Movies
A Bigger Boat Puts Down Payment on ‘House at the End of the Street’
Update: Title corrected. A Bigger Boat, producer Peter Block’s new company, has been making some serious headlines over the past year. With their incredible thriller Frozen opening in theaters next month, and The Ward (John Carpenter’s big return to horror) in post-production, it appears the producer behind the Saw franchise is nearly unstoppable. It was announced today that A Bigger Boat will be teaming with FilmNation Entertainment for a new psychological thriller in the vein of Psycho entitled House at the End of the Street. Read on for the skinny.
FilmNation Entertainment and A Bigger Boat are combining to finance and produce “House at the End of the Street,” a psychological thriller based on a story written by Jonathan Mostow.
The film will be directed by Mark Tonderai from a David Loucka script. Tonderai helmed “Hush,” a Pathe/IFC-distributed thriller that won a British Independent Film Award.
Pic is described as a thriller in the vein of “Psycho,” aimed at a contemporary young audience.
A Bigger Boat’s Peter Block will produce with FilmNation’s Aaron Ryder, Mostow and Hal Lieberman.
The film had been set up at Universal and developed through the discretionary fund of Mostow/Lieberman. The producers, who subsequently split up, got the picture in turnaround and set it to be co-financed by FilmNation’s Glen Basner and GreeneStreet Films, which partners with Block in A Bigger Boat.
Intention is to start production later this year. That will likely make the film the first production for FilmNation since Basner formed the venture in 2008 as an international sales arm and brought Ryder in shortly after to start a production division. Block just wrapped the John Carpenter-directed thriller “The Ward” as well as “Frozen.”
We believe this will be to ‘Psycho’ what ‘Disturbia’ was to ‘Rear Window,’ but with the addition of a strong female lead,” Ryder said.
In related news, Block has taken U.S. rights to J. Blakeson’s kidnapping thriller “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” starring Gemma Arterton, which preemed in Toronto.
Film will be released by Anchor Bay, with whom he has a relationship.
Adrian Sturges produced and CinemaNX’s Steve Christian and Marc Samuelson were executive producers and will self-distribute in the U.K. WestEnd Films handles international sales.
Movies
‘The Exorcism’ Trailer – Russell Crowe Gets Possessed in Meta Horror Movie from Producer Kevin Williamson
Russell Crowe (The Pope’s Exorcist) is starring in a brand new meta possession horror movie titled The Exorcism, and Vertical has unleashed the official trailer this afternoon.
Vertical has picked up the North American rights to The Exorcism, which they’ll be bringing to theaters on June 7. Shudder is also on board to bring the film home later this year.
Joshua John Miller, who wrote 2015’s The Final Girls and also starred in films including Near Dark and And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird, directed The Exorcism.
Joshua John Miller also wrote the script with M.A. Fortin (The Final Girls). This one is personal for Miller, as his late father was the star of the best possession movie ever made.
Miller said in a statement this week, “The origins of the film stem from my childhood spent watching my father, Jason Miller, playing the doomed Father Karras flinging himself out a window at the climax of The Exorcist. If that wasn’t haunting enough on its own, my dad never shied away from telling me stories of just how “cursed” the movie was: the mysterious fires that plagued the production, the strange deaths, the lifelong injuries— the list went on and on. The lore of any “cursed film” has captivated me ever since.”
“With The Exorcism, we wanted to update the possession movie formula (“Heroic man rescues woman from forces she’s too weak and simple to battle herself!”) for a world where no one group owns goodness and decency over another,” he adds. “We were gifted with an extraordinary cast and creative team to tell a story about how we’re all vulnerable to darkness, to perpetuating it, if we fail to face our demons. The devil may retaliate, but what other choice do we have?”
The film had previously been announced under the title The Georgetown Project.
“The Exorcism follows Anthony Miller (Crowe), a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter (Ryan Simpkins) wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play.”
Sam Worthington (Avatar: The Way of Water), Chloe Bailey (Praise This), Adam Goldberg (The Equalizer) and David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) also star.
Of particular note, Kevin Williamson (Scream, Sick) produced The Exorcism.
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