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Rest in Peace: Julie Adams, Legendary Star of ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’

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Julie Adams

Julie Adams, the iconic actress with whom the Gill-Man fell in love in Creature from the Black Lagoon, died this week. She was 92.

Born Betty May Adams on October 17, 1926 in Waterloo, Iowa, the actress was stage struck at an early age when, according to her IMDb bio, she performed in her third-grade class production of Hansel and Gretel. At 19, she left home to live with family in California, working as a secretary to make ends meet while trying to make it as an actress.

She starred in a string of B-grade, quick-shoot westerns before finding herself in front of the producers at Universal-International assisting in a screen test for a football player who also wanted to make the transition to screen. His audition did nothing for his own career, but the producers couldn’t take their eyes off Betty May.

They signed her to a contract, changed her name to Julia, and she soon found herself working with stars like James Stewart. She also found herself in line to play the leading lady in 1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Julie Adams Creature Hand
White Bissell, Julie Adams, Richard Carlson, and Richard Denning in 1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon

“I think the best thing about the picture is that we do feel for the Creature,” Adams once said about the film. “We feel for him and his predicament and where he is and so on. I think it’s a positive thing really. I like that we feel sympathy for the Creature.”

It’s interesting that she spoke so nostalgically about the film considering Adams thought about turning down the role, but eventually gave in, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The actress secured permission from the studio to change “Julia” to “Julie” and over the next six decades would continue to make regular film and TV appearances.

Yet through it all, she knew that it was that 1954 creature feature that defined, at least in part, her career.

“No matter what you do, you can act your heart out, but people will always say, ‘Oh Julie Adams-Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954),'” she said.

In retrospect, that’s not such a bad legacy, Julie, and we at iHorror will miss you.

Related: Kevin Smith wants to Direct ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’

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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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