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‘The Night Stalker,’ Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Get Premiere Date
LMN has acquired The Night Stalker, starring Lou Diamond Phillips and “Scandal” actress Bellamy Young, for network premiere on June 12, reports Variety. The movie will also compete at the New American Cinema competition at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 4.
“The Night Stalker” was the name given to Richard Ramirez, who murdered 14 people and terrorized Los Angeles in the summer of 1985. The movie centers on an attorney, played by Young, who travels to San Quentin on a seemingly impossible mission to clear the name of a death row inmate in Texas whom she believes has been wrongly accused of additional murders that may have been perpetrated by Ramirez.
“The Night Stalker” is produced by Laboratory Productions and MRB Productions with Alisa Tager and Matthew R. Brady producing. The film was written and directed by Megan Griffiths.
Ramirez, an avowed Satanist, was convicted of 13 murders and never expressed any remorse. He died on death row in 2013 of complications from B-cell lymphoma. Variety first reported the casting of Phillips in June.
The production took place last year with a crew of 113. Producers are planning to self-distribute “The Night Stalker” to a few locations next month, including the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, which is about 20 miles from the Mission Viejo neighborhood where Ram
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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