Movies
‘Annabelle: Creation’ #SDCC Clip Hides Under the Covers from a Demon!
While I already thought David F. Sandberg‘s Lights Out was a genuinely frightening throwback to classic horror, this clip from his Annabelle: Creation shows what a master craftsman he already is. Shown to the San Diego Comic-Con audience, a girl uses a James Wan-esque device to shoot a ball into a dark closet. When something grabs it, she runs into her bunk and hides under the covers. The bed then shakes, causing her to look down, which is where she spots demonic footprints leading around her bed. There, Annabelle sits…and a demon’s hand grabs it and pulls it off camera. In a theater, this should play extraordinarily well. Our own Kalyn Corrigan saw it, writing in her review that it’s “a very welcome addition to The Conjuring universe.”
In Annabelle: Creation, “Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a dollmaker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home, soon becoming the target of the dollmaker’s possessed creation, Annabelle.”
[Related] We Visited the Gothic Set of Annabelle: Creation
The full cast includes Stephanie Sigman (Spectre), Talitha Bateman (The 5th Wave), Lulu Wilson (Ouija 2), Philippa Anne Coulthard (After the Dark), Grace Fulton (Badland), Lou Lou Safran (The Choice), Samara Lee (The Last Witch Hunter), Tayler Buck, Anthony LaPaglia (TV’s Without a Trace) and Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy).
Sandberg directed from a screenplay by Gary Dauberman, who also wrote Annabelle.
(L-R) The Annabelle doll and TALITHA BATEMAN as Janice in New Line Cinema’s supernatural thriller ANNABELLE 2, a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
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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