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$900 Million Lawsuit Conjured Up Against Warner Bros.

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Still reeling from the success of The Conjuring 2, it would seem as if nothing can stop the Warner Bros. Horror Train. Until today, that is.

Gerald Brittle, who told Ed and Lorraine Warren’s tale in his 1980 book The Demonologistis seeking nearly one billion dollars in damages against Warner Bros. His case? The Conjuring 2 and all related tales stole from his book. This includes both Annabelle and the original The Conjuring film. The Hollywood Reporter was the first to break this story earlier today.

One may think this is a ridiculous claim – after all, how could you steal from a true story? – but that’s exactly where things start to get tricky. First, you have the statement that in 1978, Ed and Lorraine Warren agreed on a non-competition provision. In short, this means that they signed over their stories to him. He has exclusive rights to any story involving their paranormal work.

 

The production team behind the films got permission from Lorraine Warren to do the film – but that doesn’t mean squat, according to their agreement, which still holds today.  And it gets even more sticky. Remember that whole “true story” thing? Brittle no longer believes the Warrens.

If The Conjuring was based on a true story, the Warner Bros. fate would be less cut and dry. But Brittle does not claim that The Demonologist is a true story. Instead, he believes that the Warrens made up the whole tale. If that’s the case, he believes his book to be a work of fiction, which he, not the Warrens, owns the rights to.

Brittle also has confirmation that his book was read before the first film was written, as proven in a tweet by James Wan, which took only a quick Google search to reveal. This was Tweeted in 2011. The Conjuring entered pre-production the same year. This confirms that the director had prior knowledge of The Demonologist.

Yet, despite Brittle’s new claims that the book is now a work of fiction, the website for his book states the exact opposite. From the site:

The Demonologist is a nonfiction title that was first published in 1980 and has remained in print ever since.

It’s worth noting that at the bottom of the page on the site for the book, the copyright is up to date. Meaning that the book is still being marketed as a work of nonfiction.

Neither James Wan nor Warner Bros. has issued a comment yet.

I’m just here to report the news, not to tell you what to think. But if you want my opinion, something seems a little funny about this lawsuit. Brittle’s claim seems a bit excessive, and it doesn’t seem right to still have your name on something that is your intellectual property and to market it as a true story but to then to claim that you no longer believe in the factuality of it. However, I’m not a judge. I don’t know how this will play out in the legal system. I have a feeling that we will be hearing more about this story soon, so keep an eye out.

And for what it’s worth, I love The Conjuring, and frankly, I would still enjoy it even if it was all rooted in fiction.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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