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‘The Lair’: Neil Marshall Getting Ready to Film His Next “Full-On Monster Movie”

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Pictured: 'The Descent'

Originally announced last year, Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) will be following up his brand new horror movie The Reckoning with The Lair, a fresh horror project that’ll bring Marshall back into the world of creatures. Speaking with Bloody Disgusting’s Boo Crew Podcast for their latest episode, Marshall promises his next will be a “full-on monster movie”!

The Reckoning was certainly a return to horror, but I showed a degree of restraint. With the exception of one wagon wheel scene. So I wanted to come back and do a creature feature, I wanted to do some monsters, and just kind of combine elements from Dog Soldiers and Aliens and Predator and things like that,” Marshall explains, talking about The Lair.

He adds, “So it’s a full-on monster movie with action and explosions and blood and guts and everything. We are just putting the financing together, with plans to shoot in May.”

Like The Reckoning, Marshall’s The Lair is also set to star Charlotte Kirk.

Last we heard, “The story centers on a downed Royal Air Force pilot who escapes a terrifying bunker in Afghanistan containing mutant man-made biological weapons and unwittingly brings the creatures back to a US Army base.”

You can listen to The Boo Crew’s full chat with Neil Marshall and Charlotte Kirk below.

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.

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

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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

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