Movies
Colm Meaney Is A Member Of ‘The Occult’
Colm Meaney (pictured inside; “Hell On Wheels”, Get Him To The Greek) is the latest actor to join The Occult for The Grey producer Mickey Liddell.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, “Colm Meaney, one of the co-stars of AMC’s Hell on Wheels, has joined the cast of The Occult, an indie thriller from LD Entertainment.”
Rufus Sewell (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Dark City), Anne Heche (Rampart, Nothing to Fear) and newcomer Alycia Debnam-Carey have all been announced for the thriller which The Roommate director Christian Christiansen will helm.
“Story follows a small commune dealing with a prophecy that predicts the coming of the Devil’s daughter. As the shared 18th birthday of five girls approaches, a sequence of murders causes panic to spread through the community, making some wonder whether the prophecy is coming true or if someone is silencing those who know too much.”
The Occult goes into production this month in North Carolina. 
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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