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Joe Hill Had to Make a Big Change to ‘The Black Phone’ in Order to Change it From Stephen King’s ‘It’

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Writer, of The Black Phone, Joe Hill had to make some big changes in order to switch things up from that of Stephen King’s It. It turns out that Hill’s killer character, “The Grabber” was originally going to be a part-time clown.

At the time, Hill wasn’t certain when It was going to be released, so it became a huge deal. he didn’t want It in theaters at the same time as The Black Phone – especially with both killers being clowns in some capacity. So, it was at that point that Hill made The Grabber into a magician.

“I had one big creative contribution, which is — I don’t know if we want to get down in the weeds. I had one big creative contribution, which was when I read the first draft, it was very, very faithful to the story and, in the short story, when Finney is kidnapped by The Grabber, the guy introduces himself as a part-time clown,” Hill told Screenrant. “He still was a part-time clown in the film, in the screenplay, which was kind of a natural evolution, because the character somewhat echoes the crimes of John Wayne Gacy. But I read the script and, I can’t remember if IT had come out at that point or was just about to come out, and I said, ‘Guys, I don’t think he can be a part-time clown, not with Pennywise about to explode on the American consciousness. I just think there’s room for only one deadly clown. So what if we made him a part-time magician instead?'”

That is a huge change from what Hill originally wanted but I can appreciate the change-up especially to change any and all resemblance to anything that King and Hill may have had crossed over.

The synopsis for The Black Phone goes like this:

Finney Shaw is a shy but clever 13-year-old boy who’s being held in a soundproof basement by a sadistic, masked killer. When a disconnected phone on the wall starts to ring, he soon discovers that he can hear the voices of the murderer’s previous victims — and they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney.

The Black Phone is currently available on Blu-ray.

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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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Fede Alvarez Teases ‘Alien: Romulus’ With RC Facehugger

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Alien Romulus

Happy Alien Day! To celebrate director Fede Alvarez who is helming the latest sequel in the Alien franchise Alien: Romulus, got out his toy Facehugger in the SFX workshop. He posted his antics on Instagram with the following message:

“Playing with my favorite toy on set of #AlienRomulus last summer. RC Facehugger created by the amazing team from @wetaworkshop Happy #AlienDay everybody!”

To commemorate the 45th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie, April 26 2024 has been designated as Alien Day, with a re-release of the film hitting theaters for a limited time.

Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the franchise and is currently in post-production with a scheduled theatrical release date of August 16, 2024.

In other news from the Alien universe, James Cameron has been pitching fans the boxed set of Aliens: Expanded a new documentary film, and a collection of merch associated with the movie with pre-sales ending on May 5.

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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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