Movies
Dean Koontz’s ‘The Husband’ Goes Through Hell for His Wife
My understanding was that horror writer Dean Koontz was fed up with Hollywood and we wouldn’t be seeing an of his book adapted to film any time soon. I guess enough time has passed as the author of Phantoms, Sole Survivor, Hideaway and Mr. Murder will have his novel The Husband adapted for the big screen by up-and-coming horror director Ole Bornedal. Read on for the skinny.Focus Features has acquired the rights from Random House to Dean Koontz’s novel “The Husband,” about an ordinary working man whose love for his wife is put to a harrowing series of tests over a 60-hour period.
Deal comes out of Focus Features’ multi-year partnership with Random House’s film division to develop, co-finance and co-produce feature films.
Focus, which will keep worldwide distribution and sales rights on the project, has attached Danish helmer Ole Bornedal (“Just Another Love Story”) to direct. Bornedal will write a new draft of the script, which was originally penned by Glenn Gers.
Remake rights to Bornedal’s “Just Another Love Story” and “The Substitute” have both been acquired by Mandate Pictures with Sam Raimi to produce through his Ghost House Pictures shingle.
Focus creative executive Matthew Plouffe is supervising the project for Focus production prexy John Lyons and Random House Films’ prexy Peter Gethers.
The Focus-Random House pact was first announced in November 2005.
Projects being developed under the deal include an adaptation of Yasmina Khadra’s “The Attack,” about a middle-class Palestinian doctor working in an Israeli hospital who discovers his wife may have been a suicide bomber, and Bob Drogin’s “Curveball,” about an informant who offers deceptive information to the United States government about biological weapons in Iraq in order to justify an invasion.
Movies
’28 Years Later’ – Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Join Long Awaited Sequel
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland (Annihilation, Men), the director and writer behind 2002’s hit horror film 28 Days Later, are reteaming for the long-awaited sequel, 28 Years Later. THR reports that the sequel has cast Jodie Comer (Alone in the Dark, “Killing Eve”), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kraven the Hunter), and Ralph Fiennes (The Menu).
The plan is for Garland to write 28 Years Later and Boyle to direct, with Garland also planning on writing at least one more sequel to the franchise – director Nia DaCosta is currently in talks to helm the second installment.
No word on plot details as of this time, or who Comer, Taylor-Johnson, and Fiennes may play.
28 Days Later received a follow up in 2007 with 28 Weeks Later, which was executive produced by Boyle and Garland but directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Now, the pair hope to launch a new trilogy with 28 Years Later. The plan is for Garland to write all three entries, with Boyle helming the first installment.
Boyle and Garland will also produce alongside original producer Andrew Macdonald and Peter Rice, the former head of Fox Searchlight Pictures, the division of one-time studio Twentieth Century Fox that originally backed the British-made movie and its sequel.
The original film starred Cillian Murphy “as a man who wakes up from a coma after a bicycle accident to find England now a desolate, post-apocalyptic collapse, thanks to a virus that turned its victims into raging killers. The man then navigates the landscape, meeting a survivor played by Naomie Harris and a maniacal army major, played by Christopher Eccleston.”
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) is on board as executive producer, though the actor isn’t set to appear in the film…yet.
Talks of a third installment in the franchise have been coming and going for the last several years now – at one point, it was going to be titled 28 Months Later – but it looks like this one is finally getting off the ground here in 2024 thanks to this casting news. Stay tuned for more updates soon!
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