Carry-On just landed on Netflix over the weekend but already there could be potential for a sequel. Ethan Kopek tied up some ends, but there is more than likely more to explore with both the character and story. So what could we expect with a sequel to Carry-On?
Lead Taron Egerton was cool enough to sit down with us recently, where he was asked about potential for a Carry-On sequel. For this, Egerton turned directly to Ethan and what he would hope to see and play. “I think the thing about Carry On is…he’s a guy who is not really sure of who he is and he’s thrust into these sort of extraordinary circumstances and he rises to the occasion. But he’s a bit lost, I think, in this movie and you kind of see him just struggling to keep up for most of the film. And at the end of the film, you see a guy who’s a bit more sure of himself. So I think if we were ever lucky enough to get a second bite of the apple, I’d probably want to see him be a little more…fully realized, a little bit more certain of himself.”
Carry-On – which has drawn parallels to Die Hard – had the following plot: “A young TSA agent fights to outsmart a mysterious traveler who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.” As for a plot for a Carry-On sequel, Egerton hands that over to some other key players, chiefly writer T.J. Fixman. “In terms of the story that you would do if you were lucky enough to get a sequel, that, I am thankful to say, is the burden of a better mind than mine because I don’t know how he made that work. But hey, let’s get this one out there first.”
Carry-On has garnered some strong reviews. While we didn’t necessarily love it all that much, giving it a 6/10, it currently holds an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
What did you think of Carry-On? Do you see potential in a sequel or franchise?
A new year is nearly upon us – and 2025 is set to bring a whole lot of horror to our screens! So genre fans can start planning what they’re going to see over the next year, we have put together a 2025 Horror Preview, which can be seen below. Of course, at this point we don’t even know about all of the cool horror movies that will be coming our way, so you can expect to see this list get some updates as more titles are announced and more release dates revealed. For now, here’s what we have:
WOLF MAN – Theatrical, January 17
Back in 2020, director Leigh Whannell and Blumhouse Productions teamed up for a well-received update of the classic Universal Pictures horror property The Invisible Man. Now, they’re reviving another Universal monster, the Wolf Man, with the story of a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. The project was once set to star Ryan Gosling, but Christopher Abbott ended up in the lead, co-starring with Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, and Sam Jaeger.
PRESENCE – Theatrical, January 17
At the start of the year, JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray got to check out the Sundance Film Festival premiere of director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp’s ghost story Presence, and in his 7/10 review (which you can read HERE), he described the film as “a supernatural tale that’s light on horror but heavy on heart.” The story gets rolling when a family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they are not alone. A supernatural force has infiltrated the house, and taken a specific interest in the couple’s daughter. The film stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Julia Fox, Eddy Maday, and West Mulholland.
SCREAMBOAT – Theatrical, Undated January
The earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons entered the public domain on January 1, 2024, and several filmmakers quickly pounced on the opportunity to put a horror twist on the concept of Mickey. One of the resulting films is Screamboat, which sees David Howard Thornton of the Terrifier franchise playing the horror version of the beloved mouse. This one tells the story of the story of a mischievous mouse that stalks a group of New Yorkers on a late night ferry ride, unleashing murderous mayhem on a relaxing commute. Can the ship’s motley crew of travelers find a way to stop a killer creature who has developed a taste for tourists? Directed by Steven LaMorte, who previously made the Grinch-inspired horror movie The Mean One, Screamboat also stars Tyler Posey, Kailey Hyman, Brian Quinn, Joe DeRosa, Allison Pittel, Amy Schumacher, Jesse Posey, Jesse Kove, Rumi C Jean-Louis, Jarlath Conroy, and Charles Edwin Powell.
COMPANION – Theatrical, January 31
From writer/director Drew Hancock and the team behind the 2022 horror hit Barbarian, the sci-fi thriller Companion is described as being “a new kind of love story,” but the details of that love story are still being kept under wraps. The cast includes includes Jack Quaid, Harvey Guillén, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Rupert Friend, and Sophie Thatcher.
HEART EYES – Theatrical, February 7
Christopher Landon directed the body swap slasher Freaky from a screenplay by Michael Kennedy, then produced the Kennedy-scripted time travel slasher Time Cut. Now, Landon and Kennedy have written the script for the Valentine’s Day-set horror romantic comedy Heart Eyes with Phillip Murphy (The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), and the story is being brought to the screen by Josh Ruben, the director of Werewolves Within and Scare Me. The synopsis: When the Heart Eyes Killer strikes Seattle, a pair of co-workers pulling overtime on Valentine’s Day are mistaken for a couple by the elusive couple-hunting killer. Now they must spend the most romantic night of the year running for their lives. Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding star alongside Jordana Brewster, Devon Sawa, and Gigi Zumbado.
THE GORGE – Apple TV+, February 14
Based on a spec script by Zach Dean, The Gorge is said to be a high-action, genre-bending love story. We previously heard that it centers on two soldiers (Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller) who are tasked with guarding a seemingly never-ending gorge with one agent posted on either side. IGN revealed that Teller and Taylor-Joy play elite snipers – one American, the other Lithuanian – stationed in watchtowers on opposite sides of a vast and highly classified gorge located in a faraway land whose exact location they’re not even allowed to know. Their mission? To safeguard the outside world from an undisclosed, mysterious evil that lurks within. They bond from a distance while trying to stay vigilant in defending against an unseen enemy. When the cataclysmic threat to humanity is revealed to them, they must work together in a test of both their physical and mental strength to keep the secret in the gorge before it’s too late. Sigourney Weaver is also in the cast. Scott Derrickson directed the film.
THE MONKEY – Theatrical, February 21
Longlegs director Osgood Perkins and producer James Wan have teamed up for this Stephen King adaptation. The film will tell the following story: When twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them. Theo James plays the twins in later years, while Christian Convery plays them in their younger days. Also in the cast are Elijah Wood, Tatiana Maslany, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy.
VICIOUS – Theatrical, February 28
Originally set to receive a theatrical release from Paramount in August, Vicious, the new horror movie from The Strangers director Bryan Bertino, has been moved up to February… but we still don’t know much about it beyond the fact that it stars Dakota Fanning, Devyn Nekoda, Mary McCormack, Rachel Blanchard, Kathryn Hunter, Klea Scott, and Emily Mitchell. We don’t even have an image from it; that picture of Fanning is from The Watchers. We do know that Vicious sees Fanning taking on the role of a young woman who is left a strange present by a late-night visitor, and quickly realizes she is fighting for her life after slipping down a disturbing rabbit hole contained inside the gift.
SINNERS – Theatrical, March 7
Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever collaborators Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are back at it with a period piece vampire thriller with the following synopsis: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. “You keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.” Jordan is joined in the cast by Jack O’Connell, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Lola Kirke, Omar Benson Miller, Jayme Lawson, and Li Jun Li.
THE WOMAN IN THE YARD – Theatrical, March 28
The thriller The Woman in the Yard, which is coming our way from Blumhouse Productions, Universal Pictures, and director Jaume Collet-Serra, was once set to reach theatres on January 10, 2025, but it got bumped to March to make way for Wolf Man. The screenplay was written by Sam Stefanak, who was previously a staff writer and story editor on the Netflix animated series F Is for Family. Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Russell Hornsby star, but we haven’t seen any images of their characters. The picture of Deadwyler above is from a different movie. The story Stefanak crafted for this one goes like this: Today’s the day. A woman in black appears on a family’s front lawn and delivers a chilling warning, Where did she come from? What does she want? When will she leave?
DROP – Theatrical, April 11
Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon takes the helm of this Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes production, which was written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, a writing duo that has previously worked with Blumhouse on the horror projects Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island. Drop centers on a single mother who receives disturbing AirDrop messages from an anonymous and malicious entity threatening the safety of her son and babysitter at home. The anonymous party threatens Fahy’s character to kill her date, or else. The movie unfolds over a single night and happens in real time. Meghann Fahy stars as the single mother and is joined in the cast by Violett Beane, Brandon Sklenar, Jeffery Self, Gabrielle Ryan, and newcomer Jacob Robinson, who has a large following on his parent-run Tik Tok account.
UNTIL DAWN – Theatrical, April 25
After going off into superhero territory for a while, Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg has reteamed with Annabelle: Creation screenwriter Gary Dauberman for a movie based on the horror video game Until Dawn. As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, first released in 2015, Until Dawn is an interactive horror video game that follows eight friends and frenemies who are brought together a remote mountain retreat. With live or die scenarios featuring a mysterious killer, cannibalistic wendigos, a cable car, and a long-ago mining cave-in that reverberates into the present day, the members of the group must fight through their fear if they all hope to make it through the night in one piece. The game proved to be a surprise hit with critics and received numerous gaming awards nominations. Sandberg and Dauberman haven’t revealed what exactly will be going on in their movie version of Until Dawn, but the project is described as being an “R-rated love letter to the horror genre, centering on an ensemble cast.” Dauberman’s script is a rewrite of a previous draft by Blair Butler, who wrote the vampire movie The Invitation. The film’s cast includes Ella Rubin, Odessa A’zion, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, and Maia Mitchell. Peter Stormare is also in there, reprising his role from the video game.
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD – Theatrical, May 9
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil and Little Evil‘s Eli Craig directs this adaptation of the Adam Cesare novel, which centers on Quinn and her father, who have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time. Welcome to Kettle Springs. The real fun starts when Frendo the clown comes out to play. The slasher thriller stars Katie Douglas, Carson MacCormac, Aaron Abrams, Will Sasso, and Kevin Durand.
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES – Theatrical, May 16
Fans have been waiting over a decade for a new entry in the Final Destination franchise, and while a release date for the new film hasn’t been announced yet, we do know that Final Destination: Bloodlines will be reaching theatres in 2025, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the release of the original film. It will even be on IMAX screens! According to entertainment industry scooper Daniel Richtman, Final Destination: Bloodlines has the following synopsis: Just as she’s about to leave home for college, 18 year old STEFANI, who’s been having horrific nightmares about dying in a tower accident in the 1960s, discovers that her dream is actually a premonition that happened to her grandmother, Esther, who thwarted death fifty years ago but is now running out of time. Stefani learns that though her grandmother thwarted Death (until she died in her 80s), and Death has been going after the would-have-been victims of that long-ago catastrophe, killing them off and then going after their children. Stefani and her family realize that their bloodline isn’t safe from Death, who will take them violently and gruesomely, in order, unless someone like Stefani figures out a way to stop it. Jon Watts, director of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far from Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, wrote the initial treatment, which was fleshed out into a screenplay by Lori Evans Taylor and Guy Busick. The directing duo of Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, who previously directed the 2018 film Freaks (starring Emile Hirsch and Bruce Dern) and the 2019 live-action Kim Possible movie, are at the helm. The great Tony Todd reprised the role of mortician Bludworth in this film, and was joined the cast by Brec Bassinger, Teo Briones, Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Richard Harmon, Anna Lore, Owen Patrick Joyner, Max Lloyd-Jones, Rya Kihlstedt, and Tinpo Lee.
28 YEARS LATER – Theatrical, June 20
28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have finally reunited to make a sequel to their zombie (or, if you prefer, infected people) movie classic. Details on 28 Years Later were being kept under wraps, until cast member Ralph Fiennes decided to spill the beans to IndieWire. He said, “Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.” Fiennes is joined in the cast by Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Erin Kellyman. It has also been said that 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy returns “in a surprising way.” The idea is that this will kick off a trilogy, and production has already wrapped on the sequel 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, which was directed by The Marvels and Candyman director Nia DaCosta from a Garland script.
M3GAN 2.0 – Theatrical, June 27
Violet McGraw and Allison Williams are back for the Atomic Monster / Blumhouse killer AI doll sequel M3GAN 2.0, as are Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps. This time, they’re joined in the cast by Ivanna Sakhno, who is said to have landed a major part in the film, Jemaine Clement, Timm Sharp, and Aristotle Athari. M3GAN director Gerard Johnstone is back at the helm, working from a screenplay by Akela Cooper.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER – Theatrical, July 18
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) is directing this legacy sequel to the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer and its 1998 follow-up I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. This time, it’s Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers, Jonah Hauer-King, Billy Campbell, Lola Tung, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Austin Nichols, and model / musician Gabbriette who have to deal with a hook-wielding killer. Freddie Prinze Jr. is confirmed to be reprising his role from the first two films, and Jennifer Love Hewitt was recently confirmed to be back as heroine Julie James as well. Robinson worked on the script with Leah McKendrick and journalist Sam Lansky.
THE CONJURING: LAST RITES – Theatrical, September 5
Michael Chaves, who previously directed The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II, and the Conjuring Universe-adjacent The Curse of La Llorona, is at the helm of The Conjuring: Last Rites, working from a screenplay written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who also wrote The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. James Wan, the director of the first two films, remains on board as producer. Franchise stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise the roles of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Wilson and are joined in the cast by Ben Hardy and Mia Tomlinson for what is meant to be the final Conjuring movie.
HIM – Theatrical, September 19
Justin Tipping directed Him, a Jordan Peele production that was formerly known as GOAT, with lead roles going to Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, and Julia Fox. Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie’s script centers on a promising young athlete who is invited to train with a team’s retiring star. How exactly horror enters the picture is being kept under wraps. ComicBook.com has heard that the script centers on a rookie QB who goes to train with a retiring star QB who may hold a secret about how he has played so long at such a high level. So obviously the GOAT has been using unusual methods to achieve his success, and finding out about them are going to cause the rookie some trouble. Wayans plays the greatest-of-all-time athlete, while Withers plays the promising young athlete/rookie QB. Details on the character Fox plays in Him haven’t been revealed.
SAW XI – Theatrical, September 26
Saw X was one of the most well-received entries in the Saw franchise, and that film’s director, Kevin Greutert, is back at the helm for Saw XI. Greutert edited the first five Saw movies, and did the same on Jigsaw. He made his feature directorial debut with Saw VI and signed on to direct Paranormal Activity 2 after that. That movie was scheduled to be released on the same day as the seventh Saw movie, Saw 3D – so Lionsgate decided to remove Saw V director David Hackl from Saw 3D and replace him with Greutert, stealing him away from Paramount and Paranormal Activity 2. The Paranormal sequel ended up being directed by Tod Williams and was released the week before Saw 3D. Between Saw 3D and Saw X, Greutert directed the genre films Jessabelle, Visions, and Jackals. For Saw XI, Greutert is working from a screenplay by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who previously wrote Saw parts 4 through 7 (with Thomas Fenton also getting a story credit on Saw IV). Franchise star Tobin Bell has confirmed that his character of John Kramer, a.k.a. Jigsaw, plays “a main part” in the new sequel, as he did in Saw X.
THE BRIDE! – Theatrical, October 3
From writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal comes The Bride!, a new take on the concept of the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein. This one 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. The film stars Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, and Jake Gyllenhaal, with Jessie Buckley as The Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster.
THE BLACK PHONE 2 – Theatrical, October 17
Back in 2021, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and director Scott Derrickson brought us an adaptation of the Joe Hill short story The Black Phone (check out our review HERE) that appeared to tell a complete story that would stand on its own… but the film was made on a budget of around $16 million and earned over $160 million at the global box office. So in 2025, we’re getting a sequel, with Derrickson back at the helm. Based on a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone centered on Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, who is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney. If you’d like to read the short story that The Black Phone is based on, it can be found in Hill’s collection 20th Century Ghosts, which you can buy HERE. Derrickson wrote the screenplay for the first film with C. Robert Cargill, and Derrickson and Cargill have written the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well. The sequel will see the return of Mason Thames as Finney Shaw, Madeleine McGraw as Finney’s sister Gwen, Jeremy Davies as their dad Terrence, and Miguel Mora as Robin, a friend of Finney’s who was killed in the first movie. Ethan Hawke will be reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. New additions to the cast are Demián Bichir and Arianna Rivas.
PREDATOR: BADLANDS – Theatrical, November 7th
Prey director Dan Trachtenberg has become the first filmmaker to not only take the helm of two entries in the Predator franchise – he actually has two new Predator movies coming our way in 2025! One is wrapped in secrecy, but it’s believed to be an animated anthology that will get a streaming release. The other is a live-action feature that will get theatrical play, Predator: Badlands. According to a casting call, Predator: Badlands has the following synopsis: A groundbreaking film in which one of the two main storylines delves into the intricate bond of two very different sisters, their familial ties are put to the ultimate test as they pursue divergent paths and missions. We’ve previously heard that the story is set sometime in the future. The casting call was searching for a lead actress who could take on the dual role of twin sisters Thia and Tessa: This casting is for a dual character, and describes both characters. Character identifies as female or non-binary, open ethnicity, mid 20s – mid 40s. Thia has spent most of her life in a laboratory and is now embarking on her first big adventure in the world. She is incredibly smart, witty, enthusiastic, and unflappable. She has an innate disregard for danger, not because she’s fearless, but simply because she’s naive. Strong comedy chops required. // The other sister, Tessa, has a militant intensity when it comes to achieving her family’s goals and mission objectives. She will not let anything get in her way, not even her twin sister. These roles are being played by Elle Fanning. Speaking with Empire, Trachtenberg revealed, “The creature is front and center, leading the charge. He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” The idea for Predator: Badlands came from Trachtenberg’s desire to “find another essential piece of cinema that does what Prey did spiritually — pushing the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for — but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.“
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 – Theatrical, December 5
The video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s (read our review HERE) quickly became Blumhouse Productions’ highest-grossing movie when it reached theatres and the Peacock streaming service back in October, surpassing the likes of Split, The Invisible Man, The Black Phone, M3GAN, the recent Halloween sequel trilogy, and the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Purge franchises with its haul of $295 million. So, yeah, it’s sequel time. The first film followed a troubled security guard as he begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. While spending his first night on the job, he realizes the night shift at Freddy’s won’t be so easy to make it through. Stars Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard are back for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and fans are speculating that killer animatronic characters called Toy Chica and Mangle might be in the sequel.
FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN – Netflix, Release Date TBD
Fear Street: Prom Queen, the continuation of the Fear Street film franchise that began with the release of the trilogy of Fear Street Part One: 1994, Fear Street Part Two: 1978, and Fear Street Part Three: 1666 on the Netflix streaming service back in the summer of 2021, is coming to Netflix in 2025 – and while we don’t know the exact release date yet, we do know that the film is based on the story R.L. Stine crafted for his 1992 book The Prom Queen. Here’s the description: A spring night… soft moonlight… five beautiful Prom Queen candidates… dancing couples at the Shadyside High prom — these should be the ingredients for romance. But stir in one brutal murder — then another, and another — and the recipe quickly turns to horror. Lizzie McVay realizes that someone is murdering the five Prom Queen candidates one by one — and that she may be next on the list! Can she stop the murderer before the dance is over — for good? The official synopsis says Fear Street: Prom Queen takes us back to the town of Shadyside, Ohio, where prom season at Shadyside High is underway and the school’s wolfpack of It Girls is busy with its usual sweet and vicious campaigns for the crown. But when a gutsy outsider is unexpectedly nominated to the court, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night. The film has been directed by Matthew Palmer, who made his feature directorial debut with the 2018 Netflix thriller Calibre. Palmer wrote the screenplay with Calibre cast member Donald McLeary. The cast includes Katherine Waterston, Lili Taylor, Chris Klein, India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, David Iacono, Ariana Greenblatt, and Ella Rubin.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S FRANKENSTEIN – Netflix, Release Date TBD
Netflix has not yet announced a release date for director Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited passion project, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein. The film might have the following logline: Set in Eastern Europe in the 19th Century, the story of Dr. Pretorius, who needs to track down Frankenstein’s monster- who is believed to have died in a fire forty years before–in order to continue the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein. Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, and Charles Dance star, with Ralph Ineson showing up for a pivotal cameo. At one point, Andrew Garfield was in the cast, but he had to drop out and was replaced by Elordi… and it has been said that the role Garfield had passed over to Elordi was the Monster.
Director Renny Harlin shot an entire trilogy of Strangers movies at the same time, and while there was a point when it looked like Lionsgate might be releasing all three of the movies within 2024, that idea was pushed aside. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (read our review HERE) reached theatres back in May, and a release date still hasn’t been announced for the sequels… but we should be getting them soon. Madelaine Petsch has the lead role in this trilogy and is joined in the cast of the films by Froy Gutierrez, Rachel Shenton, Gabriel Basso, and Ema Horvath. The Strangers: Chapter 1 centered on Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels. Harlin has said The Strangers:Chapter 1 “is close to the original movie in its set-up of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house and a home invasion happening for random reasons.” Then Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?“
THANKSGIVING 2 – Theatrical, Release Date TBD
Sixteen years passed from the time Eli Roth made a slasher faux trailer called Thanksgiving for the Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse to the day when a feature version of Thanksgiving (read our review HERE) finally made its way into theatres – and the fact that we’re being rewarded for our patience with not just that movie, but also a sequel that’s expected to reach theatres sometime in 2025 is truly something to be thankful about. If you’ve watched the original Thanksgiving trailer, you have a good idea of what this slasher movie is about, but here’s the synopsis: After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday. The script for Thanksgiving 2 is finished, filming is expected to begin in March, and several actors will be returning, including Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman, and Addison Rae.
Yes, the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man was awesome – but it was almost nothing like the source material, a novel written by Stephen King under his Richard Bachman pen name. So we’re looking forward to seeing what director Edgar Wright will do with his new, more faithful adaptation (written with Michael Bacall) of the novel. The film stars Glen Powell, Katy O’Brian, Daniel Ezra, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, and William H. Macy. King’s novel has the following description: It was the ultimate death game in a nightmare future America. The year is 2025 and reality TV has grown to the point where people are willing to wager their lives for a chance at a billion-dollar jackpot. Ben Richards is desperate – he needs money to treat his daughter’s illness. His last chance is entering a game show called The Running Man where the goal is to avoid capture by Hunters who are employed to kill him. Surviving this month-long chase is another issue when everyone else on the planet is watching – and willing to turn him in for the reward.
And that’s our 2025 Horror Preview… so far. What do you think of next year’s line-up of horror movies? Which ones are you most looking forward to? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
A new year is nearly upon us – and 2025 is set to bring a whole lot of horror to our screens! So genre fans can start planning what they’re going to see over the next year, we have put together a 2025 Horror Preview, which can be seen below. Of course, at this point we don’t even know about all of the cool horror movies that will be coming our way, so you can expect to see this list get some updates as more titles are announced and more release dates revealed. For now, here’s what we have:
WOLF MAN – Theatrical, January 17
Back in 2020, director Leigh Whannell and Blumhouse Productions teamed up for a well-received update of the classic Universal Pictures horror property The Invisible Man. Now, they’re reviving another Universal monster, the Wolf Man, with the story of a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. The project was once set to star Ryan Gosling, but Christopher Abbott ended up in the lead, co-starring with Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, and Sam Jaeger.
PRESENCE – Theatrical, January 17
At the start of the year, JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray got to check out the Sundance Film Festival premiere of director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp’s ghost story Presence, and in his 7/10 review (which you can read HERE), he described the film as “a supernatural tale that’s light on horror but heavy on heart.” The story gets rolling when a family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they are not alone. A supernatural force has infiltrated the house, and taken a specific interest in the couple’s daughter. The film stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Julia Fox, Eddy Maday, and West Mulholland.
SCREAMBOAT – Theatrical, Undated January
The earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons entered the public domain on January 1, 2024, and several filmmakers quickly pounced on the opportunity to put a horror twist on the concept of Mickey. One of the resulting films is Screamboat, which sees David Howard Thornton of the Terrifier franchise playing the horror version of the beloved mouse. This one tells the story of the story of a mischievous mouse that stalks a group of New Yorkers on a late night ferry ride, unleashing murderous mayhem on a relaxing commute. Can the ship’s motley crew of travelers find a way to stop a killer creature who has developed a taste for tourists? Directed by Steven LaMorte, who previously made the Grinch-inspired horror movie The Mean One, Screamboat also stars Tyler Posey, Kailey Hyman, Brian Quinn, Joe DeRosa, Allison Pittel, Amy Schumacher, Jesse Posey, Jesse Kove, Rumi C Jean-Louis, Jarlath Conroy, and Charles Edwin Powell.
COMPANION – Theatrical, January 31
From writer/director Drew Hancock and the team behind the 2022 horror hit Barbarian, the sci-fi thriller Companion is described as being “a new kind of love story,” but the details of that love story are still being kept under wraps. The cast includes includes Jack Quaid, Harvey Guillén, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Rupert Friend, and Sophie Thatcher.
HEART EYES – Theatrical, February 7
Christopher Landon directed the body swap slasher Freaky from a screenplay by Michael Kennedy, then produced the Kennedy-scripted time travel slasher Time Cut. Now, Landon and Kennedy have written the script for the Valentine’s Day-set horror romantic comedy Heart Eyes with Phillip Murphy (The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), and the story is being brought to the screen by Josh Ruben, the director of Werewolves Within and Scare Me. The synopsis: When the Heart Eyes Killer strikes Seattle, a pair of co-workers pulling overtime on Valentine’s Day are mistaken for a couple by the elusive couple-hunting killer. Now they must spend the most romantic night of the year running for their lives. Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding star alongside Jordana Brewster, Devon Sawa, and Gigi Zumbado.
THE GORGE – Apple TV+, February 14
Based on a spec script by Zach Dean, The Gorge is said to be a high-action, genre-bending love story. We previously heard that it centers on two soldiers (Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller) who are tasked with guarding a seemingly never-ending gorge with one agent posted on either side. IGN revealed that Teller and Taylor-Joy play elite snipers – one American, the other Lithuanian – stationed in watchtowers on opposite sides of a vast and highly classified gorge located in a faraway land whose exact location they’re not even allowed to know. Their mission? To safeguard the outside world from an undisclosed, mysterious evil that lurks within. They bond from a distance while trying to stay vigilant in defending against an unseen enemy. When the cataclysmic threat to humanity is revealed to them, they must work together in a test of both their physical and mental strength to keep the secret in the gorge before it’s too late. Sigourney Weaver is also in the cast. Scott Derrickson directed the film.
THE MONKEY – Theatrical, February 21
Longlegs director Osgood Perkins and producer James Wan have teamed up for this Stephen King adaptation. The film will tell the following story: When twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them. Theo James plays the twins in later years, while Christian Convery plays them in their younger days. Also in the cast are Elijah Wood, Tatiana Maslany, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy.
VICIOUS – Theatrical, February 28
Originally set to receive a theatrical release from Paramount in August, Vicious, the new horror movie from The Strangers director Bryan Bertino, has been moved up to February… but we still don’t know much about it beyond the fact that it stars Dakota Fanning, Devyn Nekoda, Mary McCormack, Rachel Blanchard, Kathryn Hunter, Klea Scott, and Emily Mitchell. We don’t even have an image from it; that picture of Fanning is from The Watchers. We do know that Vicious sees Fanning taking on the role of a young woman who is left a strange present by a late-night visitor, and quickly realizes she is fighting for her life after slipping down a disturbing rabbit hole contained inside the gift.
SINNERS – Theatrical, March 7
Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever collaborators Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are back at it with a period piece vampire thriller with the following synopsis: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. “You keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.” Jordan is joined in the cast by Jack O’Connell, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Lola Kirke, Omar Benson Miller, Jayme Lawson, and Li Jun Li.
THE WOMAN IN THE YARD – Theatrical, March 28
The thriller The Woman in the Yard, which is coming our way from Blumhouse Productions, Universal Pictures, and director Jaume Collet-Serra, was once set to reach theatres on January 10, 2025, but it got bumped to March to make way for Wolf Man. The screenplay was written by Sam Stefanak, who was previously a staff writer and story editor on the Netflix animated series F Is for Family. Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Russell Hornsby star, but we haven’t seen any images of their characters. The picture of Deadwyler above is from a different movie. The story Stefanak crafted for this one goes like this: Today’s the day. A woman in black appears on a family’s front lawn and delivers a chilling warning, Where did she come from? What does she want? When will she leave?
DROP – Theatrical, April 11
Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon takes the helm of this Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes production, which was written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, a writing duo that has previously worked with Blumhouse on the horror projects Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island. Drop centers on a single mother who receives disturbing AirDrop messages from an anonymous and malicious entity threatening the safety of her son and babysitter at home. The anonymous party threatens Fahy’s character to kill her date, or else. The movie unfolds over a single night and happens in real time. Meghann Fahy stars as the single mother and is joined in the cast by Violett Beane, Brandon Sklenar, Jeffery Self, Gabrielle Ryan, and newcomer Jacob Robinson, who has a large following on his parent-run Tik Tok account.
UNTIL DAWN – Theatrical, April 25
After going off into superhero territory for a while, Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg has reteamed with Annabelle: Creation screenwriter Gary Dauberman for a movie based on the horror video game Until Dawn. As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, first released in 2015, Until Dawn is an interactive horror video game that follows eight friends and frenemies who are brought together a remote mountain retreat. With live or die scenarios featuring a mysterious killer, cannibalistic wendigos, a cable car, and a long-ago mining cave-in that reverberates into the present day, the members of the group must fight through their fear if they all hope to make it through the night in one piece. The game proved to be a surprise hit with critics and received numerous gaming awards nominations. Sandberg and Dauberman haven’t revealed what exactly will be going on in their movie version of Until Dawn, but the project is described as being an “R-rated love letter to the horror genre, centering on an ensemble cast.” Dauberman’s script is a rewrite of a previous draft by Blair Butler, who wrote the vampire movie The Invitation. The film’s cast includes Ella Rubin, Odessa A’zion, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, and Maia Mitchell. Peter Stormare is also in there, reprising his role from the video game.
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD – Theatrical, May 9
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil and Little Evil‘s Eli Craig directs this adaptation of the Adam Cesare novel, which centers on Quinn and her father, who have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time. Welcome to Kettle Springs. The real fun starts when Frendo the clown comes out to play. The slasher thriller stars Katie Douglas, Carson MacCormac, Aaron Abrams, Will Sasso, and Kevin Durand.
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES – Theatrical, May 16
Fans have been waiting over a decade for a new entry in the Final Destination franchise, and while a release date for the new film hasn’t been announced yet, we do know that Final Destination: Bloodlines will be reaching theatres in 2025, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the release of the original film. It will even be on IMAX screens! According to entertainment industry scooper Daniel Richtman, Final Destination: Bloodlines has the following synopsis: Just as she’s about to leave home for college, 18 year old STEFANI, who’s been having horrific nightmares about dying in a tower accident in the 1960s, discovers that her dream is actually a premonition that happened to her grandmother, Esther, who thwarted death fifty years ago but is now running out of time. Stefani learns that though her grandmother thwarted Death (until she died in her 80s), and Death has been going after the would-have-been victims of that long-ago catastrophe, killing them off and then going after their children. Stefani and her family realize that their bloodline isn’t safe from Death, who will take them violently and gruesomely, in order, unless someone like Stefani figures out a way to stop it. Jon Watts, director of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far from Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, wrote the initial treatment, which was fleshed out into a screenplay by Lori Evans Taylor and Guy Busick. The directing duo of Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, who previously directed the 2018 film Freaks (starring Emile Hirsch and Bruce Dern) and the 2019 live-action Kim Possible movie, are at the helm. The great Tony Todd reprised the role of mortician Bludworth in this film, and was joined the cast by Brec Bassinger, Teo Briones, Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Richard Harmon, Anna Lore, Owen Patrick Joyner, Max Lloyd-Jones, Rya Kihlstedt, and Tinpo Lee.
28 YEARS LATER – Theatrical, June 20
28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have finally reunited to make a sequel to their zombie (or, if you prefer, infected people) movie classic. Details on 28 Years Later were being kept under wraps, until cast member Ralph Fiennes decided to spill the beans to IndieWire. He said, “Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.” Fiennes is joined in the cast by Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Erin Kellyman. It has also been said that 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy returns “in a surprising way.” The idea is that this will kick off a trilogy, and production has already wrapped on the sequel 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, which was directed by The Marvels and Candyman director Nia DaCosta from a Garland script.
M3GAN 2.0 – Theatrical, June 27
Violet McGraw and Allison Williams are back for the Atomic Monster / Blumhouse killer AI doll sequel M3GAN 2.0, as are Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps. This time, they’re joined in the cast by Ivanna Sakhno, who is said to have landed a major part in the film, Jemaine Clement, Timm Sharp, and Aristotle Athari. M3GAN director Gerard Johnstone is back at the helm, working from a screenplay by Akela Cooper.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER – Theatrical, July 18
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) is directing this legacy sequel to the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer and its 1998 follow-up I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. This time, it’s Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers, Jonah Hauer-King, Billy Campbell, Lola Tung, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Austin Nichols, and model / musician Gabbriette who have to deal with a hook-wielding killer. Freddie Prinze Jr. is confirmed to be reprising his role from the first two films, and Jennifer Love Hewitt was recently confirmed to be back as heroine Julie James as well. Robinson worked on the script with Leah McKendrick and journalist Sam Lansky.
THE CONJURING: LAST RITES – Theatrical, September 5
Michael Chaves, who previously directed The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II, and the Conjuring Universe-adjacent The Curse of La Llorona, is at the helm of The Conjuring: Last Rites, working from a screenplay written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who also wrote The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. James Wan, the director of the first two films, remains on board as producer. Franchise stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise the roles of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Wilson and are joined in the cast by Ben Hardy and Mia Tomlinson for what is meant to be the final Conjuring movie.
HIM – Theatrical, September 19
Justin Tipping directed Him, a Jordan Peele production that was formerly known as GOAT, with lead roles going to Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, and Julia Fox. Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie’s script centers on a promising young athlete who is invited to train with a team’s retiring star. How exactly horror enters the picture is being kept under wraps. ComicBook.com has heard that the script centers on a rookie QB who goes to train with a retiring star QB who may hold a secret about how he has played so long at such a high level. So obviously the GOAT has been using unusual methods to achieve his success, and finding out about them are going to cause the rookie some trouble. Wayans plays the greatest-of-all-time athlete, while Withers plays the promising young athlete/rookie QB. Details on the character Fox plays in Him haven’t been revealed.
SAW XI – Theatrical, September 26
Saw X was one of the most well-received entries in the Saw franchise, and that film’s director, Kevin Greutert, is back at the helm for Saw XI. Greutert edited the first five Saw movies, and did the same on Jigsaw. He made his feature directorial debut with Saw VI and signed on to direct Paranormal Activity 2 after that. That movie was scheduled to be released on the same day as the seventh Saw movie, Saw 3D – so Lionsgate decided to remove Saw V director David Hackl from Saw 3D and replace him with Greutert, stealing him away from Paramount and Paranormal Activity 2. The Paranormal sequel ended up being directed by Tod Williams and was released the week before Saw 3D. Between Saw 3D and Saw X, Greutert directed the genre films Jessabelle, Visions, and Jackals. For Saw XI, Greutert is working from a screenplay by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who previously wrote Saw parts 4 through 7 (with Thomas Fenton also getting a story credit on Saw IV). Franchise star Tobin Bell has confirmed that his character of John Kramer, a.k.a. Jigsaw, plays “a main part” in the new sequel, as he did in Saw X.
THE BRIDE! – Theatrical, October 3
From writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal comes The Bride!, a new take on the concept of the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein. This one 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. The film stars Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, and Jake Gyllenhaal, with Jessie Buckley as The Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster.
THE BLACK PHONE 2 – Theatrical, October 17
Back in 2021, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and director Scott Derrickson brought us an adaptation of the Joe Hill short story The Black Phone (check out our review HERE) that appeared to tell a complete story that would stand on its own… but the film was made on a budget of around $16 million and earned over $160 million at the global box office. So in 2025, we’re getting a sequel, with Derrickson back at the helm. Based on a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone centered on Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, who is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney. If you’d like to read the short story that The Black Phone is based on, it can be found in Hill’s collection 20th Century Ghosts, which you can buy HERE. Derrickson wrote the screenplay for the first film with C. Robert Cargill, and Derrickson and Cargill have written the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well. The sequel will see the return of Mason Thames as Finney Shaw, Madeleine McGraw as Finney’s sister Gwen, Jeremy Davies as their dad Terrence, and Miguel Mora as Robin, a friend of Finney’s who was killed in the first movie. Ethan Hawke will be reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. New additions to the cast are Demián Bichir and Arianna Rivas.
PREDATOR: BADLANDS – Theatrical, November 7th
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 – Theatrical, December 5
Prey director Dan Trachtenberg has become the first filmmaker to not only take the helm of two entries in the Predator franchise – he actually has two new Predator movies coming our way in 2025! One is wrapped in secrecy, but it’s believed to be an animated anthology that will get a streaming release. The other is a live-action feature that will get theatrical play, Predator: Badlands. According to a casting call, Predator: Badlands has the following synopsis: A groundbreaking film in which one of the two main storylines delves into the intricate bond of two very different sisters, their familial ties are put to the ultimate test as they pursue divergent paths and missions. We’ve previously heard that the story is set sometime in the future. The casting call was searching for a lead actress who could take on the dual role of twin sisters Thia and Tessa: This casting is for a dual character, and describes both characters. Character identifies as female or non-binary, open ethnicity, mid 20s – mid 40s. Thia has spent most of her life in a laboratory and is now embarking on her first big adventure in the world. She is incredibly smart, witty, enthusiastic, and unflappable. She has an innate disregard for danger, not because she’s fearless, but simply because she’s naive. Strong comedy chops required. // The other sister, Tessa, has a militant intensity when it comes to achieving her family’s goals and mission objectives. She will not let anything get in her way, not even her twin sister. These roles are being played by Elle Fanning. Speaking with Empire, Trachtenberg revealed, “The creature is front and center, leading the charge. He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” The idea for Predator: Badlands came from Trachtenberg’s desire to “find another essential piece of cinema that does what Prey did spiritually — pushing the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for — but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.“
The video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s (read our review HERE) quickly became Blumhouse Productions’ highest-grossing movie when it reached theatres and the Peacock streaming service back in October, surpassing the likes of Split, The Invisible Man, The Black Phone, M3GAN, the recent Halloween sequel trilogy, and the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Purge franchises with its haul of $295 million. So, yeah, it’s sequel time. The first film followed a troubled security guard as he begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. While spending his first night on the job, he realizes the night shift at Freddy’s won’t be so easy to make it through. Stars Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard are back for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and fans are speculating that killer animatronic characters called Toy Chica and Mangle might be in the sequel.
FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN – Netflix, Release Date TBD
Fear Street: Prom Queen, the continuation of the Fear Street film franchise that began with the release of the trilogy of Fear Street Part One: 1994, Fear Street Part Two: 1978, and Fear Street Part Three: 1666 on the Netflix streaming service back in the summer of 2021, is coming to Netflix in 2025 – and while we don’t know the exact release date yet, we do know that the film is based on the story R.L. Stine crafted for his 1992 book The Prom Queen. Here’s the description: A spring night… soft moonlight… five beautiful Prom Queen candidates… dancing couples at the Shadyside High prom — these should be the ingredients for romance. But stir in one brutal murder — then another, and another — and the recipe quickly turns to horror. Lizzie McVay realizes that someone is murdering the five Prom Queen candidates one by one — and that she may be next on the list! Can she stop the murderer before the dance is over — for good? The official synopsis says Fear Street: Prom Queen takes us back to the town of Shadyside, Ohio, where prom season at Shadyside High is underway and the school’s wolfpack of It Girls is busy with its usual sweet and vicious campaigns for the crown. But when a gutsy outsider is unexpectedly nominated to the court, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night. The film has been directed by Matthew Palmer, who made his feature directorial debut with the 2018 Netflix thriller Calibre. Palmer wrote the screenplay with Calibre cast member Donald McLeary. The cast includes Katherine Waterston, Lili Taylor, Chris Klein, India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, David Iacono, Ariana Greenblatt, and Ella Rubin.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S FRANKENSTEIN – Netflix, Release Date TBD
Netflix has not yet announced a release date for director Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited passion project, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein. The film might have the following logline: Set in Eastern Europe in the 19th Century, the story of Dr. Pretorius, who needs to track down Frankenstein’s monster- who is believed to have died in a fire forty years before–in order to continue the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein. Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, and Charles Dance star, with Ralph Ineson showing up for a pivotal cameo. At one point, Andrew Garfield was in the cast, but he had to drop out and was replaced by Elordi… and it has been said that the role Garfield had passed over to Elordi was the Monster.
Director Renny Harlin shot an entire trilogy of Strangers movies at the same time, and while there was a point when it looked like Lionsgate might be releasing all three of the movies within 2024, that idea was pushed aside. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (read our review HERE) reached theatres back in May, and a release date still hasn’t been announced for the sequels… but we should be getting them soon. Madelaine Petsch has the lead role in this trilogy and is joined in the cast of the films by Froy Gutierrez, Rachel Shenton, Gabriel Basso, and Ema Horvath. The Strangers: Chapter 1 centered on Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels. Harlin has said The Strangers:Chapter 1 “is close to the original movie in its set-up of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house and a home invasion happening for random reasons.” Then Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?“
THANKSGIVING 2 – Theatrical, Release Date TBD
Sixteen years passed from the time Eli Roth made a slasher faux trailer called Thanksgiving for the Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse to the day when a feature version of Thanksgiving (read our review HERE) finally made its way into theatres – and the fact that we’re being rewarded for our patience with not just that movie, but also a sequel that’s expected to reach theatres sometime in 2025 is truly something to be thankful about. If you’ve watched the original Thanksgiving trailer, you have a good idea of what this slasher movie is about, but here’s the synopsis: After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday. The script for Thanksgiving 2 is finished, filming is expected to begin in March, and several actors will be returning, including Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman, and Addison Rae.
Yes, the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man was awesome – but it was almost nothing like the source material, a novel written by Stephen King under his Richard Bachman pen name. So we’re looking forward to seeing what director Edgar Wright will do with his new, more faithful adaptation (written with Michael Bacall) of the novel. The film stars Glen Powell, Katy O’Brian, Daniel Ezra, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, and William H. Macy. King’s novel has the following description: It was the ultimate death game in a nightmare future America. The year is 2025 and reality TV has grown to the point where people are willing to wager their lives for a chance at a billion-dollar jackpot. Ben Richards is desperate – he needs money to treat his daughter’s illness. His last chance is entering a game show called The Running Man where the goal is to avoid capture by Hunters who are employed to kill him. Surviving this month-long chase is another issue when everyone else on the planet is watching – and willing to turn him in for the reward.
And that’s our 2025 Horror Preview… so far. What do you think of next year’s line-up of horror movies? Which ones are you most looking forward to? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
It’s official: Sony’s Spider-Verse, at least as far as its live-action films go – is DOA. Granted, this won’t come as a surprise to anyone, with Morbius and Madame Web being roundly mocked. However, as far as losses go, Morbius actually eked out a profit, while the Venom trilogy, despite playing to diminishing returns, still made money. Only Madame Web was a flop in the true sense of the word, but now, Kraven the Hunter, which sports a budget in the $110 million range, is a legitimate box office fiasco, only grossing $11 million this weekend for a third-place finish.
What’s even worse is that the movie scored a deadly C CinemaScore, which suggests toxic word of mouth (even Madame Web scored better with a C +) that’s going to put an end to its box office run, meaning it’s unlikely the holiday bonanza of filmgoers will save this one. If it crosses $40 million domestically, Sony will be lucky (but I wouldn’t bet on it), with the opening far worse than the $15 million we predicted earlier this week.
Otherwise, it was status quo at the box office, with Moana 2 hanging on to the top spot with a $26.6 million gross and a $337 million total – with a $400 million finish well within reach. Interestingly, Wicked wasn’t all that far behind it, with a $22.5 million gross, as the gap begins to narrow between these two films. Repeat business has been good for Wicked, especially with a sing-along version now in theaters, meaning it will likely have a very healthy run at the box office over the holidays. Expect it to hang around the top five long after Moana 2 has dropped out.
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II has continued to post decent grosses, with a $7.8 million weekend and a $145.9 million gross. The overseas total is about to pass $400 million, with a $500 million well within finish, meaning we might get a Gladiator III after all.
One big surprise on the charts this weekend was Red One, which came in fifth place with a solid $4.4 million despite now streaming on Prime Video. The $92.6 million total isn’t that far from the century mark, which it should have no trouble passing. Less fortunate was WB, which had a flop with the animated Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim, which crashed and burned with a $5 million opening. Clearly, there was very little appetite to see this animated prequel on the big screen.
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar re-release continued to excel despite losing many IMAX screens (it only had a one-week run on many), still grossing $3.3 million for the highest per-screen total in the top 10, over $10k. The Indian-made sequel, Pushpa 2: The Rule, made $1.6 million for a solid $13 million total, while Lionsgate has had a rare hit with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which added $1.35 million to its $36.6 million total. Finally, the top 10 was rounded out by A24’s Queer, starring Daniel Craig, which expanded beyond arthouses to a semi-wide release. The gross was a relatively weak $791K, for a $1.9 million total, making me think the movie will be lucky to end its run north of $5 million (at best).
Next week, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa should finally dethrone Moana 2 and Wicked from the top two spots. In the battle between Sonic and Mufasa who do you think willl win? Let us know in the comments!
What Do We Know About the upcoming third season of Tulsa King? More than you may think. The Taylor Sheridan-produced series has been a hit for Paramount+, and with Yellowstone ending, the Oklahoma-set Tulsa King returning for season 3 is good news. So, let’s dive in and take a look at what Sylvester Stallone and his crime crew will be coming up with this year.
Sylvester Stallone has “confirmed” Season 3.
Usually, we kick off articles like this once a series has been officially greenlit. Still, it seems almost sure that Tulsa King will return for a third season, thanks to star Sylvester Stallone bragging about it on social media. With the record-breaking premiere numbers for season two, Stallone took to Instagram where he wrote, “I am elated and so proud of our cast because our show has gone up 75% over last year, which is unheard of, and Season 2 got 100% on ROTTEN TOMATOES!” Stallone said. “Als,o it’s the Second most popular show in the WORLD across all streaming services! Thank you so much. We are working on the third season at the moment.”
Stallone is working on a two-season deal with Paramount.
Deadline reported in November 2024 that the Tulsa King star was negotiating for a new contract extension that would put the Rocky and Rambo icon back in Tulsa as Dwight Manfredi. The deal reportedly includes a pay bump for the Italian Stallion that would double his per-episode pay from $750,000 to $1.5 million. That equates to about fifteen million per season if they keep the ten-episode count that comprised the second season.
The series could conclude with Season 4. Or Not.
You may wonder if the two-season contract means that Tulsa King will conclude with season four. The answer is… maybe. With the recent high-profile production issues on Yellowstone that led to the fifth season becoming the final for the Montana cowboy drama, Taylor Sheridan and Paramount could be preparing their endgame for Tulsa King. Or, they could take it two years at a time and revisit Sylvester Stallone’s contract. The actor would be over 80 years old by the fourth season of Tulsa King and may not want to continue leading a series, so the plan could present an opportunity to set up spin-offs or expansions of the series beyond Stallone’s involvement.
The series will have many plots to build on from the Season Two finale.
The second season of Tulsa King ended on November 17, 2024, with some big plot threads wrapped up and other cliffhangers dangling. In the finale, Dwight had a final showdown with nemesis Cal Thresher (Neal McDonough) but let his adversary live. After Cal attempted to destroy Dwight by fixing his trial or attacking his wind farm, it was an intriguing development for the mobster to let his foe stay alive. It also was a wise decision as the death of a prominent businessman would not have been easy to hide. With his Kansas City for Bill Bevilacqua (Frank Grillo), another enemy he needed to face off with, Dwight found an unexpected ally as Bill killed Dwight’s boss, Chickie Invernizzi. It was a shocking twist, but it was one that set up some more great interaction between Dwight and Bill in the third season. That leads us to the biggest question of all.
Who kidnapped Dwight?
In the final moments of the finale, Dwight is ambushed when a team of mercenaries descends upon Margaret Deveraux’s (Dana Delaney) home and kidnaps Dwight. Sitting at an interrogation table, the unseen kidnappers tell Dwight that he works for them now without revealing their identities. Could this be another crime syndicate? Could it be the US Government led by Dwight’s former lover? Or could it be Bill and the Kansas City Mafia? This will be the biggest question leading into Season 3.
Who is returning for Season 3, and who is joining the cast?
We can expect most of the cast to return, including Garrett Hedlund as Mitch Keller, Andrea Savage as Stacy Beale, Jay Will as Tyson, Martin Starr as Bodhi, Max Casella as Armand Truisi, Dana Delaney as Margaret, along with Frank Grillo and Neal McDonough. Season two saw Annabella Sciorra and Tatiana Zappardino in more substantial roles, which could continue in season three. Which new actors could join the cast remains to be seen.
A Spin-off is already in development.
While Dwight has been trying to fix his past mistakes over the first two seasons and has vowed to go legit leading into season three, the end of the series may be coming sooner rather than later. A key line of dialogue in the second season claimed that Dwight and Bill could franchise their gangs to other states, leading to all sorts of spin-offs. This could also be the direction that writer Terence Winter teased when he mentioned a potential New Orleans-set spin-off. Could there be a Louisiana King coming soon?
When will we see it?
Production on the second season of Tulsa King began in April 2024, and the season premiered in September. If Taylor Sheridan and Paramount want to shrink our two-year window between the first and second seasons, the earliest they could begin production would be the middle of 2025, giving a potential fall premiere date some credibility. I would say it is more likely we will see the third season in 2026. The production could also film seasons three and four back to back to limit downtime for Sylvester Stallone and the cast and spread the two seasons over the next couple of years, but stay tuned as we hear more in the months to come.
Stay tuned to JoBlo.com as we learn more about the third season of Tulsa King and all of your other favorite shows. What do you expect to see in the upcoming Tulsa King season? Let us know in the comments, click like, and subscribe to follow all of our latest original videos.
From Canteen Boy to Opera Man, Adam Sandler was one of the baddest of the so-called Bad Boys of SNL. And while a lot of people couldn’t stomach the antics of that generation of players, that was the era I came up on and so have a special place for SNL cast members like the Sandman, David Spade, Chris Rock, and Chris Farley. So when there was a Studio 8H reunion between Sandler and Rock on this weekend’s episode of SNL, it hit the spot.
With Chris Rock serving as host for the fourth time, it might have seemed obvious that at least one other SNL alum would pop up; fortunately, it turned out to be one of the most successful ever, with Sandler making a surprise appearance in the “Gallbladder Surgery” sketch. In the bit, Sandler plays the patient to Rock’s surgeon, waking up only to have punctured an artery. With that, he begins spraying blood all over the cast, eventually causing him to break character.
The sketch is fine, but is definitely improved with Adam Sandler getting the chance to mess with Chris Rock, who did an awesome job overall hosting SNL. It, too, was a moment of returning the favor, as Rock made a special appearance on Sandler’s 2019 SNL hosting gig, turning up to take part in a song called “I Was Fired.” Sandler was unceremoniously canned after season 20, which also saw the exits of Farley, Kevin Nealon, Jay Mohr, and more. Rock previously left at the end of season 18.
With Christmas right around the corner, this episode of Saturday Night Live had plenty of holiday hijinks for Chris Rock and company to get into, including one bit that found him playing a mall elf. Fellow SNL alum Martin Short has the honor of hosting the final episode of 2024, which will put him in the Five Timers Club. Meanwhile, Bill Murray has also expressed interest in returning as host, which he hasn’t done since 1999.
What did you think of Chris Rock hosting SNL? What was your favorite sketch from when he was a cast member?
Christmas has long been a favorite setting for action movie directors, as there’s something about the juxtaposition of holiday cheer against the hardcore violence of an R-rated action movie that makes the whole thing too tempting an opportunity to pass up. Indeed, there have been some Christmas action movie classics (many of which are written by Shane Black), which we dug into here, but now the time has come for you folks to have your say. What’s the greatest Christmas action movie? Is it a heavyweight like Die Hard or Lethal Weapon, or something more off the beaten path?
In making these lists, I was surprised at just how many action flicks take place around the holiday season. Granted, some of them are more obvious than others. I never realized First Blood was set at Christmas until watching it in 4K, where you can see how the police station Rambo gets taken into is decorated for the holidays. Other ones, like Cobra or The Last Boy Scout, also seem only loosely set around the holidays, while William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A has absolutely nothing in it that suggests it takes place over the holidays, were it not for the documentary-like titles on-screen giving us the dates (I feel like the setting to this one was added as an afterthought). At any rate, take out poll below and let us know what you think is the greatest Christmas action movie!
Jump back to Christmas Eve, 2023. I was feeling a bit of a case of the old “Bah Humbugs”, and while flipping through my various streaming services, I was thrilled to see that PlutoTV has a 24 hour channel dedicated to perhaps the greatest Christmas movie of all time, It’s a Wonderful Life. Within seconds of tuning in, I realized that something very, very wrong was happening with this version of the movie.
Indeed, not since old man Potter stole $8000 from Uncle Billy and the Savings & Loan has poor George Bailey had to deal with so much misfortune on Christmas Eve. What was wrong with it? Simple – the version of It’s a Wonderful Life streaming on the service has an alternate score. Indeed, Dimitri Tiomkin’s classic score has been replaced by a new score that sounds like it was lifted out of a Hallmark holiday movie. No, scratch that. That’s not fair to Hallmark movies. It sounds like the kind of score you’d hear in a Canadian Hallmark rip-off or something on the Great American Family Network. And that’s not it. The movie also has a new title, A Wonderful Life, and the credits claim it’s based on “a story by Charles Dickens.” For the record, It’s a Wonderful Life has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. It’s based on a short story called The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern. I tapped out after 10 minutes, but if anyone else happened to suffer through more of this bastardization, then by all means, let us know in the comments. Truly, this was the worst thing to happen to the movie since it was colorized in the eighties, but even then we could always turn down the color on our TVs.
So what gives? It comes down to a rights issue. One of the interesting things about It’s a Wonderful Life is that the film was a notorious flop when it came out in January of 1947. Audiences at the time, perhaps reeling from the fallout of WW2, were more interested in film noir than an upbeat Christmas movie (albeit one with a heavy dose of noir-inspired melancholy worked in), stayed away, and the film sunk into obscurity. It was put out by a short-lived company, Liberty Films, founded by the movie’s director, Frank Capra, but it went under, and Capra’s career never recovered. Most of the company’s films lapsed into public domain, including It’s a Wonderful Life. Oddly, that was the movie’s salvation, as TV networks could show the film for free whenever they wanted to. It became constantly shown around the holidays beginning in the seventies, and that’s how it became a holiday staple.
Eventually, Republic Pictures (now owned by Paramount) could resecure the copyright because while the film elements were no longer protected by copyright, the musical score was. Thus, while still being shown by networks like NBC (who are still showing the legit version), the movie was no longer free to air. However, some ad-supported streaming services who don’t want to shell out big bucks for the streaming rights have found a way around this legal loophole by (badly) muting the score by Dimitri Tiomkin and replacing it with a cheap new version.
To me, this is nothing short of artistic vandalism. It makes a movie that’s distinctly not cheesy or cheap come off that way, and places like Pluto should not be allowed to do this as it trashes the original film’s legacy and sets a bad precedent. Studios are better at protecting the copyright of their movies than they were back in the forties, but there are a lot of classic films from that area in the public domain, and God forbid they get the same treatment.
So where does that leave us in 2024? Pluto hasn’t started streaming the movie yet, but they likely will once the holiday season kicks into high gear after Thanksgiving. I’ll keep an eye out and update this story accordingly, but if anyone else out there has noticed this cheapie version floating around, let me know. I hate it when soundtracks are replaced. Back in the 80s this used to happen all the time, most notoriously with Return of the Living Dead 2, which only recently got re-released with the right music. Another movie floating around out there with replacement music is the 1993 spoof Fatal Instinct with Armand Assante and Sean Young (directed by the late Carl Reiner). Two important songs have been replaced, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (which is weird because a character references it) and “Brown Eyed Girl”, by generic music.
Luckily, the version of It’s A Wonderful Life available on good old physical media (or for purchase through digital retailers) is the real deal. So do yourselves a favour and skip this Pluto TV version (also showing on TubiTV and Roku in the States) in favour of the legit version (which is streaming on Prime and Paramount Plus).
The Game Awards, the biggest annual celebration of video games, commenced this past Thursday, handing out awards to the titles that have proven most popular in 2024. There’s a fairly good chance that if you’re fortunate enough to be bought gaming gifts, one of these could be showing up in your stocking. So we’ve…
The Game Awards, the biggest annual celebration of video games, commenced this past Thursday, handing out awards to the titles that have proven most popular in 2024. There’s a fairly good chance that if you’re fortunate enough to be bought gaming gifts, one of these could be showing up in your stocking. So we’ve…
