Movies
‘Subject 7’ Has Been Up to No Good…
Now in pre-production, Icon Entertainment is hitting AFM with a new horror thriller entitled Subject 7, the Andrew Cosby (“Haunted,” “Eureka”) directed pic that gets behind a few students who stalk/chronicle the lives of several strangers.
Here’s the plot crunch, with the AFM sales art inside: “A group of film school students decide to follow random strangers, discreetly filming them without their knowledge in an effort to piece together their story and create a compelling narrative – literally a picture of modern life in the big city. It’s an ambitious project, and each does their part, working in shifts to maintain surveillance of their various subjects, meticulously keeping track of their habits, their daily routines, following them to work, on weekend excursions, stolen moments, clandestine rendezvous. Fortunately for them, everyone has secrets. The trick is discovering them… and more importantly, getting them on film. But when one of the students mysteriously vanishes, the others suspect that one of their subjects might be responsible. They soon discover their friend had been following someone the others weren’t even aware of… Subject #7.
Subject #7 is not like any of the others, he’s very difficult to follow, and they never see him during the day. Who is he? Where did he come from? How did she find him? Every answer only leads to more questions, and what follows is a suspenseful game of cat a mouse as our intrepid filmmakers concentrate all their efforts on this one person, stalking him, hoping to find some clue as to his true identity and what might have happened to their friend. As more of the students disappear, we soon learn the terrifying truth, that the person they’ve been following isn’t a “person” at all… he’s something more, or less, than human… a vampire… and not at all like the ones you read about in books or see in the movies. This is a creature of pure evil, a malevolent, predatory thing that lives in the shadows, hidden from prying eyes… that is, until now.” 
Movies
‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts
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.”
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