Movies
‘Paranormal Activity’ Director Takes Ghost Town Detour
Glen Basner’s FilmNation is to fully finance its first film, a prestige genre title that Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli is set to direct this summer, writes Screen Daily.
Basner and his team will commence international pre-sales here on the untitled story, which Peli, riding high after producing the North American hit Insidious, will direct from his own screenplay and is producing with Brian Witten.
The horror film will tell the “tale of friends who discover they are not alone after they become stranded in a ghost town overrun by nature.”
Nature gone wrong is NOT an easy subgenre to pull off, which is why it mostly comes off in the vein of Piranha, Killer Bees or might I add M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (yikes). Hopefully Peli can defy the odds!
Peli directed and produced Paranormal Activity and produced the sequel. He also directed and wrote the upcoming Paramount acquisition Area 51 and produced Barry Levinson’s eco-horror The Bay, which Lionsgate will release in the US.
Former Paramount evp Witten is partners with Richard Saperstein at The Genre Company and is producing a remake of 1958 sci-fi The Blob and Stephen King adaptation Cell.
Movies
Christopher Landon to Helm Feature Adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s ‘The Final Girl Support Group’
A new feature adaptation of author Grady Hendrix‘s slasher book The Final Girl Support Group is now on the way from Paramount Pictures, and Deadline reports that it’s found its director in Christopher Landon (Drop, Happy Death Day).
The two previously collaborated on My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
In The Final Girl Support Group, “Lynette is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.”
“But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.”
I wrote in my novel review for BD, “Hendrix puts his characters through the absolute wringer. It’s a bloody, vicious voyage for the flawed heroine, both physically and emotionally. In terms of action and horror, Support Group delivers breakneck pacing and thrills.”
Five years ago, Andy Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti (Mama, It, It Chapter Two) were attached to produce a planned series adaptation for HBO Max alongside Charlize Theron. While Theron is no longer producing, the Muschiettis remain on board under their Double Dream label.
Paramount Pictures is also developing Hendrix’s sci-fi novella, BadAsstronauts.
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