Movies
‘Alive in Necropolis’ Gets Adapted in the Vein of ‘Chinatown’ or ‘Seven’!
A book about a city of graves could be getting new life on the big screen.
David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith (who are producing the new Beetlejuice movie) have picked up the movie rights to Alive in Necropolis, a noirish detective story set in the real-life cemetery-filled town of Colma, Calif, reports EW.
The 2008 debut novel of Doug Dorst focuses on a rookie cop who begins encountering restless souls while pounding the nighttime beat in the Northern California city. Colma is famous for being the Bay Area’s go-to place for burials, with 73 percent of its land dedicated to graveyards. About 1,600 people live there, while the underground population soars to around 1.5 million. (The town’s slogan is “It’s great to be alive in Colma.”)
Dorst’s novel was praised for taking the naturally eerie setting and fusing it with both supernatural elements and a by-the-book approach of a police procedural. The producers are aiming to give it a Chinatown or Se7en vibe, joined with the creepiness of The Sixth Sense! 
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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