Movies
Sony Wins ‘In The Deep’ Bidding War; Described as ‘Jaws’ Meets ‘127 Hours’
Shark movies continually fail all while Shark Week is the biggest thing on TV. With that, studios will continue to attempt their own Jaws in hopes of breaking through to audiences. First way to achieve this is to focus on a good story and characters – and much like Halloween is the end all of Halloween-themed movies, I’m not quite sure there’s a better shark story than Jaws.
Still, a bidding war just ended on a new Shark-based thriller when Sony Pictures paid high-six figures for In The Deep, a spec script by Tony Jaswinski (Kristy, Vanishing on 7th Street) that had created feeding frenzy all day.
Deadline reports that, tonally, the spec is described as a cross between 127 Hours meets Jaws, with a touch of Gravity thrown in for good measure. “A young woman who is dealing with the recent death of her mother is surfing on an isolated beach and gets stranded 20 yards off shore on a buoy. What lies between her and the shore is a huge great white shark.”
It’s said to be an emotional piece for a young twentysomething star. Whomever lands the role will probably end up talking to a volleyball with a face drawn on it.
The film will be produced by former Warner Bros executive Lynn Harris; it is the first project she has put together with Matti Leshem in the new producing shingle Weimaraner Republic Pictures.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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