Movies
Where’s Stephen Sommers’ ‘Odd Thomas’? Lawsuit Provides Answers…
The Hollywood Reporter is sharing some shocking news regarding Stephen Sommers’ adaptation of Dean Koontz’ Odd Thomas, starring Anton Yelchin, Addison Timlin and Willem Dafoe.
Says the site, the producers of Odd Thomas are suing several entities alleging that they failed to provide [a shocking] $35 million that would have gone toward marketing and distributing the movie and paying back production loans. Two Out of Ten Prods., known at TOOT, and Fusion Films filed their lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, naming as defendants Outsource Media Group Fund, ABS Investment Group, individuals Craig Chang and Mark Bishop, and Outsource Media Group. The latter, referred to as OMG in the lawsuit, is run by principals Bradley Holmes, Dan Reardon and Harrison Kordestani, an executive producer of lower-budget horrors and thrillers such as The Coffin, Already Dead, In a Dark Place and Intervention.
According to TOOT and Fusion, OMG pledged to spend $25 million on prints and advertising to support a release of Odd Thomas in the U.S. and another $10 million to partially refinance certain loans. Several deadlines came and went, but most of the money never materialized, according to the lawsuit, filed by the Law Offices of Alan S. Gutman in Beverly Hills. You can read more about the claim here.
Odd Thomas centers on a short-order cook named Odd Thomas (Yelchin) who can commune with the dead, a secret only his girlfriend (Timlin) and the local police (Dafoe) chief know.
The buried origins of the cinema zombie will be explored in upcoming documentary Black Zombie, and Deadline reports that Kino Lorber has picked up the doc for U.S. release.
Kino Lorber will release Black Zombie in theaters later this year.
From writer and director Maya Annik Bedward, Black Zombie digs beneath the blood-soaked spectacle of modern horror to uncover the zombie’s buried and unsettling origins.
Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power.
Deadline further details, “Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to contemporary Hollywood, reconsidering iconic films like White Zombie, Night of the Living Dead, and The Serpent and the Rainbow alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, Black Zombie exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters.”
“I’m thrilled to partner with Kino Lorber on the release of Black Zombie,” said Maya Annik Bedward. “The film explores the power of images to shape our understanding of history, culture, and race, making it especially meaningful to work with a distributor so deeply engaged with cinema’s past and present. Their passion for films that challenge, illuminate, and expand our understanding of the world makes them an ideal partner for bringing this story to audiences across the U.S.”
Kino Lorber’s Karoliina Dwyer adds, “The zombie is one of the most iconic images in cinema, and you’ll never look at them the same after watching Black Zombie. Maya Annik Bedward has crafted a fascinating, deeply researched documentary that unearths the long-buried Haitian origins of the genre, interrogating colonial, political, and Hollywood history to powerful and illuminating effect. We’re so proud to bring this documentary to U.S. audiences this fall.”
Executive producers for the documentary include music legend Slash.
‘I Walked With a Zombie’ (1943)
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