Movies
Takashi Miike Returns To Violence With ‘Lesson of the Evil’!
Nippon Cinema is reporting that Takashi Miike – the Japanese master of gore responsible for such classics as Audition, Dead or Alive, Three…Extremes, Visitor Q, Gozu, One Missed Call and Ichi the Killer – is heading back to the genre he abandoned all those years ago.
Miike is set to direct a film adaptation of Yusuke Kishi’s bestselling 2010 novel “Aku no Kyoten” (aka Lesson of the Evil).
The movie will star Hideaki Ito (pictured below) in a role quite a bit darker than what he’s usually known for. The site states he’ll be playing “A teacher named Seiji Hasumi who’s loved by his students and respected by his peers. However, his outward charm masks his true nature. In reality, Hasumi is a psychopath who is unable to feel empathy for other human beings. Specifically, he has a severe antisocial personality disorder. Because of his mental condition, Hasumi chooses to deal with problems like bullying and overbearing “monster parents” the easy way—by systematically murdering his students.” It sounds like if Dexter were a school teacher. NICE!
Filming will take place from April to June with an eye toward completing it in time for inclusion at the Venice International Film Festival. A theatrical release is slated for November. 
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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