodes of “Chucky” on Peacock? Here’s What Changed
You must be logged in to post a comment.