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Leigh Whannell’s New Film ‘Upgrade’ Sets June Release Date

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6 years ago

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At this point, Leigh Whannell is no doubt a household name (and face) to all horror fans, having written Saw, Dead Silence, Insidious and this year’s Insidious: The Last Key, while also starring in each of those films. As a director, Whannell recently helmed Insidious: Chapter 3, and he just wrote and directed the upcoming Upgrade (formerly Stem).

We’ve learned that the Blumhouse Tilt film will be out June 1, 2018 via OTL Releasing. It’ll be the first film under a partnership between Blumhouse Productions and NEON.

The film “centers on Grey Trace, a technophobe in a utopian near-future when computers control nearly everything – from cars to crime-surveillance – who is paralyzed in a freak mugging.  But when a billionaire technologist offers him an experimental paralysis cure – an implanted computer chip called STEM – Grey finds that the chip has a voice and a mind of its own.”

Logan Marshall Green (Prometheus, Snowden, The Invitation) headlines the film as Grey Trace and is joined by Betty Gabriel (Get Out, Purge: Election Year), Harrison Gilbertson (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Hounds of Love), Simon Maiden (The Dressmaker, Killer Elite) and Benedict Hardie (Hacksaw Ridge, The Light Between Two Oceans).

Producers include Jason Blum, Blumhouse Productions (Get Out, The Purge, Insidious); Kylie du Fresne, Goalpost Pictures (The Eternity Man, Clubland, The Movement); and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Automatik Entertainment (Sinister 1 and 2).  Executive producers include Charles Layton (Blumhouse); Rosemary Blight (Goalpost Pictures); and Ben Grant (Goalpost Pictures).

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Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts

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21 mins ago

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April 19, 2024

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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.”

Abigail Melissa Barrera movie

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