Connect with us

Movies

‘The Witch’. ‘The Lighthouse’. ‘The Northman’. Robert Eggers’ New Film Will Be “Dark and Unusually Violent”

Published

4 years ago

on

Up next, The Witch and The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers is set to direct The Northman, a viking revenge film that we first heard about back in October of last year.

Deadline told us, “The pic is described as a Viking revenge saga set in Iceland at the turn of the 10th century. Eggers penned the screenplay with Icelandic poet and novelist, Sjón.”

According to the site at the time, the cast of actors in talks to star includes Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe.

The Northman will re-team Eggers with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Jarin Blaschke (The Lighthouse), and Blaschke recently teased the film in a chat with Screen Daily.

He told the site, “It’s a bigger movie than the others. I can say it’s a Viking revenge movie and we are shooting in Europe. It’s dark and unusually violent.”

“I think [Eggers] feels a responsibility to do a trilogy,” Blaschke also noted, suggesting that The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman will form a spiritual trilogy of sorts. And that checks out, as Eggers had said something very similar to us last year. He explained, “[The Witch and The Lighthouse] are me trying to commune with folk culture of my past and are me and my brother’s take on New England folk tales. So they’re certainly companion pieces.”

More as we learn it.

Related Topics:

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

Advertisement
Click to comment

Movies

‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts

Published

2 mins ago

on

April 19, 2024

By

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.”

Abigail Melissa Barrera movie

Continue Reading