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
Christopher Landon to Helm Feature Adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s ‘The Final Girl Support Group’
A new feature adaptation of author Grady Hendrix‘s slasher book The Final Girl Support Group is now on the way from Paramount Pictures, and Deadline reports that it’s found its director in Christopher Landon (Drop, Happy Death Day).
The two previously collaborated on My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
In The Final Girl Support Group, “Lynette is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.”
“But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.”
I wrote in my novel review for BD, “Hendrix puts his characters through the absolute wringer. It’s a bloody, vicious voyage for the flawed heroine, both physically and emotionally. In terms of action and horror, Support Group delivers breakneck pacing and thrills.”
Five years ago, Andy Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti (Mama, It, It Chapter Two) were attached to produce a planned series adaptation for HBO Max alongside Charlize Theron. While Theron is no longer producing, the Muschiettis remain on board under their Double Dream label.
Paramount Pictures is also developing Hendrix’s sci-fi novella, BadAsstronauts.
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