Movies
“Bubba Ho-Tep” Author’s ‘Christmas with the Dead’ Becomes a Feature!
Joe R. Lansdale, prolific author of such notable stories as the “Hap and Leonard” series of novels, “The Bottom’s” and the unforgettable “Bubba Ho-Tep,” the first of his works to be made into a movie, is about to bring his very own zombies to the big screen! Lansdale’s latest short story, to be released in early 2011, is ready to be made into a movie: Christmas with the Dead. The author has previous undead entries with “Dead in the West”, “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks,” and most recently “Deadman’s Road,” as well as an entry in BOOM!’s comic, “Zombie Tales”. Here’s the plot crunch: “It was a foolish thing to do, and Calvin had not bothered with it the past two years, not since the death of his wife and child. But this year he decided quite suddenly, that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. And zombies be damned, the lights and decorations are going up…” More info inside!In addition to Lansdale, who will act as executive producer, already signed on to the project are Damian Maffei (Closed for the Season) as the lead, Brian James Fitzpatrick (Throwaway) who is set to direct, and Marcus Koch (Sweatshop, 100 Tears) with Oddtopsy F/X who is scheduled to create the special effects for the movie.
Shooting is scheduled to begin this June in Nacogdoches, Texas, where Lansdale has lived with his wife for the past thirty years. In a nod to Joe’s affiliation as writer-in-residence at the Stephen F. Austin University, Lansdale will be employing the use of many of the students, as well as the use of some of the school’s state of the art equipment. Joe sees this association with the university as an opportunity to give the students a hands-on film-making experience.
“Based on my short story of the same name, Christmas with the Dead is now in pre-production,” said Lansdale. “I’m excited about it moving forward and very fortunate to have some fine people at the helm. I’m looking forward to begin filming this summer.”
Fitzpatrick is thrilled to be part of the project. “It’s all coming together very quickly – taking on a life of its own – which I think is what happens with strong projects where everyone has the same vision; the same passion. And a Lansdale zombie movie is pretty damn strong.”
As for the merry movie and the plight of it’s hero: “It was a foolish thing to do, and Calvin had not bothered with it the past two years, not since the death of his wife and child. But this year he decided quite suddenly, that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. And zombies be damned, the lights and decorations are going up…”
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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