Movies
The WWE Wrestles With How To Make A Found Footage Movie In ‘Bermuda’
I’m always kind of leery when sports and films collide. I’m not talking about movies about sports, I love Moneyball as much as the next guy. I’m talking about when sports franchises decide they want to make movies. Which is what’s happening now. The WWE venturing into horror, found footage specifically, with the newly announced Bermuda.
Per Deadline, “WWE Studios has acquired Bermuda, a found-footage horror spec script by Bobby Lee Darby and Nathan Brookes. Set in the Bermuda Triangle, the story focuses on a documentary film crew that goes missing. The only trace is the discovery of their film footage chronicling their final desperate days. The scribes previously wrote Slaughter, a homage to Japanese cult horror films that won a Horror Screenplay Competition prize at Slamdance. Original Artists repped the scribes along with Hung Entertainment. ”The Bermuda Triangle has always been an intriguing and mysterious setting,” said WWE Studios president Michael Luisi. “Bobby and Nathan’s script puts a very unique spin on the found footage genre.””
We’ll see! At least it doesn’t seem to actually feature wrestling (although the idea of a found footage film about wrestling sounds intriguing). Readers, what are some good examples of the horror and sports worlds colliding? Let me know in the comments!
Movies
‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts
In the wake of Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man back in 2020, Universal has been struggling to achieve further box office success with their Universal Monsters brand. Even in the early days of the pandemic, Invisible Man scared up $144 million at the worldwide box office, while last year’s Universal Monsters: Dracula movies The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield didn’t even approach that number when you COMBINE their individual box office hauls.
The horror-comedy Renfield came along first in April 2023, ending its run with just $26 million. The period piece Last Voyage of the Demeter ended its own run with a mere $21 million.
But Universal is trying again with their ballerina vampire movie Abigail this weekend, the latest bloodbath directed by the filmmakers known as Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream).
Unlike Demeter and Renfield, the early reviews for Abigail are incredibly strong, with our own Meagan Navarro calling the film “savagely inventive in terms of its vampiric gore,” ultimately “offering a thrill ride with sharp, pointy teeth.” Read her full review here.
That early buzz – coupled with some excellent trailers – should drive Abigail to moderate box office success, the film already scaring up $1 million in Thursday previews last night. Variety notes that Abigail is currently on track to enjoy a $12 million – $15 million opening weekend, which would smash Renfield ($8 million) and Demeter’s ($6 million) opening weekends.
Working to Abigail‘s advantage is the film’s reported $28 million production budget, making it a more affordable box office bet for Universal than the two aforementioned movies.
Stay tuned for more box office reporting in the coming days.
In Abigail, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
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