Movies
Orci and Kurtzman To Approach ‘Van Helsing’ Remake Like ‘The Dark Knight’
Producers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman recently spoke to Crave about the forthcoming Van Helsing, which is (no shock) a reboot.
“Well, I don’t want to give away too much, because we are actually at the very beginning of talking about what to do with it. But I do feel like the Van Helsing that Anthony Hopkins plays in [Bram Stoker’s] Dracula is sort of the parody version of it, and the Van Helsing that Hugh Jackman played was obviously in a different place as well,” they explain. “I think that these kinds of movies have evolved a lot since then. You know, The Dark Knight was a major, major corner-turning moment in the way that genre and superhero stories could be told. Really grounded in reality. Really grounded in really cool things. That’s what I’d like to do without sacrificing the fantasy element. We aspired to do that as well on Trek, you know, keep it “real.” That’s such a different franchise than Batman, but that’s really what we wanted to do. And we’d love to do that with Van Helsing.”
The duo aren’t saying that the original was a parody, but they’re correct in stating that it feels like it. The hammy nature of Universal’s 2004 film, directed by Stephen Somers, is as cheeseball filled as they come. Approaching the franchise from a real place begins with the script and ends with the effects work. Hopefully they can work together and deliver a epic creature feature that we deserve?
Curry Barker’s Obsession has been on a generational run at the box office these last several weeks, with the incredible word-of-mouth driving the box office totals higher and higher and higher with each passing week. After a debut weekend of $17 million, Obsession made a whopping $23 million in its second weekend, and then scared up $26.4 million in its third weekend. In its fourth weekend, Obsession just scared up another $25.6 million in the U.S.!
Deadline notes in a report this morning, “Obsession reps the biggest fourth weekend ever for a horror movie ahead of 1999’s Blair Witch Project which did $24.3M.”
Worldwide, Obsession is now the highest grossing movie in history for Focus Features. The current worldwide total is $224.7 million, while the domestic total is $152.1 million.
That also makes Obsession the highest grossing horror movie of 2026, far exceeding the $207.9 million worldwide total ($121.9 million domestically) of Scream 7 earlier this year!
Yes, the highest grossing horror movie of 2026 is an ORIGINAL HORROR MOVIE!
The best part? The production budget for Obsession was just $750,000, with Focus Features acquiring the film for a reported $15 million. Even when you factor in the marketing spend and the fact that theaters get their own sizable cut, this one is a MASSIVE win for Focus.
From A24 and director Kane Parsons, Backrooms is already nipping at the heels of that record after just a couple weeks in release. The current domestic total of Backrooms is $135 million, while the worldwide total is now sitting at a very healthy $212.6 million. That means Backrooms has also already surpassed Scream 7, and may soon pass Obsession as well.
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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