Movies
TV: HBO Bites Into Second Season of ‘True Blood’
While I’ve been pretty damn disappointed with the first two episodes of HBO’s TRUE BLOOD, it looks like the show is still picking up fans left and right. HBO has sunk its teeth deeper into “the TV series, giving the vampire drama a swift second season pickup after the show’s aud grew significantly in its second airing. Alan Ball-produced drama will begin production of new episodes early next year in Los Angeles, with the debut of the second campaign set for next summer. The well-promoted Sept. 7 bow of the series, which stars Anna Paquin, attracted 1.4 million viewers, and Sunday’s airing climbed 24% to 1.8 million viewers for the initial cablecast. Only time will tell if the viewers will stick.
Paramount Primal, the genre label run by J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, has picked up the high-concept erotic thriller spec Sweet Spot, per Deadline.
Sweet Spot hails from Nic Curcio & Kirby Gladstein, the writing duo behind the upcoming horror film Play House.
No other plot details have been divulged at this time, but expect to hear a lot more from Curcio and Gladstein in the coming months thanks to the upcoming feature Play House.
Last September, the writing duo secured funding and distribution for the film when they won Fantastic Fest’s inaugural Fantastic Pitches competition. That’s where it will premiere this year: Curcio and Gladstein got married a week after production wrapped and will premiere the film at Fantastic Fest in September.
Curcio directs Play House, which triggers obsessive madness when a man uncovers disturbing VHS tapes of an unaired children’s television show hidden in the basement. Demented kids’ shows seem in vogue for horror lately, too, with the recent release of Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round and the upcoming Buddy.
Will Harrison (Daisy Jones & The Six), Jessica Sula (Split), Jordan Gonzalez (The Long Walk), and James Urbaniak (Oppenheimer) will star in Play House.
Stay tuned for more on Sweet Spot and Play Dead as we learn it.