Horror Movies Keep Scaring Away the Competition
Tired from all the real-life horrors, audiences seem to prefer fictional monsters instead. For the fourth week in a row, horror films keep scaring away their competition at the weekend box office. First came Spiral. Then, A Quiet Place Part II dominated the Memorial Day Weekend. Now, last weekend brought another horror movie winner – The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. This is a direct sequel to the first two The Conjuring films and the eighth installment in the shared cinematic universe. The film chronicles another adventure by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprising their roles. In its inaugural weekend, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It grossed $24,1 million.
In second place with $19,3 million is A Quiet Place Part II. In it, Emily Blunt continues struggling as a mother looking to protect her children from blind monsters infesting the planet. Cruella, Disney’s live-action prequel to One Hundred and One Dalmatians, is in third place with $11 million. Animated adventure film Spirit Untamed by Dreamworks follows fourth with $6,1 million. And finally, in fifth place at the last weekend’s box office is Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon with $1,3 million.
As always, all of this data is provided by the Box Office Mojo.
Bryan Fuller to Remake Christine
SlashFilm says TV writer and producer Bryan Fuller is teaming up with folks at Blumhouse for a reboot of the 1983 horror film Christine. He will pen the script while also directing the movie, making it his feature film directorial debut. Fuller is a TV veteran who worked on various TV shows such as American Gods, Dead Like Me, Hannibal, Heroes, Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls, and several Star Trek shows.
As for Christine, this is among earlier – and truth be told, lesser – Stephen King horror novels. It tells a story of a cursed 1958 Plymouth Fury. A nerdy teenager Arnie Cunningham discovers the ruined car in the early 1980s and restores it, naming it Christine. However, the car begins exhibiting a bad influence on Arnie. Furthermore, Christine is also vengeful, possessive, and jealous.
The same year the novel came out, John Carpenter wrote and directed the movie adaptation. At the time, he was trying to recover from the box office flop of his future horror classic The Thing. Produced for $10 million, Christine went on to gross approximately $21 million and received generally favorable reviews.
Sam Elliot, Laurence Fishburne, and Mickey Rourke Join MacGruber
AVClub reports Peacock’s MacGruber TV series just added Sam Elliot (The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot), Laurence Fishburne (John Wick: Chapter 2), and Mickey Rourke (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) to its cast. That’s one helluva cast! Elliot will play MacGruber’s father. Fishburne will portray General Barrett Fasoose, who married MacGruber’s ex-wife, Vicki (Kristen Wiig). Meanwhile, Rourke will play the show’s villain Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth.
NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock first announced plans for the MacGruber TV series last August. MacGruber began as a sketch on Saturday Night Live in which comedian Will Forte played a MacGyver parody – a petty, incompetent special operations agent who repeatedly fails to deactivate ticking time bombs due to personal issues. In 2010, fellow comedian Jorma Taccone directed MacGruber feature film with Forte reprising his role from the sketch and featuring Powers Boothe (Deadwood), Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Ryan Phillippe (Gosford Park), Maya Rudolph (The Good Place), and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids). While the movie was a box office flop upon release, it became a bit of a cult classic. Forte, Taccone, and Wiig will all return for the TV show that should premiere sometime this year.
