Movies
Guillermo del Toro Isn’t ‘Afraid of the Dark’
Get ready for more horror from Guillermo del Toro as he will be teaming with Miramax Films to produce a remake of the horror-thriller telefilm Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, the specialty distributor’s first big dive into horror filmmaking under president Daniel Battsek. You can read all about it inside.
Comic book artist-writer Troy Nixey will make his feature directorial debut with the adaptation of ABC’s 1973 cult classic.
Canadian Troy Nixey, who’s creepy and fun short, Latchkey’s Lament played last year’s Short Cuts Canada programme at the Toronto International Film Festival (pretty awesome)!
Del Toro is adapting Nigel McKeand’s teleplay with Matthew Robbins, his writing partner on the 1997 horror film “Mimic” for Miramax’s former genre label Dimension.
“Dark” centers on a young girl, sent to live with her father and his new girlfriend, who discovers sinister creatures that live underneath the stairs.
Michael Falbo, Miramax’s director of production and development, will oversee the project for the studio under president of production Keri Putnam.
The film is in its early stages; research and development of the monsters hasn’t begun yet, and other producers might come aboard. Moviegoers can expect an upscale creature feature along the lines of del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” with an emphasis on distinctive characters in keeping with the Miramax slate.
Directed by John Newland, the original telefilm (known as “Nightmare” in Europe) gained a cult following through syndication and home video release.
Nixey wrote and directed the 2007 supernatural thriller short “Latchkey’s Lament,” a mix of CGI animation and live action. He has attained cult status for illustrating “Batman” and “Matrix” comics as well as writing and illustrating Dark Horse Comics’ “Trout,” which is in development at Phoenix Pictures.
“It has always been a dream of mine to work on a project with Guillermo, my favorite filmmaker,” Nixey said. “I had no idea it would be on my first one out. Miramax’s faith in me is everything a first-time director could ask for.”
Nixey is one of several emerging filmmakers, including “Orphanage” helmer Juan Antonio Bayona, mentored by del Toro.
Peter McPartlin, vp business affairs and legal, negotiated the deal on behalf of Miramax. Endeavor and Gary Ungar at Exile Entertainment, who rep del Toro and Nixey, negotiated on behalf of the filmmakers. Robbins is repped by the Pitt Group.
Hey, remember that there’s a Faces of Death remake on the way from Legendary Entertainment and Cam filmmakers Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber?! It’s been a while since we’ve heard a peep about this one, but the film’s MPA rating has been handed in this week.
The upcoming Faces of Death remake is rated “R” for…
“Strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language and drug use.”
Musician Charli XCX will make her feature debut in Faces of Death.
Dacre Montgomery (“Stranger Things”), Barbie Ferreira (“Euphoria”), Josie Totah (“Saved by the Bell”) and Aaron Holliday (Cocaine Bear) are also set to star.
How do you remake Faces of Death? It sounds like Mazzei and Goldhaber have come up with an interesting approach for this one. Here’s what we know about this mysterious project.
[Related] Looking Back on the Fact and Fiction Behind ‘Faces of Death’
The original Faces of Death, released in 1978, is one of the most infamous films of all time, allegedly showcasing real footage of real death. In actuality, of course, much of the horrifying footage seen in Faces of Death is staged, with gory special effects often being paired up with real footage to create the illusion of gruesome reality. Early found footage, in other words.
The new story was conceived by Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber. Like the original film, Legendary is reportedly hoping the new one will spawn a multi-film franchise.
“Faces of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online,” said Mazzei and Goldhaber in a recent statement.
“The new plot revolves around a female moderator of a YouTube-like website, whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, that stumbles across a group that is recreating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age and age of online misinformation, the question faced is are the murders real or fake?”
The original movie was written and directed by the late John Allan Schwartz.
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