This past holiday season, we shared some unconventional Christmas movie recommendations, like The Silent Partner, Anna and the Apocalypse, The Ref, and my own recommendation, Trancers. But even though I love Trancers and also watch Anna and the Apocalypse every December, my two favorite Christmas movies are not unconventional choices at all: every December 25th, I watch A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. Very common choices. Someone else with very common choice for their favorite Christmas movie is filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who revealed to BFI that his holiday favorite is It’s a Wonderful Life.
Directed by Frank Capra, who crafted the screenplay with Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Jo Swerling, the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life was based on the short story The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern (which was loosely based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol) . Here’s the synopsis: George Bailey has so many problems he is thinking about ending it all – and it’s Christmas! As the angels discuss George, we see his life in flashback. As George is about to jump from a bridge, he ends up rescuing his guardian angel, Clarence – who then shows George what his town would have looked like if it hadn’t been for all his good deeds over the years. The film stars James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Frank Faylen, and Gloria Grahame.
Guillermo del Toro told BFI, “It’s a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies for many reasons. I find it fascinating that Capra, an immigrant [from Italy], gave back America a view of itself that was more lovely and wholesome than it really was, and at the same time darker and more nightmarish than movies tended to imagine. Like Walt Disney, Capra is very often misinterpreted as an eternal optimist, but the nightmarish nature of the dark episodes in It’s a Wonderful Life demonstrate that he understands terror, that he understands darkness. It’s a nightmare that is adjacent to the American Dream, and to the American psyche. There’s always this creepier, darker, edgier side to the Norman Rockwell goodness. The hopefulness of the ending only exists in a contrast. To me it’s perfectly timed, in terms of comedic tone and deliver and melodrama. It’s a movie that it would be impossible to go through without that final release. In a strange way, it’s the greatest ‘What if?’ speculative fiction. I first saw it as a kid on TV and every time I see it, it’s inevitably one of those movies that makes me cry three, four times. We watch it in the cinema every year around Christmas, and we watch it on TV at least another time, because it’s just impeccable.“
Del Toro was one of a dozen filmmakers who told BFI what their favorite movies to watch around Christmas are. To find what the likes of Wes Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, and more like to watch in December, click over to the BFI link. (Spoiler alert: Luca Guadagnino picked The Godfather Part III.)
Do you and Guillermo del Toro have the same Christmas favorite? Share your thoughts on It’s a Wonderful Life by leaving a comment below – and if you plan on watching it sometime soon, beware: the streaming version on free apps is an abomination.
The MOBA genre may be a bit niche, but players who play them tend to fall head over heels for certain games, keeping them alive for the long-haul. One of the most beloved and long-running games in the genre has been Smite, which is currently in its 11th year of service, so it only makes sense that its sequel has come…
The MOBA genre may be a bit niche, but players who play them tend to fall head over heels for certain games, keeping them alive for the long-haul. One of the most beloved and long-running games in the genre has been Smite, which is currently in its 11th year of service, so it only makes sense that its sequel has come…
By the power of Greyskull, the new live-action Masters of the Universe is aiming to please existing fans as well as build a newer audience with the upcoming live-action adaptation. It was recently confirmed that Jared Leto will be donning the hood as Skeletor in the new iteration. Other villain roles that have been cast include Sam C. Wilson (House of the Dragon) as Trap Jaw, Hafthor Bjornsson (Game of Thrones) as Goat Man, and Kojo Attah (In the Grey) as Tri-Klops. Masters of the Universe will star Nicholas Galitzine (The Idea of You) as Prince Adam/He-Man, Camila Mendes (Do Revenge) as Captain Teela, Alison Brie (Community) as Evil-Lyn, and Idris Elba (Sonic the Hedgehog 3) as Man-at-Arms/Duncan. Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) will direct from a script by Chris Butler, with initial drafts penned by David Callaham, and Aaron & Adam Nee.
According to MovieWeb, Galitzine was recently interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, where he talked about the tone that the new film will be going for. He explained,
Look, what I will say is our version is quite different from the original animation, which we all agree was camp within its own right and worked so well for the time. But there’s been a couple of iterations, obviously since there was the Revelation version of Master of the Universe, and the comics themselves. And we’re very much treating our script as as Bible, you know. But it’s kind of amazing to hear what this show meant to a lot of people. It was really formative for a lot of people, so it’s exciting to do something that will have a nostalgia element as well as hopefully attract a bunch of new fans.”
Additionally, MovieWeb reports on one rumored plot that insider Daniel Richtman has revealed. Could the new Masters of the Universe also be taking a small cue from the 1987 Dolph Lundgren movie? The rumored plot reads, “10-year-old Prince Adam crashed to Earth in a spaceship and was separated from his magical Power Sword—the only link to his home on Eternia. After tracking it down almost two decades later, Prince Adam is whisked back across space to defend his home planet against the evil forces of Skeletor. But to defeat such a powerful villain, Prince Adam will first need to uncover the mysteries of his past and become He-Man: the most powerful man in the Universe!”
The project was previously set up at Netflix, but the streaming service scrapped the project last summer. Aaron and Adam Nee were tapped to write and direct the project before it fell apart, reportedly due to budget issues. Netflix had already spent close to $30 million on development costs, with the budget ballooning to over $200 million. There was an attempt to bring the budget down, with the idea of shooting the movie back-to-back with a sequel in order to amortize the cost, but an agreement couldn’t be reached. The project later found a new home at Amazon MGM Studios. Masters of the Universe will be released in theaters on June 5, 2026.
I only ever turn my PlayStation 5 off a few times a year, and it’s usually when there’s an unexpected power outage or I accidentally hit the red switch on the power strip it’s plugged into. My PS5 yells at me when I turn it back on and I vow never to do it again. Apparently only about 50 percent of players live this…
I only ever turn my PlayStation 5 off a few times a year, and it’s usually when there’s an unexpected power outage or I accidentally hit the red switch on the power strip it’s plugged into. My PS5 yells at me when I turn it back on and I vow never to do it again. Apparently only about 50 percent of players live this…
There’s a reboot of the classic Universal Monsters property The Wolf Man coming our way from Blumhouse Productions and The Invisible Man (2020) director Leigh Whannell, aiming for a January 17, 2025 theatrical release – and tickets are now on sale at Fandango! The site notes that, “Want to be thrilled from the comfort of your own home? For a limited time, when you buy a ticket to Wolf Manon Fandango, you can get select horror films, such as Abigail, The Invisible Man, and Renfield, for just $5 on Fandango at Home, Fandango’s on-demand streaming service. This special offer ends January 20, 2025. Visit here for more details!”
The leads of this version of Wolf Man are Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, both of whom were in the 2011 film Martha Marcy May Marlene. Abbott is taking on the role of a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. Garner is playing his wife. Sam Jaeger is also in the cast, along with child actress Matilda Firth, playing a character named Ginger: “Female, 10 years old, white. Blake and Charlotte’s daughter. Smart, precocious, and strong. When her family decides to leave the city for a quieter life in a remote area, she faces her biggest fear, the possibility of losing one or both of her parents forever.”
When Wolf Man was first announced in 2020, Ryan Gosling was set to star in it – and in fact, it got rolling when Gosling pitched this take on the concept of The Wolf Man to Universal, and his idea was then fleshed out into a screenplay by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, a writing duo that previously worked on Orange Is the New Black. (Blum also happens to be married to Blumhouse founder Jason Blum.) At the time, it was said the story was “believed to be set in present times and in the vein of Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller Nightcrawler with an obvious supernatural twist.” The final version of the script is credited to Blum and Angelo, as well as Whannell and his wife Corbett Tuck.
Whannell first signed on to direct the film in 2020, but dropped out the following year. That’s when Gosling’s Blue Valentine and Place Beyond the Pines director Derek Cianfrance came on board. Gosling and Cianfrance both stepped away from Wolf Man early last year… and then Whannell came back. A collaboration between Blumhouse and Motel Movies, Wolf Man is being produced by Jason Blum. Gosling receives an executive producer credit alongside Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner, and Whannell.
The Wolf Man reboot was recently given an R rating for bloody violent content, grisly images and some language. This isn’t the first time a reboot of The Wolf Man has been given an R rating, as the 2010 reboot that was directed by Joe Johnston and starred Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt was also rated R, for bloody horror violence and gore.
Will you be buying Wolf Man tickets on Fandango? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Schwarzenegger. Stallone. Van Damme. Gibson. Snipes. Ford. When you make a list of the most popular action heroes of all time, there’s another name that needs to be added to that list – Liam Neeson. Over the last sixteen years, he’s headlined a neverending series of action thrillers that have propelled him to a much higher echelon of fame than he’d ever been on before, with him only ever becoming an action star once he was fifty-six. Ultimately, it was all due to a low-budget, European-financed action flick, which came very close to going direct-to-video and reached theatres in Europe a full year before it opened in North America. That movie is Taken, and we’re going to tell you how it revitalized the career of a man who – at the time – was generally considered a top-tier character actor with limited box office appeal. That’s right – it’s time to find out What the fuck happened to Taken!
The story began in the late nineties when director Luc Besson was riding high off the success of The Fifth Element. Like his previous film, The Professional, the film was a bigger hit internationally than at the domestic box office. In fact, 75% of The Fifth Element’s revenue came from outside North America. Clearly, there was a demand for American-style, slick action films made with the European market in mind. Thus, Luc Besson started funding modestly budgeted action movies through his company, EuropaCorp. Besson, who was intensely prolific as a writer, would churn out the scripts himself (often with a co-writer) and hand off the directing duties, usually to a French director. The formula proved to be a hit with Taxi, a French car chase thriller, giving rise to a series of action movies.
Soon, Besson was able to strike up a deal with 20th Century Fox for a series of action films in English, with lower-tier stars, on modest budgets. Along with his Fifth Element collaborator, Robert Mark Kamen, he made several successful movies, including Kiss of the Dragon, starring Jet Li, and The Transporter, which made Jason Statham an action star. While neither of those movies was a smash in North America, they did well internationally and were major hits on the DVD market.
What made their Jet Li and Jason Statham movies so profitable was that neither man commanded a massive salary at the time, as Li was still breaking into the North American market. At the same time, Statham was virtually unknown outside of his appearances in Guy Ritchie movies. Eager to launch yet another action star, Besson had the idea to make a movie about a retired special forces agent trying to rescue his daughter from human traffickers. Rather than hire someone obvious, like Harrison Ford or Mel Gibson, he conceived of the film as a vehicle for Jeff Bridges, who’d never really done a major action film at the time. When Bridges passed, the idea was floated to go with Liam Neeson.
At the time, Neeson’s career was going well, with him having recently played Ra’s al Ghul in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. But, on his own, he was not known to be a box office draw. While he had dipped his toe into action with Darkman in 1990, throughout the nineties, he established himself as a serious actor, thanks to movies like Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, and Les Miserables. He also played Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. He had headlined a few big-budget movies, such as Rob Roy and The Haunting, but they weren’t considered hits. Nevertheless, he had a great career as a serious actor.
When he took on Taken, Neeson figured it was just a job. He fully expected the movie to flop, as no one took him seriously as an action star at the time. Indeed, the budget was relatively low, costing only $25 million. The director, Pierre Morel, had previously helmed an action film for Luc Besson called District 13, which was acclaimed by action fans. One of the reasons Neeson had taken the role was to try and do a more physically demanding part than usual, with him claiming he was happy to get paid to spend four months in France learning karate.
One of the reasons the movie did so well was that Neeson was never considered an action hero, making his casting very much against type. Yet, with his imposing 6 foot 4 height and his previous experience in boxing, it didn’t take much to bring out something in him audiences had never expected from him before. With Neeson taking his training seriously, the film also benefitted from a premise that struck a chord with people. Human trafficking was – and is – a huge concern, particularly to parents sending their children off for the first time on their own for the traditional college European tour. The movie played as wish fulfillment to many, with Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills, an insanely competent ex-special forces agent who uses his “special skills” to save his daughter, played in the film by Maggie Grace.
One of the smartest things about Taken is how well-constructed it is, with it taking a solid chunk of running time before you ever realize that Liam Neeson’s character is more than just a somewhat overprotective father. I still remember watching the movie in theaters on opening weekend and hearing the audience roar with approval during Neeson’s first big action sequence.
But, funny enough, the movie almost never came to theaters in North America. Due to how it was made, Taken opened in Europe in February of 2008, and it took a long time for it ever to get a North American release date. It’s a miracle the movie wasn’t sent to DVD, as torrents of the film were widely shared on file-sharing services at the time. In fact, I worked at a company that did quality control for Blu-rays and DVDs, and I can testify that a DVD release of the film was locked and loaded long before it reached American theaters.
Yet, the trailers for this movie hit a chord, with them brilliantly centered around the now famous scene where Neeson warns the men who have “taken” his daughter that he possesses “certain skills” that make him a nightmare for people like them. Everyone who saw that trailer wanted to find out what those special skills were, but the film wildly exceeded 20th Century Fox’s expectations when they opened it on the notoriously sleepy Super Bowl weekend back in 2009. The film opened with $24.7 million, which just about matched its budget, and became a monster word-of-mouth hit, grossing $145 million in the US, making it EuropaCorp’s biggest box office hit to date. It immediately established Neeson as an action hero, with critics praising his performance, even if they criticized the action sequences. His action stardom was solidified when he appeared in three straight action flicks that made money – Unknown, Taken 2, and Non-Stop. He became the king of thrifty, no-frills action thrillers that could be made for small budgets and prove profitable for studios. In fact, more than a decade and a half later, Neeson is still making them, although he’s about to try to reinvent himself once again by playing the lead in Paramount’s long-planned reboot of The Naked Gun.
So that’s what happened to Taken – basically, a solid and simple premise, coupled with outside-the-box casting, struck gold for all involved. It also established a new trend where audiences seemed to like older action heroes, with many of the biggest names in the genre nowadays, including Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves, all being north of sixty. Several middle-aged actors tried to “do a Neeson” with Kevin Costner making Three Days to Kill and Criminal, and Sean Penn even teaming with Pierre Morel for The Gunman. Still, outside of Bob Odenkirk, no one has come close to striking the public’s fancy like Mr. Neeson.
Brendan Fraser saved the world from mummies twice. How can someone follow up success like that? By saving the world from mummies a third time! When he signed on for another Mummy sequel, he was working with a new director and new writers. Some of his co-stars were recast. Some were absent. But his task remained the same: stop the rampage of a power-hungry walking corpse. That’s what he set out to do in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor… and it’s time to figure out What Happened to This Horror Movie.
Fraser played treasure hunter Rick O’Connell in the 1999 reboot of the Universal Monsters classic The Mummy and its 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns. Both movies were written and directed by Stephen Sommers – but Sommers had no intention of directing a third Mummy film. After making the second one, he was ready to work on smaller projects. Universal convinced him to make the monster movie Van Helsing instead of the little comedy he was hoping for… but when that was done, he still counted himself out of any further monster action. As he told Sci-Fi Wire, “I’ve done my Mummys. There may be a third Mummy, but I need to do a small movie about two girls chatting on a beach. A lot of people have been talking about sequels, but what they forget is that I’m the one who has to make it. I’m just tired right now.”
So, while Sommers remained attached as a producer, Universal had to find someone else to write their next Mummy sequel. They turned to the writing duo of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the showrunners of the Superman TV series Smallville and writers of the Jackie Chan movies Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights. Their Shanghai movies had blended the martial arts, Western, and comedy genres, and the idea was to do something similar here: mix martial arts fantasy elements with the established Mummy elements of horror, comedy, and action adventure. Like Sommers drew from Egyptian history when writing scripts, Gough and Millar drew from Chinese history, basing the bad guy on the first emperor of China. Their story begins in ancient China, when the country was torn by civil war. A ruthless king conquered his adversaries to become emperor. He enslaved his enemies and forced them to build the Great Wall. Mystics taught him how to master the five elements; fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. But even with all his power, he couldn’t stop himself from aging. Seeking the secret of eternal life, he enlisted a witch named Zi Yuan to find the Oracle of Bones, a collection of mystical secrets. Including the secret to immortality. The emperor planned to make Zi Yuan his queen, but she fell in love with his second-in-command, General Ming Guo. When the emperor found out about this, he had Ming killed. So Zi Yuan placed a curse on the emperor and his army, turning them into terracotta statues.
In early drafts, the emperor’s story was more closely tied to the story of the mummy in the previous films. He sought the secret of eternal life in the Egyptian city of Hamunaptra and the spells came from a copy of the Book of the Dead, not the Oracle of Bones. But rewrites distanced the story from its predecessors and simplified some of the action, weakening the Dragon Emperor’s supernatural powers. While adding in an ability to shape-shift. The writers initially envisioned the story as taking place in 1940, seven years after the events of The Mummy Returns, in the midst of World War 2. Rick and his wife Evelyn were going to be working as spies for the British government when they stumble into the story of the Dragon Emperor. But the setting was pushed back to 1946. Just after the war. Rick and Evelyn did work as spies, but we missed that part of their lives. Now Evelyn is an author, writing romantic adventure novels that feature villainous mummies. And Rick is struggling with a boring life of domesticity. Their adult son Alex is the adventurer now. Tossed out of college, he’s participating in an archaeological dig in China that unearths the tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
Rick and Evelyn catch up with Alex when they’re asked to take an artifact called the Eye of Shangri-La to China. This contains water from the mystical valley of Shangri-La and can be used to point the way to the Pool of Eternal Life. Believing the Dragon Emperor is what China needs in the wake of the war, a rogue military general resurrects the mummy and they set out for the Pool of Eternal Life. Rick, Evelyn, and Alex have to stop the Dragon Emperor from gaining immortality and using his Terracotta Army to conquer the world. They’re aided in this mission by Evelyn’s brother Jonathan, who runs a mummy-themed nightclub in China; a pilot called Mad Dog Maguire; and a mysterious woman named Lin, who wields a cursed dagger she says can kill the Dragon Emperor. She’s also able to communicate with the yetis that live in the Himalayas. So we get some Abominable Snowman action in this movie, too.
Universal’s biggest franchises are the Jurassic films and the Fast and Furious series, so they turned to Jurassic and Fast and Furious directors when they needed to replace Sommers. Their first choice was Joe Johnston, who had made Jurassic Park 3 for them. But he passed on The Mummy 3. Soon after, he did agree to direct a reboot of The Wolfman. The next choice was Rob Cohen, director of The Fast and the Furious. When Cohen first heard what he was being offered, he was skeptical. He doesn’t even direct sequels to his own movies; why would he want to make a Mummy sequel? But then he saw what Gough and Millar had written – and this turned out to be the right script at the right time.
Cohen had been developing a new version of The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad for Columbia Pictures. It was set in eighth-century China, with Sinbad – to be played by Keanu Reeves – searching for the Lamp of Aladdin. On this quest, he would meet a beautiful empress, battle fantastical creatures, and face off with a rebellious Chinese general who had supernatural powers. That project fell apart. And The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was so close to what Cohen wanted to do with The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, he couldn’t turn it down. He took the job – and, as the Dragon Emperor, he cast the actor he had in mind for that supernaturally powered Chinese general: Jet Li. Who Gough and Millar had written for when they worked on Lethal Weapon 4.
Brendan Fraser was locked in to reprise the role of Rick O’Connell, with John Hannah returning as Rick’s brother-in-law Jonathan. Luke Ford was cast as Rick and Evelyn’s son Alex, and he signed a contract for multiple films. There was a possibility that this movie could serve as a passing of the torch from Rick to Alex and Alex would be the lead in future sequels. Isabella Leong was cast Lin, who becomes Alex’s love interest as the story plays out. Liam Cunningham was cast as Mad Dog Maguire, Russell Wong as the ill-fated General Ming Guo, and Anthony Wong, Jessey Meng, and David Calder as the villains who conspire to resurrect the Dragon Emperor. To cast the emperor’s nemesis Zi Yuan, Cohen chose another superstar of Hong Kong cinema to take on Jet Li: Michelle Yeoh. Speaking with Fangoria, Yeoh revealed, “What drew me to the role was Rob’s respect toward Chinese culture, the Mummy series, and the fun-loving adventure this film was presenting. … I read the script and it was about the terracotta warriors, and them coming back to life. I like the way the film uses history, and these kinds of stories can appeal to the younger generation. I’d love to pique their curiosity with something like this, where they can say, ‘Wow, how cool is Shanghai or China, and how cool is the Great Wall and the emperor who could do this.’ Hopefully, this movie will make them want to know more about these parts of Chinese culture and history.”
Rachel Weisz was asked to return as Evelyn. Some reports say she didn’t like the script. Others say she didn’t want to spend months filming in China when she had a child at home. Whatever the reason, she chose not to play Evelyn a third time. She was replaced by Maria Bello, fresh off her role in A History of Violence. Many fans were disappointed that Weisz didn’t come back. Bello has a very different look and vibe than the actress she was replacing, so it is jarring to see her in the role. As Bello has said, this Evelyn “has the same name, but she is quite a different character. (Rob Cohen) created a new Evelyn.”
Cohen was not a fan of goofy humor or slapstick, both of which had been prevalent in the previous films. So he allowed the film to have a sense of humor, but removed some of the jokes and silliness. He was aiming to make something that was still exciting, but more grounded, with an emotional family story at its core. The tone of Raiders of the Lost Ark was his guide. While some scenes were shot in England and Canada, much of the production took place throughout China. And the cast and crew had to deal with some intense conditions while working there. But Cohen named the script revisions and the special effects as the biggest challenges. The movie has over nine hundred visual effects shots, with most of those coming in the climactic sequence. Two months before the release date, there were still three hundred effects shots left to complete.
But the effects companies got the work done, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was released in August of 2008. It was a bit less successful than the previous movies. The Mummy had cost eighty million dollars and made four-hundred and seventeen million at the box office. The Mummy Returns cost ninety-eight million and made four-hundred and thirty-five million. The budget for this one was substantially higher; one hundred and forty-five million. But its box office haul was lower; just under four hundred and six million. Still, it did well financially. Where it really fell short was in the reception from critics and movie-goers. Rotten Tomatoes reports that only sixty-two percent of the first movie’s reviews were positive, but the audience score was seventy-five percent positive. Just forty-six percent of The Mummy Returns reviews were positive, but the audience score was still at sixty-three. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor fell short in both categories. Only thirteen percent of the reviews were positive, while the audience score fell to thirty percent. Fans were let down.
Universal considered making another sequel for a while. Brendan Fraser might have battled Antonio Banderas in The Mummy:Rise of the Aztecs… but it wasn’t to be. That idea was scrapped in favor of the 2017 reboot starring Tom Cruise. Which turned out to be a bigger disappointment for the studio, even though it also made four hundred million at the box office. As far as fans and critics were concerned, the Rick O’Connell era of Mummy movies came to an underwhelming conclusion… But there are still some holding on to hope that Fraser will return to the franchise someday. So they can follow Rick on another mummy-filled adventure. They might get their wish. But for now, at least we have an entire Rick O’Connell trilogy to turn to any time we want to see some crazy mummy action.
A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
A couple of months ago, it was announced that Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, Madame Web) and Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls, Jennifer’s Body) were in final negotiations to star in the psychological thriller The Housemaid for Lionsgate and director Paul Feig, whose credits include Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters, and A Simple Favor. At the end of last month, Lionsgate let it be known that they’ll be releasing the film on Christmas Day 2025. Filming is now underway, and official Housemaid Movie X account has marked the occasion by sharing a behind-the-scenes video that shows Sweeney, Seyfried, Feig, and others on set, with the images accompanied by audio lifted from a review of the source material, a successful novel by Freida McFadden.
Sweeney and Seyfried are joined in the cast by Brandon Sklenar (It Ends With Us, 1923) and Michele Morrone (365 Days, Subservience). The film has the following synopsis: In The Housemaid, Millie (Sydney Sweeney) is a struggling young woman who is relieved to get a fresh start as a housemaid to Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), an upscale, wealthy couple. She soon learns that the family’s secrets are far more dangerous than her own. Rebecca Sonnenshine wrote the screenplay adaptation.
Feig is producing the film with Todd Lieberman, Carly Kleinbart Elter, and Laura Fischer. Sweeney, Seyfried, and McFadden serve as executive producers with Alex Young.
Lionsgate Motion Picture Group co-president Erin Westerman provided the following statement when the project was first announced: “Part of the fun of the book was imagining the cast while we read it, and Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried are perfect for Millie and Nina — they’re both mysterious, nuanced, and incredibly skilled at becoming characters who don’t reveal everything right away. We’re thrilled to team them with Paul Feig, who we worked with on A Simple Favor and its upcoming sequel, and has a proven track record of developing stories with dynamic female leads.“
Adam Fogelson, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair, added: “I’m thrilled to have The Housemaid join our upcoming slate. A great filmmaker and a great cast with a great script from a great book is a terrific place to start. My prior work experiences with Paul and Amanda have been nothing short of spectacular, and Sydney is as talented and compelling as can be.“
If The Housemaid does well at the box office next December, there’s franchise potential here, as the novel has already received multiple follow-ups: The Housemaid’s Secret, The Housemaid’s Wedding, and The Housemaid is Watching.
Are you glad to see that The Housemaid is now filming? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
