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Josh Stolberg on ‘Piranha’ and ‘Sorority Row’, ‘Man-Witch’ a Go?!

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Screenwriter Josh Stolberg has updated his official blog with a whole bunch of goodies, all horror related. While he provides some insight into the now filming Piranha 3D and the forthcoming Sorority Row, he also revealed the news that his long-gestured Warner Bros. project Man-Witch is a go! Read on for the skinny.
From Josh Stolberg’s official blog:

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know…

I’ve been gone a while. I’ve received quite a few emails (which I haven’t replied to) and a bunch of IM’s (which I have rudely ignored). I’m sorry. Things have been incredibly busy as of late. I am hoping to start up my regular blog postings again. At least once a week for a while.

What’s new?

Sorority Row is PICTURE LOCKED!!! Very exciting. I’ve seen several screenings in the past two months and it’s gotten better and better. This last screening was great. I have high hopes for the movie. It’s everything I was hoping it would be. Scary. Funny. Tense. Stylish. Bloody. Sexy. I really think Stewart Hendler did a fantastic job with the directing. And after having a few movies made where I don’t feel real ownership over the script, this is one that I really feel came out how Pete and I wrote it. There were certainly many, many, many hands helping to make it better, but for the first time I feel like my script is represented fully and completely.

Pete and went out to Lake Havasu last week to spend some time on the Piranha set. It was a blast!!! I’ve seen a bunch of photos floating around on the internet from the shoot and it was as fun as it looks. Check out this link to see one of the first days we were there. That’s Kelly Brook and Riley Steele re-enacting a Girls Gone Wild shoot on the deck of a boat. Fun. We were able to meet and chat with most of the cast — unfortunately, we missed Richard Dreyfuss, but we met and hung out with Elisabeth Shue, Jessica Szohr, Jerr O’Connell, Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Kelly Brook, Steven McQueen, Riley Steele and Cody Longo. More impressively, we got to hang out with Alex Aja, who I think is one of the best horror directors working today. High Tension was an amazing film and from what I saw on the set, he’s doing a really amazing job with Piranha. The film is going to be HUGE. One a couple of the days we were there, there were literally like 600 extras in bikinis and dozens of boats and cranes and scuba divers trampolines in the water. It was sick!!! So exciting to see it all come to life (especially considering that we finished the first draft of the script over five years ago). We also hung out with Alex’s producing partners Alix Taylor and Gregory Levasseur, two great folks who really made us feel welcome. All in all, it was a fun trip. We even spent an afternoon jet-skiing to one of the remote locations to see some of the second unit stuff getting shot in an amazing cove. So cool.

This week I’m on deadline to finish up with our final draft of The Spellman Files. As I think I’ve mentioned before, Barry Sonnenfeld is attached to direct and Paramount seems really gung-ho to get it greenlit. Our drafts have slowly been getting fewer and fewer notes from Barry, the studio, and our producers at Laura Ziskin Productions. That’s always a good sign. I think we’ll be turning in the draft to the studio this week.

Lastly, it’s looking like Man-Witch is a go at Warner Bros. I can’t say much about it at this point because the casting hasn’t been officially announced but it’s looking really, really good. More on that on an upcoming post.

I’m really sorry about the long delays since the last post. But check in soon and I’ll be posting more Q&As from my stockpiled email folders and also be answering some other longer questions that I’ve been getting about writing for television, some old Kids in America questions that have been in the hopper for a while, as well and a few more guest blogs and other fun stuff.

Be well and talk soon.

Josh

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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Do ‘Ready or Not’ and ‘Abigail’ Take Place in the Same Universe? Did You Spot This Connection?

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Abigail trailer

Both extremely bloody cat-and-mouse chases through massive mansions, Radio Silence’s horror movies Ready or Not and Abigail (now playing in theaters!) are certainly cut from the same cloth, but do they actually take place within a shared universe? It was a question the filmmakers were asked, and their response suggests that the answer to that question is YES.

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff asked the question of Radio Silence filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who co-directed both 2019’s Ready or Not and this year’s Abigail. As they point out, an Easter egg nestled within Abigail confirms a shared universe connection.

Bettinelli-Olpin tells Collider, “There is a portrait in the background of one of the scenes [in Abigail] of Henry Czerny’s [character from Ready or Not].” Gillet chimes in to clarify, “It would be a grandfather. A great, great, great, great grandfather [of Czerny’s character].”

Bettinelli-Olpin adds, “There is a little bit of a tied universe to Ready or Not within the movie.”

ready or not abigail

Actor Henry Czerny played the character Tony Le Domas in Radio Silence’s crowd-pleasing hit Ready or Not, the owner of the Le Domas Gaming Dominion and patriarch of the Le Domas family. The film centers on the Le Domas family’s deal with the devil to build their fortune, which Samara Weaving’s character Grace of course finds herself paying the price for.

If the Le Domas family exists in the world of Abigail, as the aforementioned portrait suggests, then that would indeed indicate that both films exist within the same bloody universe!

And it would seem there’s a deeper connection between the Le Domas family and the Lazar crime family introduced in Abigail. Have fun playing around with that idea. We know you will!

We’ll get you started. Is it possible that Abigail’s father is Mr. Le Bail from Ready or Not…?

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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