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James Wan, and Roy Lee Set to Produce ‘The Tommyknockers’

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“Late last night and the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at the door.  I want to go out, don’t know if I can, ’cause I’m so afraid of the Tommyknocker man.” 

The Tommyknockers is a 1987 sci-fi/horror novel from Stephen King and the second-best selling book of his career, which is ironic because King himself considers it a misstep. In an interview with Rolling Stone King gave his honest opinion on the book:

“I mean, The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act. And I’ve thought about it a lot lately and said to myself, ‘There’s really a good book in here, underneath all the sort of spurious energy that cocaine provides, and I ought to go back.’ The book is about 700 pages long, and I’m thinking, ‘There’s probably a good 350-page novel in there.'”

For those who don’t know James Wan is the director of The Conjuring franchise as well as the first two Insidious films. On top of directing he’s also a producer through his own company Atomic Monster Productions which focuses mostly on horror films. He has become a bit of an auteur filmmaker within the haunted-house horror sub-genre. Wan often crafts creative jump-scares within scenes soaked in atmosphere, building deep-seated terror within his audience.

Roy Lee, is a producer for Vertigo Entertainment credited with such films as: The Grudge (2004), The Ring (2002) and the mega-hit from last summer It. The duo are working alongside Larry Sanitsky, a notable figure in the industry who has been producing for almost 35 years. Sanitsky was also an executive producer on the original The Tommyknockers miniseries from 1993 that starred Jimmy Smits and Marg Helenberger that was a surprise hit. Sanitsky currently holds the screen rights and gave a brief statement in regards to the novel for potential buyers interested in his production. The statement was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive:

“It is an allegorical tale of addiction (Stephen was struggling with his own at the time), the threat of nuclear power, the danger of mass hysteria and the absurdity of technical evolution run a muck. All are as relevant today as the day the novel was written. It is also a tale about the eternal power of love and the grace of redemption.”

The novel involves a writer named Bobbi Anderson who discovers a buried space-craft deep within the forest close to her home. Upon exposure, the ship releases a powerful but invisible gas that begins affecting everyone in town with the exception of James Eric Gardener who goes by Gard. 

After a skiing accident, Gard was left with a steel plate in his head that somehow makes him immune to the alien toxin. The gas is revealed to heighten the intellect of those infected but also increases psychotic behavior. Especially when the ship and its influence are threatened.

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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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