Back in the early 2010s, Batman was all the rage. Actually, what am I talking about? Batman is still all the rage, but at the time, it was an especially hot property. In the world of video games, Rocksteady’s Arkham series was taking off while Christopher Nolan was rounding the corner on his widely acclaimed trilogy…
A Universal Monsters project is coming our way from Radio Silence, the filmmaking team that previously brought Ready or Not, Scream (2022), and Scream VI to the screen. Universal has scheduled an April 19, 2024 theatrical release date for the film, which was once going by the title Dracula’s Daughter and now going by the less informative title of Abigail. With the release date just a couple weeks away, the film has gotten a new Dolby Cinema poster, and you can check it out at the bottom of this article.
Radio Silence members Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett directed the film, while the third member of the trio, Chad Villella, is a producer. Their Scream movie collaborators William Sherak, Paul Neinstein, and James Vanderbilt of Project X Entertainment are also producing the monster movie alongside their Ready or Not producer Tripp Vinson. Ron Lynch and Macdara Kelleher serve as executive producers. Jay Polidoro, Holly Goline, Kelly Cannon, and Jacqueline Garell are overseeing the project for Universal. Stephen Shields wrote the initial screenplay for this take on Dracula’s Daughter, and Guy Busick (who co-wrote the two recent Scream movies with Vanderbilt) did some revisions.
Abigail has the following synopsis: Children can be such monsters. After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.
Kathryn Newton (Freaky), Dan Stevens (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), Melissa Barrera (Scream), William Catlett (Black Lightning), Kevin Durand (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and Angus Cloud (Euphoria) star as the kidnappers, with Alisha Weir (Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical) as Abigail. Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) is also in the cast.
Universal previously indicated to The Hollywood Reporter that the project falls in the lane of such films as Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man and Renfield, Chris McKay’s take on a Dracula side character — movies that provide “a unique take on legendary monster lore and will represent a fresh, new direction for how to celebrate these classic characters.” Universal released a movie called Dracula’s Daughter in 1936, telling the story of “Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), the daughter of Count Dracula and herself a vampire. Following Dracula’s death, she believes that by destroying his body, she will be free of his influence and live normally. When this fails, she turns to a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger). The Countess kidnaps Dr. Garth’s assistant, Janet (Marguerite Churchill), and takes her to Transylvania, leading to a battle between Dr. Garth and the Countess in an attempt by him to save Janet.”
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett were hoping they’d be able to move on from Abigail to directing Scream 7, but studio executives weren’t willing to wait for them to finish working on their vampire project, so they were “exited” from the slasher sequel. We recently learned that a Ready or Not sequel is moving ahead without Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett at the helm as well.
Are you looking forward to Abigail? What do you think of the Dolby Cinema poster? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
A press release notes that, “Dolby Cinema offers guests the complete Dolby movie experience. Dolby Cinema unlocks the emotional impact of every film, allowing you to see the subtle details and ultra vivid colors of Dolby Vision, and hear the immersive sound of Dolby Atmos. Dolby Cinema is specially designed to elevate every type of movie experience – and Abigail will be no exception.”
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As Marvel Studios attempts to recover from a series of underperformances, the company hopes to recapture fans with some returning favorites like the revival of Daredevil, as well as Jon Bernthal’s incarnation of The Punisher. And one of the most-anticipated films to come out this year will be the Ryan Reynolds-Hugh Jackman frenemy team-up in Deadpool & Wolverine. As Marvel Studios reclaim certain film properties like the X-Men as they did long ago with Spider-Man, fans are hoping for a thrilling and faithful adaptation of Marvel’s first family in The Fantastic Four.
As the calendar reaches April 4, or 4-4, Marvel has commemorated the day, which they’ve dubbed “4-4 Day,” with a new teaser image of The Human Torch. The art on the poster carries the retro style of the Valentine’s Day image in which the studio announced the casting of the core four characters. Popular franchise actor Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us gets a touch of grey in his hair for his casting as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. Vanessa Kirby, known from the Mission: Impossible movies, plays Sue Storm, aka The Invisible Woman. Joseph Quinn, of Stranger Things and Overlord, fires up as Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch. And Ebon Moss-Bachrach, from The Bear, will portray Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. You can get a look at the poster below.
Recently, it’s also been announced that Julia Garner from Ozark has been cast as the Shalla-Bal version of The Silver Surfer. A character from the comics that has close ties to Norrin Radd, who is the main Silver Surfer, and had made an appearance in the previous Fox incarnation of the franchise in the 2007 film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. In the comics, Shalla-Bal was the lover of Norrin Radd. When Galactus came to their planet, Radd volunteered to become his herald in exchange for sparing his world. Speaking of Galactus, there have been rumors that Javier Bardem is being eyed for the role.
WandaVision director Matt Shakman teases that his Fantastic Four film will be unlike anything seen from Marvel, “It’s different in so many ways. I wish I could be specific. I wish I could say more. But we are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material. I wish I could say more. I would love to, but I can’t. But I think it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you’ve seen before.“
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Back in 1994, long before he was cast to play Jaime Lannister in the hit series Game of Thrones, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau made his feature film debut in the thriller Nightwatch, where he played a character named Martin, a law student who takes a job working as a night watchman at The Department of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen just as the place starts filling up with the bodies of a serial killer’s victims. Nightwatch was so well-received that writer/director Ole Bornedal was given the opportunity to direct an English-language remake, which he wrote with Steven Soderbergh. Ewan McGregor played the Martin role in that 1997 film. Now, thirty years after working on the original Nightwatch together, Bornedal and Coster-Waldau have re-teamed for a “30 years” later sequel called Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever, which is set to be released through the Shudder streaming service on May 17th!
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever has the following synopsis: 22-year-old medical student Emma has just taken a job as the night watch in the same forensic department where her parents were once almost killed by the famed psychopathic police inspector Wörmer. The events led to her mother’s suicide, and her father Martin has turned to tranquilizers to suppress the memories. Determined to investigate what exactly happened to them, Emma tracks down and confronts Wörmer, only to unintentionally reawaken his bloodthirst and ignite a violent revenge on everyone who sealed his destiny years ago.
Coster-Waldau reprises the role of Martin, while Fanny Leander Bornedal (the writer/director’s daughter) takes on the role of Martin’s daughter Emma. Also in the cast are Kim Bodnia, Sonja Richter, Ulf Pilgaard, Casper Kjær Jensen, Paprika Steen, Nina Rask, Alex Høgh Andersen, Sonny Lindberg, Niels Anders Thorn, Tina Gylling, Casper Phillipson, Vibeke Hastrup, and Christopher Læssø.
Thomas Heinesen, Christel C.D. Karlsen, and Signe Baasch produced the film, with Katrine Vogelsang, Henrik Zein, Peter Nadermann, and Doris Schrenner serving as executive producers.
Are you a fan of Nightwatch, and will you be watching the “30 years later” sequel Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever when it reaches Shudder? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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With Godzilla x Kong‘s box office success and Godzilla Minus One’s Oscar win making the kaiju legend more relevant than ever, let’s turn the doomsday clock back to 1998 as Awfully Good Movies tackles Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s infamous American reboot, known simply as GODZILLA!
With TriStar eager to keep its rights agreement with Toho to make its own Godzilla trilogy after director Jan de Bont was dropped from the film, they turned to the same duo that just blew up both the box office and the White House with Independence Day, who were allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted with the giant lizard’s American debut as long as they could get the flick made within a year for Memorial Day 1998. And much like the Toho executives who first saw Emmerich’s redesigned Godzilla, the eager audiences of Godzilla fans in Japan and America also reacted with several minutes of stunned silence and not the good kind of stunned.
It’s got a cast of wisecracking sitcom rejects that includes a post-Ferris Matthew Broderick, a post-Leon Jean Reno, the late Michael Lerner as the Roger Ebert-parodying corrupt mayor of NYC, and three voice actors from The Simpsons, but all of them are lost against a non-existent Godzilla (or as Toho insists the ‘98 version be called now, “Zilla”) with only 11-13 minutes of screen time none of the soul or artistry of the olden rubber suit days. But any children of the 90s can still hold onto the good memories left behind by the flick’s $20 million advertising campaign: those Taco Bell commercials, that surprisingly decent Saturday morning cartoon, and the theme song performed by P. Didd–you know what, maybe we can skip that one.
And with Godzilla far better served these days by both Toho and Legendary Pictures, we can certainly laugh in retrospect at this epic funeral for the 90s blockbuster as we once knew it. Now who wants to head down to Taco Bell to see if they’ve got leftover Godzilla cup holders?
Previously on Awfully Good Movies…
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Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is set to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps as a digital-only, shorter experience. Ninja Theory’s follow-up to the 2017 psychological horror action game will run about eight hours and cost only $50 compared to the $70 most AAA games cost on the Xbox Series X/S. If you prefer longer…
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is set to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps as a digital-only, shorter experience. Ninja Theory’s follow-up to the 2017 psychological horror action game will run about eight hours and cost only $50 compared to the $70 most AAA games cost on the Xbox Series X/S. If you prefer longer…
We’re a little over a month away from the May 21 release of Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga on Xbox Series X/S, the sequel to Ninja Theory’s 2017 action-adventure game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Ahead of its launch, some sites got the chance to check out Ninja Theory’s sequel via a 45-minute preview with the story-driven…
We’re a little over a month away from the May 21 release of Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga on Xbox Series X/S, the sequel to Ninja Theory’s 2017 action-adventure game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Ahead of its launch, some sites got the chance to check out Ninja Theory’s sequel via a 45-minute preview with the story-driven…
Several months ago, word leaked out that Maggie Gyllenhaal was set to direct a film called The Bride!, a new take on the concept of the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein (watch it HERE). Once thought to be set up at the Netflix streaming service, this one is actually happening at Warner Bros., and the studio has set the film for a theatrical release, IMAX screens included, on October 3, 2025. Other filmmakers would make us wait a long time to see their take on the iconic characters at play in this story, but Gyllenhaal has already gone ahead and given us the first look at Jessie Buckley as the titular Bride, as well as Christina Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster. Buckley’s Bride can be seen at the top of this article, while Bale’s Monster can be seen below.
Buckley and Bale are joined in the cast by Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, and Julianne Hough. At one point, Cruz was rumored to be playing the Bride, but now we know for sure that it’s Buckley who is taking on that character. Sarsgaard is rumored to be playing a detective.
The Bride! has the following synopsis: A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police and a wild and radical social movement.
This isn’t a Universal project, but it wouldn’t be the first Bride of Frankenstein remake to be made by a different company. In 1985, Columbia Pictures brought us another movie simply called The Bride, which starred Sting as Baron Charles Frankenstein, Jennifer Beals as Eva (the bride) and Clancy Brown as Viktor (the monster). A few years ago, it was announced that Scarlett Johansson was going to star in a similar project called Bride for A24 and Apple, but that still hasn’t made it into production.
Are you interested in The Bride? What do you think of the first look images showing Jessie Buckley as The Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster. Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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