Movies
James Wan’s ‘The Warren Files’ Casts Entire Family
New Line and director James Wan (Insidious, Saw) are rounding out the cast of horror pic The Warren Files, signing up Hayley McFarland (“Lie to Me,” “An American Crime”) and Shanley Caswell (Detention) to play members of the family beset by a haunted house, reports Variety.
Mackenzie Foy and Joey King have already been tapped to play the younger sisters in the true-life Perron family. McFarland and Caswell will portray the oldest siblings.
The Perrons claimed they “lived among the dead” in the 1970s as spirits — both friendly and sinister — inhabited their Rhode Island farmhouse. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are playing the investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Lilli Taylor and Ron Livingston will portray the Perrons.
Peter Safran and Tony DeRosa-Grund will produce The Warren Files — formerly titled The Conjuring — through the Safran Co. and DeRosa-Grund’s Evergreen Media Group. Rob Cowan will also produce. Wan is directing from a script by Chad and Carey Hayes with shooting scheduled to start February 21 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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