Anchor Bay Entertainment has secured the North American distribution rights to director Michael Feifer’s (Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas) Abandoned, starring the late Brittany Murphy. The low-budget thriller stars Murphy as a woman frantically trying to find her boyfriend after he disappears from a hospital during a routine procedure.
Perhaps anticipating a few raised eyebrows, Anchor Bay president Bill Clark spins the purchase this way:
Releasing this young actress’s last film is both an honor and bittersweet. It was important to Anchor Bay that the timing of this release be right, because we’re sensitive to such a tragic loss. However, we also recognize that Brittany’s fans will want to see her amazing work.
Abandoned is slated for a summer release and costars Dean Cain (“Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”), Peter Bogdanovich, Kristen Kerr (Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane), and busty straight-to-DVD queen Mimi Rogers (Penny Dreadful).
Murphy was found dead on Dec. 20 in the bathroom of her Los Angeles home. The L.A. County Coroner concluded that the 32-year-old actress’ death was a result of “community acquired pneumonia,” iron deficiency anemia, and multiple drug intoxication.
Megan Fox’s (Jennifer’s Body, Transformers) commercial for Armani brand women’s underwear is now circulating TV and the web. The spot features Fox in nothing but her unmentionables, but was shot in black-and-white to help you feel less pervy.
We’ve all heard actor Christian Bale’s (American Psycho, The Dark Knight)notorious rant against a film crew member on the set of Terminator: Salvation. We’ve all read about the assault charges his mom brought forth against him (they were dropped). Now, a dead man has been discovered underneath the home Bale rented while working in New Mexico last year.
Could the hotheaded actor really have gone all Patrick Bateman on a motherfucker?
Police don’t seem to think so.
According to their investigation, Michael Snyder had been missing for eight years. His body was found this week buried underneath the home Bale rented in Albuquerque, New Mexico while working on Terminator: Salvation. Snyder’s ex-wife has been arrested for the murder.
After a career-making turn in last year’s outrageous hit comedy The Hangover, Bradley Cooper is quickly becoming the new Ryan Reynolds. The 35-year-old actor stars in this week’s high-profile, all-star rom-com Valentine’s Day and will be seen as The Face Man in this summer’s big screen adaptation of The A-Team.
This, of course, means nothing to horror fans. We’re still waiting to see how he follows 2008’s brutally violent supernatural slasher The Midnight Meat Train. Well, today, Variety reports that Cooper is in talks to star in director Joe Carnahan’s The Grey.
Budgeted at $34 million, the film follows a group of plane crash survivors as they are hunted down by rogue wolves (are there any other kind?). Ridley and Tony Scott are attached as producers through their Scott Free banner.
Universal Pictures re-imagining of the The Wolfman opens in theaters today. Directed by Joe Johnston, the film stars Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot, a nobleman who returns to his family estate to investigate the disappearance of his brother, but instead digs up an old family secret.
A lot has been made about The Wolfman’s rocky road back to the big screen (it was pushed back to Feb. from its originally scheduled Dec. release date due to numerous production issues), but I’m hoping the end result still has plenty of bite.
Del Toro, for one, seems happy with the production (click here to see video) and believes horror will always be popular among moviegoers.
As long as we are not sure what will happen after we die we will paint it in the scariest colours. That’s the point, isn’t it? If we could know, if somebody would come back from the dead and could explain it to us, all the vampires and zombies and ghosts would lose a lot of their fascination.
The Wolfman costars Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, and Anthony Hopkins.
Taylor Lautner turned 18 yesterday. The Twilight Saga star can now bang the mothers of his tween fans without getting them arrested.
Access Hollywood asked the actor what his B-day plans were. He said:
Absolutely nothing really. I mean, I’ll spend time with family and friends… I don’t like to do anything huge, but it is 18, so, it’s kind of a big one I guess.
Loosely translated, I believe that means: I’m going to snort coke out of Taylor Swift’s asshole.
In related news, Summit Entertainment has confirmed that it will adapt The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final chapter in the book series by Stephenie Meyer, as two separate films, both to be shot simultaneously this fall in Vancouver. Lautner, along with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are scheduled to reprise their roles.
Eclipse the third installment in the lucrative series will be in theaters on June 30
Alicia Silverstone is teaming up again with Clueless director Amy Heckerling on the vampire-love-story Vamps. Silverstone will costar with Krysten Ritter as New York vampires whose friendship and immortality are threatened when they each find love.
Hmm. I think Silverstone should reunite with whomever directed the 1993 jailbait-thriller The Crush. How cool would it be to see a followup to that film that presents Silverstone, 33, as an older chick obsessed with some young dude? They could call it The Cougar: Crush 2. Or, Crush Harder. I dunno. I’m an idea man not a title guy.
Vamps is set to start shooting in April.
The following is a completely unrelated PETA ad featuring a nude Silverstone (not only did it make me stop eating meat; it made me beat my meat too).
Lionsgate has acquired the North American distribution rights to the Eli Roth produced supernatural thriller The Last Exorcism, originally titled Cotton. Directed by Daniel Stamm (A Necessary Death), the film employs shaky-cam techniques to capture an evangelical minister’s last exorcism in documentary fashion (think Paranormal Activity meets The Exorcist).
Lionsgate released Roth’s 2002 film debut Cabin Fever and his controversial Hostel series.
Jason Constantine, Lionsgate’s president of acquisitions and co-productions, says:
It’s always great to work with our friend Eli, who has played a key role in establishing Lionsgate in the vanguard of the horror genre. The Last Exorcism feels as close to a real exorcism as anyone would ever want to get — audiences are going to find this movie scary as, well, hell.
Australian actress Emily Browning is set to headline screenwriter Julia Leigh’s directorial debut Sleeping Beauty. The 21-year-old starlet will play the part of a student-turned-prostitute who prefers not to remember the things men do to her while she lies doped up in what is called a Sleeping Beauty chamber.
Browning began her acting career at the age of eight. While in her teens, she starred in Ghost Ship, Darkness Falls, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Last year, she took the lead role in Dreamworks PG-13 thriller The Uninvited.
It will be arousing interesting to see Browning in a kink-fueled flick. Here’s hoping that Leigh’s script is as outrageously perverted as Anne Rice’s BDSM take on the Sleeping Beauty fairytale (The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty’s Punishment, Beauty’s Release).
Sleeping Beauty is budgeted at $10 million and is scheduled to start shooting in Australia come March.
Film Koncept Scandinavia’s upcoming chiller Mara stars Scandinavian Playboy model Angelica Jansson as a vacationing coed abandoned by her friends in the woods. The film had been slated for release this month, but the date seems to have been postponed.
(UPDATE: To see Angelica Jansson in new ‘Mara’ trailer & BTS photos, go here)
