Movies
Darren Bousman Directed ‘Mother’s Day’ Gets Greenlit!
Testify! Some pretty huge news comes just in time for Mother’s Day as Twisted Pictures, the Genre Co. and Rat Entertainment have lined up a financing deal with LightTower Entertainment to remake Charles Kaufman’s 1980 Troma cult classic Mother’s Day. Darren Lynn Bousman, who has helmed three films in the Saw franchise and the culty horror-musical Repo! The Genetic Opera, is attached to direct from a script by Scott Milam! Read on for all the juicy details.
The original “Mother’s Day” revolved around three female friends who, while camping, run afoul of two brothers who engage in murder and rape to impress their deranged mother. The remake sees the villainous family return to the house where they grew up and terrorize the new owners and their guests.
“We’re taking the iconic image of a mother, the most comforting and nurturing person in the world, and perverting that into something that is punishing and sadistic,” Genre’s Richard Saperstein said.
He added that the remake will be timely, reflecting today’s foreclosures and tough economic times. “She’s lost her house,” Saperstein said. “Her boys are going to get it back to her.”
Saperstein is producing with Genre’s Brian Witten. “Saw” producers Mark Burg, Oren Koules and Carl Mazzocone also are producing, as are Brett Ratner and Jay Stern through Rat Entertainment.
LightTower partners Jonathan Zucker and Curtis Leopardo are executive producers on the project. Kaufman and Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman also will exec produce, as will Genre’s Stephen Kessler. Shara Kay will co-produce. Jessie Rusu is an associate producer.
The producers are eyeing a July start and a spring release timed for Mother’s Day 2010.
Saperstein acknowledged that many horror movies are seeing their tone informed by last year’s surprise hit “The Strangers.” He said the tone of the “Mother’s Day” remake “will be post-‘Strangers’ in that is has very realistic qualities but has a high-concept overlay, this punishing maternal figure.”
Zach Cregger is no stranger to violent movies, with his first two at-bats in the horror genre yielding the films Barbarian and Weapons. But even those movies can’t compete with the level of violence on display in his next movie Resident Evil, he teases in a new chat.
Zach Cregger tells Empire Magazine that Resident Evil is “definitely the most violent thing I’ve done.” He teases, “You gotta go grotesque! I wanted to go all the way.”
“So it’s gnarly. It’s brutal,” Cregger continues. “A very bloody affair.”
He also tells Empire, “Fleshing out what [the Umbrella Corporation is] up to and how the T-virus works, that’s not what this movie is. This movie is about one dude’s journey on foot, fighting monsters. I don’t give a fuck about checking boxes. All I cared about was just telling a fun story. We step on the gas at about eight minutes in and never take our foot off the floor.”
Resident Evil opens in theaters and IMAX September 18 from Sony.
The film is being billed as “a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise” from the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons).
Austin Abrams (Weapons) stars as Bryan, a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in a non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
Zach Cherry (“Severance”), Kali Reis (“True Detective: Night Country”), Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird”), and Johnno Wilson (“Twisted Metal”) round out the cast.