Movies
Director Named for ‘Monster Squad’, Not the Remake…
With McG exiting the project, Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo) is now tapped to get behind the camera for Monster Squad, formerly known as Nightcrawlers, Warner Bros.’ long-gestating supernatural action comedy.The studio picked up “Nightcrawlers” as a spec by Brian Lynch in 2000. The project went through numerous writers, including Michael Arndt and Audrey Wells, as Warners sought to find a balance of laughs and chills.
The project’s title was changed to “Monster Squad,” though it is not a remake of the 1987 Warners movie written by Shane Black.
The new “Squad” centers on a neurotic father who must turn to a childhood tormentor to face his lifelong fear of the dark and the monsters who have haunted him.
Chris Bender, J.C. Spink, Jonathan Shestack and Donald De Line are producing. Charlie Gogolak is co-producing.
Jessica Goodman is overseeing for the studio.
Mitchell, repped by CAA, is in postproduction on “Shrek Forever After,” the fourth film in the franchise. He also directed Disney’s “Sky High” and DreamWorks’ “Surviving Christmas.”
The Broadway stage production of Paranormal Activity can’t wait to scare audiences and is acting accordingly; Deadline reports that the opening date has been bumped up several weeks.
Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Stage is coming to Broadway for a limited 20-week engagement. The first preview performance scheduled for Friday, August 14, at the August Wilson Theatre, remains in place. Now the play will officially open on Tuesday, August 25, moving up from its initial September 15 launch date.
The official synopsis: “James and Lou move from Chicago to London to escape their past, but they soon discover that places aren’t haunted, people are.”
Directed by Felix Barrett and written by playwright Levi Holloway, the stage show weaves “an original story inspired by the film franchise, Paranormal Activity reimagines the modern ghost story with an intimacy that only live theatre can provide.”
The Broadway production will follow a strictly limited pre-Broadway engagement in Boston at the Emerson Colonial Theatre from July 11 through July 30.
Both the Broadway and Boston casts will feature Cher Álvarez, Travis A. Knight, Shannon Cochran, and Andrea Syglowski. Understudies will be Caron Buinis, Caroline Hendricks, and Michael Holding.
Álvarez will play Lou, and Knight plays James.
Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Stage premiered at the Leeds Playhouse in the UK before transferring to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End, where it received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination this year for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play.
Original Paranormal Activity stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat attended the Paranormal Activity play last year, and they both shared their thoughts over on Instagram.
Katie Featherston raved, “What a truly fun night seeing the new Paranormal Activity at the Ahmanson Theatre! We had a blast- so scary and so fun. The design and production was amazing and the cast did a fantastic job. Congrats to all involved!”
There’s also a brand new movie on the way.
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