Movies
New Doc Series “Untold Horror” Explores Films the Masters Almost Made
When there’s no more room in Development Hell…
Have you ever heard about an upcoming film, gotten excited about it, and then realized down the road that the project you once couldn’t wait for never actually ended up happening? It happens all the time in the fickle world of Hollywood, where projects often die off with very little fanfare. Hell, just this year a new installment in the Friday the 13th franchise was given the axe.
The upcoming documentary series “Untold Horror” is all about those projects that found themselves trapped in the dreaded Development Hell, and it will feature brand new interviews with filmmakers like George Romero, John Landis, Takashi Miike, and William Lustig. For the first time ever, they will talk in-depth about the projects they *almost* made over the years.
Untold Horror was conceived in the summer of 2015 by Dave Alexander and Mark Pollesel as a brand dedicated to answering the question that genre fans often ask: “Whatever happened to that movie?” With additional partners Bob Barrett and Kevin Burke, the documentary series will explore the tantalizing projects that were announced but died in Development Hell, uncover the compelling unannounced projects by our favorite artists that fans have never heard about, and discover just what it would take to bring some of them back to life. The goal is to explore the sometimes tortured relationship between art and commerce in the most compelling genre of them all. Beyond this, the label will form partnerships to bring Untold Horror to other mediums, with a blog, book series, art show, live readings and more.
What happened to David Cronenberg’s Frankenstein? Roger Avery’s legendary Phantasm script? The dozens of George A. Romero projects announced over the years that disappeared? Why couldn’t the combined powers of Guillermo del Toro, James Cameron and Tom Cruise create At the Mountains of Madness? Has there ever been an unmade film with more talent attached to it than The Creature From the Black Lagoon remake? Why did these passion projects die, and what killed them?
Premiere details are coming soon. In the meantime, watch the trailer below.
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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