Movies
Malevolent Entities Will Arise as ‘Saw’ Creators Reteam for ‘Insidious’!
Some exciting news was reported here on Bloody Disgusting back on January 20 as we were among the first to tell you that Saw co-creator James Wan would be getting behind the camera for Insidious (formerly The Further), a new horror thriller being produced by Jason Blum (Blumhouse), Oren Peli (director of Paranormal Activity, Area 51) and Steven Schneider (Room 101) in the first of many films (read on for more info). Variety confirmed this news adding that Wan will be reteaming with Saw co-creator and long time friend Leigh Whannell, who will pen the screenplay. Shooting begins in Los Angeles this spring. Variety doesn’t have the plot breakdown, but we do: “A young family makes the terrifying discovery that the body of their comatose boy has become a magnet for malevolent entities, while his consciousness lies trapped in the dark and insidious realm known as The Further.” Read on for more on the five-picture deal.
From Variety:
““Paranormal Activity” team Oren Peli, Jason Blum and Steven Schneider have inked a five-picture deal with leading Canadian distrib Alliance Films to finance and produce low-budget genre pics.
Pact kicks off with horror title “Insidious,” from “Saw” creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Wan beings lensing in Los Angeles this spring from a script by Whannell.
Alliance will release the films in Canada, the U.K. and Spain. CAA, which brokered the deal, will team with Alliance in repping domestic rights.
Stuart Ford’s IM Global will handle international sales and will shop “Insidious” to foreign buyers at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin. Domestic rights are still available.
” ‘Paranormal’ taught us to do more with less, and this fund embodies that model. We are particularly thrilled to kick off the fund with James and Leigh,” Blum said.
Wan said he and Whannell were drawn to work with Peli, Blum and Schneider because “of their passion for genre films and having the creative control to make auteur-driven pictures.”
Wan directed the original “Saw,” as well as co-writing with Whannell.
Storyline for “Insidious” is being kept under wraps, other than Wan saying “Leigh wrote a fantastic script that took a haunted house movie with all the usual conventions and twisted it on its head.”
Last fall, Blum, Peli and Schneider made box office history with “Paranormal Activity.” Film was directed by Peli and produced by Blum for under $15,000. Schneider exec produced.
DreamWorks (then owned by Paramount) picked up rights to “Paranormal,” with a particular interest in remaking the film. Par ultimately decided to release the film as it was.
“Paranormal” grossed $107.9 million domestically and north of $70 million overseas for a worldwide total of nearly $178 million to date. Film’s strong international showing helped to further chip away the perception that horror doesn’t travel well beyond the U.S. “Paranormal” has yet to be released in Japan and Italy.
Blum and Alliance are confident that the same appetite will exist for “Insidious,” and the four other titles called for under their deal.
“I’ve known Jason for many years now,” Alliance prexy Charles Layton said. “While ‘Paranormal’ may have been an industry surprise, his success is not a surprise at all. We’re very pleased to be working with Oren, Steven and Jason now and for the long term.”
Deal is a reunion of sorts for Layton, Blum and Ford.
“I am very happy to be back in business with Stuart and Charles, old colleagues from my days at Miramax,” Blum said. ”
Paramount is heading to Sleepy Hollow with a brand new feature film take on the classic Headless Horseman tale, with Lindsey Anderson Beer (Pet Sematary: Bloodlines) announced to direct the movie back in 2022. But is that project still happening, now two years later?
The Hollywood Reporter lets us know this afternoon that Paramount Pictures has renewed its first-look deal with Lindsey Anderson Beer, and one of the projects on the upcoming slate is the aforementioned Sleepy Hollow movie that was originally announced two years ago.
THR details, “Additional projects on the development slate include… Sleepy Hollow with Anderson Beer attached to write, direct, and produce alongside Todd Garner of Broken Road.”
You can learn more about the slate over on The Hollywood Reporter. It also includes a supernatural thriller titled Here Comes the Dark from the writers of Don’t Worry Darling.
The origin of all things Sleepy Hollow is of course Washington Irving’s story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which was first published in 1819. Tim Burton adapted the tale for the big screen in 1999, that film starring Johnny Depp as main character Ichabod Crane.
More recently, the FOX series “Sleepy Hollow” was also based on Washington Irving’s tale of Crane and the Headless Horseman. The series lasted four seasons, cancelled in 2017.
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