Movies
Screen Gems Loads ‘Viral’ Terror From Student Project
Sony Screen Gems has picked up rights to a creepy student-made short entitled Viral with the plan of spinning it into a feature, reports Heat Vision.
The pickup is a coup for Tim Shechmeister, a recent UCLA film school grad who directed the short and co-wrote it with his brother, Matt Shechmeister, as part of a thesis project. The Shechmeisters will co-write the feature and Tim would direct the big-screen version.
“The roughly 11-minute short is set in the world of cyberbullying and eventually includes supernatural elements.” In fact, the story could be described as being reminiscent of The Grudge or The Ring, but primed for the current generation that uses smart phones and Facebook as extensions of themselves.
The Grudge reference is apt because that movie’s writer, Stephen Susco, discovered the short at a screenwriting event this past summer. Tim Shechmeister, who is also a fan of Japanese horror (AKA J-Horror), gave Susco his business card with a link to the short, which the scribe checked out and loved. Susco brought it to Grudge producer Roy Lee who, along with Lawrence Grey, took it to Screen Gems. The trio will now produce. John Middleton will exec produce.
The highest grossing horror movie of the year (so far), Curry Barker’s Obsession has been absolutely dominating the box office for over a month now, with the film scaring up $334 million at the worldwide box office (so far). Obsession will likely continue to make money in theaters for several more weeks, but when will the horror hit be available to watch at home?
Obsession is being released on Digital outlets at home on Tuesday, June 30!
At the time of this article being written, Obsession has made $217 million at the U.S. box office and $334 million worldwide, and the box office momentum is showing no signs of dramatically slowing down. The word-of-mouth on Curry Barker’s horror movie has been absolutely off the charts, with the film holding strong and even gaining momentum from week-to-week.
Needless to say, it’s probably likely that an Obsession sequel won’t be too far behind. Curry Barker has an idea for one, in fact, but don’t expect Barker to jump right into Obsession 2.
Instead, Curry Barker is putting the finishing touches on his already-shot next feature Anything But Ghosts, while he also just set up a new original horror movie at Blumhouse & Universal.
He’s also attached to direct the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.
In Curry Barker’s theatrical debut Obsession, after breaking the mysterious One Wish Willow to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
Inde Navarrette (“Superman & Lois”) and Michael Johnston (“Teen Wolf”) star.
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