Movies
‘Mary’ is the Hottest Horror Script in Town
According to this tracking board, Mary is the hottest horror script in town.
Mary hit the market this week and is from The Shallows screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski. Story details are being kept under wraps, but the site is hearing that it’s being pitched as The Shining meets The Conjuring on a boat.
Here’s who is in play, with news of an acquisition imminent:
Scott Stuber’s Bluegrass Films has teamed with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse to take this for Universal. Lorenzo Di Bonaventura is taking this into Paramount and Netflix, while John Davis and his Davis Entertainment is taking this for 20th Century Fox and Sony. Michael De Luca is in on this in a big way, taking both Studio 8 and Lionsgate, but also teaming with Brett Ratner’s RatPac for New Line. Matt Tolmach has TriStar squared away, while Neal Moritz and his Original Films have taken EuropaCorp and Studio Canal.
Add the site: The Shallows, formerly known as In the Deep, landed on the 2014 Hit List and Black List and sparked a bidding war that was ultimately won by Sony. Jaswinski, whose buzzy Blake Lively-starring shark thriller hits theaters on June 29th, will also see the horror film he scripted, Satanic, hit theaters later that same week. Given the heat that’s already building around Mary, June could prove to be a banner month for the screenwriter who won the Nicholl Fellowship back in 1997.
Jaswinski has had a busy career in the years since, maintaining an impressive track record with his specs. His supernatural thriller The Visitation landed on the 2010 Hit List, May You Live In Interesting Times – his second spec to land on the 2014 Hit List – is currently set up at Voltage, and his New Orleans-set vampire thriller Garden District is in the works at Dimension.
Jaswinski’s previously produced films include include Killing Time, Vanishing on 7th Street, and 2014’s Kristy, the latter from his 2009 Blood List script. Last year, Jaswinski’s pitch Variant, a female-driven sci-fi actioneer, sold to Warner Bros. for a low six-figures.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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