Movies
Liefeld’s ‘Bloodstrike’ Vampire Soldiers Put Into War!
The vampire soldiers of Bloodstrike are heading for the big screen, with the comic book property set up with Adi Shankar’s 1984 Private Defense Contractors, reports Variety.
Rob Liefeld’s new angle, aimed at creating a franchise appeal, focuses on a Bloodstrike unit consisting of a team of super-soldiers who have secretly been imbued with vampire blood — making them an elite strike force feared by all enemies. The property launched in 1993 via Image comics and sold over 30 million copies.
Producers on the project are Shankar, “Bloodstrike” scribe Rob Liefeld and Liefeld’s manager Brooklyn Weaver (“Out of the Furnace”).
Shankar’s shingle has tapped Dutch Southern to write an all-female riff on The Expendables and co-financed Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, Marc Forster’s Machine Gun Preacher and Andrew Dominik’s upcoming Brad Pitt-starrer Killing Them Softly. Shankar is partnered with Spencer Silna in the company.
Liefeld (“Deadpool”) was a co-founder of Image Comics in the early 1990s, which launched with his “Youngblood” series.
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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