Movies
Kevin Smith’s Awesome New Horror Screenplay Pits Man and Hell Vs. Jesus!
I used to be a huge fan of Kevin Smith and still want to be. While I don’t like his online personality, at all, I do want him to make good movies. I didn’t like Red State, but there was promise hiding within. My hope is that Tusk, his horror comedy about a man who is turned into a walrus, connects on all dots and revives my love in Smith’s work. While we wait for that to get released in 2014, Smith is already focused on his next horror project, Helena Handbasket, which aligns mankind with the minions of Hell for war against a giant Jesus!
“The idea is to, once again, take an episode of SModcast and turn it into a movie,” Smith reveals on his Facebook page. “It’s worked out quite nicely with ‘TUSK’ (thanks largely to the cast, the crew and the good folks at Demarest and at a24, who’ll be releasing the flick this fall), so I wanna see if I can do it again.”
Speaking on the plot, “Granted, this time the plot of the movie concerns mankind teaming up with Hell to save existence from extinction at the hands of a Rapturing giant Jesus – which means the budget has to be LOW, because NOBODY’S gonna wanna make that movie. At all. And I know this going in, so I won’t be heartbroken if it never goes beyond the script. But… if the script is funny enough? Who knows? That walrus movie seemed pretty daffy and far-fetched until we were standing on the ‘TUSK’ set bringing that shit to life four months and change after first making it up in episode 259 of SModcast.”
Smith has always been clever in his thoughts about religion, as shown in Dogma, so it’ll be interesting to see what he does with Helena Handbasket. He’s right that nobody will make that movie, but damned if I don’t want to see it. I gave Smith shit for even implying he’d asking his fans to finance his movies – but when you throw out a crazy ass pitch like Helena Handbasket, the only way that’s going to get made it by fans. It’ll be interesting to see if Smith gets it off the ground, and how, but as of right now I’m all-in on behind behind him.
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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