Movies
‘Pet Sematary’ Directors Detail That Unexpected Change from Both the Novel and 1989 Film
Spoilers forthcoming. Turn away now.
The second trailer for Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch‘s adaptation of Pet Sematary dropped this morning, and it spoiled a pretty major deviation from both Stephen King’s novel and Mary Lambert’s 1989 film. This time around, rather than Gage Creed dying and being reborn thanks to the Sematary’s powers, it’ll be his older sister, Ellie Creed.
In a press kit sent out this morning, Widmyer and Kolsch detailed the change.
“That twist was in the script when we came on board, and straight away you could see that it was one of the smartest things in the script. It was new and fresh but also absolutely kept the essence of the novel,” Widmyer explains. “One of the things we liked about the novel is that it’s always the character of Ellie who is asking about these things. She’s asking about her cat dying one day and asking all these big questions. So, it felt right for it to be her, to echo these questions to her Dad, to resolve these earlier conversations that we’ve had. It felt like a nice way to connect that theme.”
Kolsch adds, “You’ve got to be sure that you’re making changes for the right reasons, not just a shock factor. And changing it to Ellie makes absolute sense to the story.”
Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura also chimes in, “I’ve been lucky enough to have worked on something like 80 different book or graphic novel [adaptations]. And I think the truth of any success is that if you treat it literally you get in trouble because it feels very static and stale. But if you make too many changes then you’ve lost the essence of what it is. This treads the perfect line. It is about embracing what the book is trying to say, and not trying to change its tone, its rhythm and its perspective, while also evolving things forward.”
Return to the Pet Sematary on April 5, 2019.
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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