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flanaganfilm · 2 years

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Hello and Howdy Mr. Mike Flanagan! I'm excited to see you here on our humble hellsite. I have so much to say and ask about your netflix shows but for the moment, I want to ask about Doctor Sleep because I enjoyed that movie immensely - it filled me with a pleasant sense of dread, which possibly makes no sense, or a lot of sense.

What was that creative process like? Reconciling book and movie canons, following Kubrick's legacy, working with Ewan and Rebecca and Zahn and everyone else. I'm obsessed with King adaptations and I'm just fascinated with Doctor Sleep.

Alright! Buckle up for yet another long read.

Thank you for your question, and for this opportunity to go back and talk about DOCTOR SLEEP. It's a very special film to me, and a very special time in my life as well.

It all started with a general meeting with Jon Berg at Warner Bros.

The meeting itself started pretty wild - Adrien Brody walked out of the office as I was waiting to go in. Jon introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes, and I was a little out of whack for the rest of the meeting because I had a very potent "wow that was Adrien Brody" buzz going.

We were meant to talk about DC Comics and see if there was anything to do there. I was really hoping to chat about a horror-slanted Clayface movie, and about my favorite superhero: Superman.

Neither conversation went very far. I had just finished GERALD'S GAME, and Jon was a King fan, so he asked about the production. And then he asked if I'd ever read Warners' script for DOCTOR SLEEP.

I had. In fact, I had tried very hard to get a meeting at the studio when the book was first published. Warners owned the rights to DOCTOR SLEEP outright - it was part of their deal going all the way back to THE SHINING - so they immediately began looking into movie options when the book was published. Akiva Goldsman had written a script, and it was one of the first projects I asked about when I signed with WME as a client years before. "That isn't going anywhere," they told me. "I don't think that movie gets made."

They had tried to get me the meeting anyway, but no one at Warners responded. I never got in the room.

But now, here I was. What did I have to lose at this point?

"I did read it," I said. "I'd take a different approach." Jon sat back and smiled. "I love the book, Rose is one of the great villains of all time," he said. I agreed. He probed. "What's wrong with the script?"

"I don't think it follows the book closely enough."

"What would you do?"

"I'd do the book. Streamline it, combine some characters, and you'd have to rethink the True Knot a bit. But otherwise, just do the book. As long as it's a three-hander between Danny, Abra and Rose it'll work. With one big asterisk."

"What's that?"

"I think you have to bring back the hotel. Kubrick's hotel, I mean."

Jon smiled wider. "Yeah, it's a bummer the hotel burned down. King goes out of his way at the start of the book to emphasize that - no Overlook, look no further."

This was my biggest gripe with the book.

I said "When I read the book, all I could see was Kubrick's hotel. I think you do the book as close as you possibly can, until the big fight at the end. Instead of it taking place in an empty field, let it be in the hotel."

Jon: "Do you think King will be upset if you change his ending? You know how feels about THE SHINING, right?"

Me: "What if we gave him THAT ending? What if we let Danny have Jack's ending? Jack sacrificed himself to save his family and destroy the Overlook - why not let Danny do that? Change the ending, sure, but give him the ending Kubrick denied him."

We shook hands, and I called my producing partner Trevor Macy to tell him it was a good general, but nothing was coming out of my DC meeting. By the time I'd made it back to my car, though, Jon had reached out to Stephen King and asked if he'd be interested in me taking a swing at it. Steve, who had enjoyed GERALD'S GAME, said yes.

I was immediately petrified when the call came in that they might want to engage me on a rewrite of DOCTOR SLEEP, with a directorial attachment. I'd have to rewrite the script from scratch, and I kind of felt like they were calling my bluff. But the deal was made and quite suddenly I was adapting DOCTOR SLEEP.

First order of business was to make King aware of what I intended to do. I had just established a tentative relationship with my hero over GERALD'S GAME, and the last thing - the very last thing in the world I ever wanted - was to upset him. We weren't in direct communication, we spoke through agents and emails at this point - but I had to make him aware of the Overlook thing.

I put together a proposal that outlined what I wanted to do - use Kubrick's visual language, and keep the Overlook standing as a setting for the final battle. The initial feedback we got was "no." King really, really didn't like Kubrick's film, and his priority was to adapt DOCTOR SLEEP - not to revisit THE SHINING.

I told him that if he didn't want me to do it, I wouldn't - I'd walk away from the movie before I made something he hated. But as a last ditch effort, I said "imagine the Overlook, decrepit and rotten. And imagine Dan Torrance having walk in to 'wake it up,' the lights coming on above his head as he walks the halls. He finds his way to the Gold Room. To the familiar bar, where an empty glass is waiting for him. And we see a familiar bartender ready to pour for him, saying 'good evening Mister Torrance.' What if that bartender is his father?"

After a bit of a delay, King got back to us. "Do it," he said.

Writing the script was tough. I immediately felt like I had stepped into a very unsafe space. "This is going to piss everybody off," I figured. Kubrick fans would be livid that the movie was being made. King fans might be angry that Kubrick's imagery was being homaged. There was no way to please everyone, so I set about writing the movie I wanted to see most.

It was a slightly nauseous feeling that would stay with me until the movie came out.

I sat down to write with a hardcover copy of DOCTOR SLEEP to my right, and a hardcover copy of THE SHINING to my left. I read both cover to cover, sticking post-its throughout the pages with ideas, or flagging lines of dialogue (or even prose) that I wanted to protect. I managed to put together a basic outline for the movie, which was intimidating and sprawling.

I finally finished the draft and sent it off to Warner Bros. and King at the same time. I was shooting THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE at the time, and thought it would take a long while and a few more iterations before SLEEP would go anywhere, if it ever did.

Warner Bros. shocked us all by coming back with a green light. I've been told that it was one of the fastest green lights in the recent history of the studio, and I believe it.

It happened so fast, in fact, that Steve hadn't read the script yet. I got an email from him on a Friday saying "I read the first half, and I absolutely love it - my son's getting married, so I'll pick it up in a week or so and finish it, but great so far!" I was nauseous... because I knew everything that King was likely to hate was in the second half.

When he finally did finish reading it, about a week later, he reached out and said:

"I think it's really good. In my experience, this is the kind of script studios don't make, because it's TOO good. Hopefully I'm wrong. But no matter how it turns out, thanks for treating me so well. - Steve"

I had the distinct pleasure of being able to write him back and tell him that Warner Bros. had just greenlit the movie. And we were off to the races.

The pressure was enormous. They were spending a lot of money on this movie, and because of the insane box office success of IT: CHAPTER ONE, expectations were very high.

We were given access to Kubrick's blueprints for the Overlook hotel set, which were still held at Warner Bros. While we set about rebuilding the sets, our attention turned to casting.

For Dan, we met with a handful of actors: Dan Stevens, Chris Evans, Matt Smith, and Jeremy Renner all came in to chat about the movie. But Ewan McGregor, who himself was eight years sober (just like Dan), was the obvious choice. "Let's not talk about the Shining yet," he said. "I want to talk about recovery." He was the guy.

For Rose the Hat, we talked with several actresses, including Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, and my dear friend Karen Gillan - but Rebecca Ferguson knocked our socks off on a 90-minute zoom meeting, and the part was hers.

Finding Abra Stone was more difficult - we auditioned more than 900 girls for the part. We'd narrowed it down to a half-dozen very promising and successful young actresses, including Lulu Wilson (who I'd worked with several times before and adore), but Kyliegh Curran's self-tape audition rose to the very top of the pile. Ewan flew to Atlanta to read with our final picks, and when Kyliegh - who lived 15 minutes from our office, was local casting, and had never booked a job before - finished reading, he turned to us and said "I mean it's her, right?" It absolutely was.

When we cast her, we invited her back to the office after school one day to get oriented. The crew was so excited for her that they decorated the production office in her honor.

As the rest of the cast fell in, we started doing our camera tests and getting excited about what we were putting together. My feeling over overwhelming nausea only got stronger.

We started shooting in September of 2018. The shoot was long, but never exhausting. The cast and crew were uniformly pleasant and happy to be there, and after the soul-crushing slog that had been THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, it was a relief to enjoy working again.

Kate was pregnant with our daughter Theo at the time. She visited as much as she could, but finally couldn't travel any more. Being away from Kate and our son Cody was hard, but I'm so grateful that we got to share some time on set together.

All things considered, this was a smooth shoot. But something happened for me while we were making it that would change the course of my life forever.

See, THE SHINING is about alcoholism. King wrote it while in the throes of his own addiction, and it is a novel about the anxiety he felt about what he could potentially do to his family if left unchecked. It's one of the reasons he was so upset with Kubrick's adaptation - all of that was taken away. This is a profoundly personal story for King.

When he wrote DOCTOR SLEEP, he was decades sober. The story of DOCTOR SLEEP is the story of recovery. This was something that Ewan knew very well, and why he was perfect for the part. He knew what the journey felt like. He wasn't alone - there were a number of cast and crew members on this shoot that were sober. In fact, just about all of the actors who played main characters were sober. I was still drinking at the time, though it had already become obviously problematic in my life, I hadn't taken any meaningful steps to change it.

This photograph was taken on 10/12/2018. This was taken on the day I got sober. I quit cold turkey, in the middle of production. I was clinging to vices at the time. Note not only the cigarette in my hand (I was smoking almost 2 packs a day), but the ash tray that had been rigged to the top of my viewfinder by the camera department. (I don't smoke anymore either, just about four years without cigs as well... and I still miss them.)

I had been writing about addiction for a decade. It was all over my work, going all the way back to ABSENTIA. I didn't realize just how much I was writing about myself, and I still can't believe it took me this long.

I vividly recall writing the scene between Dan and Jack at the bar. My wife pointed out to me after the fact that she could see it then, that something was changing in me when it came to drinking. Something was waking up, and I was processing a desperate need to sober up. That scene represents an internal conversation that is profoundly personal to me. It's still my favorite scene of the movie.

I've been sober now for over 4 years. DOCTOR SLEEP helped me finally make that decision. I finished the shoot sober, and came home to my life with a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. But with the unflinching support of my incredible wife, and some amazing friends, my life started to really blossom. It was pretty immediately evident that this was one of the best decisions I'll ever make.

Meanwhile, though, I had to finish DOCTOR SLEEP.

I LOVED the movie we'd made, but I was still terrified of what King would think of it - not to mention Kubrick's estate.

When we finished the cut, I flew to Bangor to screen the finished film for Steve. It was the first I'd meet him in person, and one of the most insanely exciting and humbling days of my life.

We watched the movie together, and I was acutely aware of each and every little reaction he had throughout.

(With Trevor Macy, my producing partner at Intrepid)

When the show as over, Steve turned to me and said "You did a beautiful job." And ultimately, he added that this film had made him warm up to the Kubrick movie as well.

A week later, we heard from Kubrick's estate that they had also loved the movie.

With King's blessing, and Kubrick's family, I felt that nausea finally subside. I said to Kate, "that's it. That's all that matters. Doesn't matter if the movie crashes and burns - we already won the important battle."

And then, the movie crashed and burned.

A group of us went to see it opening night at Arclight Hollywood (my favorite theater). We were just about the only people there. And I knew immediately that we were going to have a bad weekend.

The movie didn't perform very well. Warner Bros. was disappointed, and ended up scrapping the Dick Hallorann movie we were planning, as well as the Overlook Hotel prequel.

I was pretty crest-fallen. I'd spent years tossing and turning over whether audiences would be divided between the King and Kubrick camps. I'd been petrified that they'd be furious, venomous, run me out on a rail... I'd never considered that they'd be utterly disinterested. Apathy wasn't even on my radar.

Steve called me the Monday after opening weekend with some words of encouragement. "I remember when THE SHINING bombed," he said. "And SHAWSHANK. Give it some time. It'll find its audience. It's a really good movie."

That has turned out to be true. While it didn't set the world on fire theatrically, the movie has over-performed on VOD and streaming. And when Warner Bros. released the Directors Cut (I'm still so grateful that they did that), it popped even more.

So yes, to answer your question - the pressures were enormous. I hope this paints a little picture of what it was like. The biggest gift I got out of it, though, was sobriety.

I reached out to King a year later, on my first sober birthday. I hadn't told him I was sober, but it felt like time to do it. I got to thank him. "I never told you this, but I sobered up while we were shooting DOCTOR SLEEP, and I don't think I would have done it without your words. Living in that story, and marinading in the concepts of recovery and redemption made it possible. I just want to thank you."

He wrote back his congratulations, and then mentioned "as it happens, I'm off to celebrate 30 years myself. It only gets better and better."

And he is absolutely right.

DOCTOR SLEEP was the perfect project for me after the nightmare that was HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. I fell in love with making movies again. And I found a new and wonderful gear for my life. It has only made everything better - my marriage, my work, my experience walking around on planet earth. I'm so grateful for it.

When I think of DOCTOR SLEEP, I think of Ewan sitting at the bar and looking at the glass in his hand. "Man takes a drink, drink takes a drink... and then the drink takes the man. Ain't it so, dad."

Ewan understood those words better than I did when I typed them into the script. I understand them much better now.

There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not profoundly grateful for my time at the Overlook. And for myriad of ways my life has been changed because of it.

#doctor sleep #sobriety #behind the scenes #behind the scene photo #ewan mcgregor #stephen king #rebecca ferguson #grateful #warner bros #the shining #featured

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mask131 · 9 months

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There's still a haunt on the hill...

In my previous post, I dug through the ghostly chain of adaptations of Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" starting by its various movie incarnations. But I am not done...

Because in 2018, Mike Flanagan released on Netflix his massively successful television series, "The Haunting of Hill House".

Flanagan's television series was strongly influenced by "The Shining", another major haunting-story of the 20th century, first marking American literature under the pen of Stephen King...

... Then marking American cinema by the movie adaptation of Stanley Kubrick.

Mike Flanagan never hid his passion and love for "The Shining", both the Kubrick and King versions, and it is for this reason he was the man behind the 2019 movie "Doctor Sleep"....

... an adaptation of Stephen King's sequel-novel to The Shining.

And fascinatingly, a lot of details and ideas of Flanagan's "The Haunting of Hill House" (or its sister-series, "The Haunting of Bly Manor") were reused for his Doctor Sleep movie...

But, speaking of Stephen King, did you know he made his own "The Haunting of Hill House"? Well, almost... He and Steven Spielberg worked on a project in the 1990s: a remake of The Haunting/a new movie adaptation of "The Haunting of Hill House". Unfortunately this movie never came to the light of day, as the two men split apart due to creative differences...

However this did not stop Stephen King from reusing the unused/unfinished script/concept for his "Haunting of Hill House" adaptation, throwing in a lot of elements from his own "The Shining", with several nods to the real-life Winchester Mansion, and tadaa! The result was 2002's mini-series "Rose-Red".

Stephen King has very often praised Jackson's novel. In fact, in his eyes it is one of the two greatest ghost stories of American literature... Alongside Henry James' The Turn of the Screw.

Do you recall Henry James? Sure you do! From the previous post... He wrote the "Ghostly Rental" story, that itself got adapted in 1999 into a horror movie called "The Haunting of Hell House" - confusing Jackson's "Hill House" with Matheson's "Hell House".

Do the links stop here? NOT AT ALL! Flanagan's "The Haunting of Hill House" was supposed to be the first season of an anthology series about ghost stories. This project got cancelled, but not before a sister-series to "The Haunting of Hill House" was made... a second season called "The Haunting of Bly Manor", which is a loose adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw".

AND THERE'S MORE! Because you see, before being re-adapted by Mike Flanagan, "The Turn of the Screw"'s most famous adaptation was a 1961 movie called "The Innocents". A movie which also became a classic of black-and-white haunted house horror movies, just like "The Haunting" that was released two years afterward... Film critics, cinema theoricians and movie enjoyers all agree that the two movies have to be compared, with something of a sibling relationship to each other.

"The Turn of the Screw" - and more specifically the 1961's "The Innocents" movie - also had a huge influence on one of the greatest Spanish moviemakers of the 21st century: Guillermo del Toro. In fact, it was to pay homage to both the classic of Gothic that was "The Innocents", and the behemoth of the traditional horror that was Kubrick's The Shining, that he decided to create his own Gothic horror movie... The wonderfully horrifying "Crimson Peak", released in 2015.

And not only does Crimson Peak unites The Turn of the Screw with The Shining (Guillermo also invoked the influence of other massive horror movies, such as The Omen or The Exorcist) - but this movie also is the final union, the ultimate blooming of Jackson and James' works. Because del Toro's original intention for this movie was to pay homage to the "two grand dames" of the haunted house movies... 1961's The Innocents, and 1963's The Haunting. The two ghostly tragedies finally united in one Gothic movie...

Well... To be fair, the uniting of "The Haunting of Hill House" and of "The Turn of the Screw" had already happened long before del Toro's Crimson Peak, but with a much less famous and successful movie: 1971's Let's Scare Jessica to Death... A cult piece (despite its lukewarm reception), it was created with only one goal in mind: recreating a psychological horror story with ambiguous implications, in the style of James' The Turn of the Screw, and Robert Wise's The Haunting.

(Think we're done? FOOL! Just you wait...)

#the haunting of hill house #mike flanagan #stephen king #shining #the shining #horror movies #rose red #guillermo del toro #crimson peak #let's scare jessica to death #the turn of the screw #the innocents #the haunting of bly manor

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toxicanonymity · 6 months

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Hi!😊 What are your favourite horror books, shows and or movies? I'm not very familiar with the genre, but when I was a teenager I was hooked on The Fear Street series (R. L. Stine) and Stephen King books (my faves are Salem's Lot and Pet Cemetery). Recently I read the book with the long title about vampires by Grady Hendrix and I also loved it. As for TV shows I love Mike Flanagan's stories 💚

Fun question! I'm gonna answer it without too much thought, knowing I'm leaving off some faves. Otherwise I'd take forever and make it less fun 🥲. In no particular order. . .italic = added later.

Books - I know that Grady Hendrix one 😅 - "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires," I liked it too. And Pet Sematary as well. As a kid, I really enjoyed Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and imo the books hold up lol. I was also into Goosebumps. I like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and the miniseries. Horror-adjacent: The Snowman by Jo Nesbø; Sharp Objects by Gyllian Flynn (loved the miniseries, too). When I travel, I pick up a local ghost/hauntings book. Love folklore and urban legends.

Shows: Black Mirror, Dark, Hannibal, Yellowjackets s 1-2, Archive 81 (Matt McGorry is daddy). American Horror Story s1 Murder House. Dark Shows - Bordertown (Finnish). Maniac (sci-fi, the aesthetic scratches my brain soooo good).

Dark Non-fiction: series: Chernobyl, Dopesick, Dahmer, Murder Mountain. Unsolved Mysteries. Movies: The good nurse

Movies, skipping most of the classics: Coherence. The Bad Batch. The Guest. Barbarian. The Night House. Hell House LLC. The Lodge. The Endless. We Are Still Here. It Comes at Night. The Witch. Lake Mungo. mother!. Donnie Darko. Haunting in Connecticuit. The killing of a sacred deer. 10 Cloverfield Lane. The Menu. Candyman (both). [My idea of] Fun: M3gan, Us, Malignant, Terrifier 2, Bodies bodies bodies, It Follows, Thanksgiving, Green Inferno, Happy Death Day. And of course any I've written for.

Honorable mentions for physical effect: When Evil Lurks (Argentinian) made me physically gag out loud in the theater. I thirst-watched The Cursed and it gave me a nightmare (boyd wasn't in it ☹️). Tales from the Loop (sci fi series) made me sob.

I welcome no-pressure recommendations! More likely to try shows/movies.

#horror!ask #books #movies #shows #toxask

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haveyouseenthishorrormovie · 10 months

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do u have any horror recs for other mediums? tv, podcasts, books, youtube shorts, etc

I'm really gonna show my ass in this regard because most of my recommendations are going to be TV shows or short stories because I haven't branched out much beyond that if I'm honest.

I love The Haunting of Hill House (Nell Crain is my favourite horror character full stop) and The Fall of the House of Usher from Mike Flanagan (most of his shows are incredible but these two are my favourite).

THOHH: Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

TFOTHOU: To secure their fortune (and future) two ruthless siblings build a family dynasty that begins to crumble when their heirs mysteriously die, one by one.

The Exorcist (2016) was great!

The Exorcist follows two very different priests tackling one family's case of horrifying demonic possession. Father Tomas Ortega is the new face of the Catholic Church: progressive, ambitious and compassionate. He runs a small, but loyal, parish in the suburbs of Chicago. Father Marcus Keane is an orphan raised since childhood by the Vatican to wage war against its enemies. He is everything Father Tomas is not: relentless, abrasive and utterly consumed by his mission.

I really liked American Horror Story: Asylum, can't say the same for the other seasons.

AHS: Asylum takes place in 1964 and follows the stories of the staff and inmates who occupy the fictional mental institution Briarcliff Manor, and intercuts with events in the past and present.

I also liked a few South Korean shows I saw on Netflix.

Kingdom (2019): While strange rumors about their ill King grip a kingdom, the crown prince becomes their only hope against a mysterious plague overtaking the land.

All of Us Are Dead (2022): A high school becomes ground zero for a zombie virus outbreak. Trapped students must fight their way out or turn into one of the rabid infected.

Hellbound (2021): People hear predictions on when they will die. When that time comes, a death angel appears in front of them and kills them.

I loved Interview with a Vampire (especially because it does everything the movie didn't, which is why I didn't like the movie). it's very gay, it plays heavily into the themes of vampirism and sexuality, and I love Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson as Lestat and Louis.

In terms of other media, I really like the Dead Meat channel (if I haven't said it enough already), I also like the Scream Dreams Podcast with Catherine Corcoran (from Terrifier), James A. Janisse (from Dead Meat) and Barbara Crampton (prolific and stunning horror actor).

I know it's a little over done now, but that original series of 'The Backrooms' by KanePixels was great.

Some other horror channels/channels that explore horror as well as other topics are SpookyRice, MistaGG, Wendigoon, ElvisTheAlien, BionicPIG, Trin Lovell, KennieJD, MertKayKay, and AmandaTheJedi.

With books, I'm such a basic bitch, so I've really only read Stephen King's horror books. I'm not sure of this is horror or just very bleak and depressing but I'm Thinking of Ending Things was an incredible reading experience. And at this point it goes without saying House of Leaves is so fucking mindblowing!

H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe were terrible people, but their short stories are truly so dark and well-written, the cosmic horror Lovecraft is known translates best in his writing. Ambrose Bierce is the father of psychological horror as we know it, his short stories are great. My favourite short horror story is The Yellow Wallpaper. If you are interested in an audio version of it, listen to Chelsea from the Dead Meat channel with headphones (headphones are vital to that experience).

That's all I can think of off the top of my head for now! I'm sure others will give their own recommendations.

#not a poll #ask #recommendations #ask the mods #og mod

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fanofspooky · 4 months

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“This monster was real, real as they come. As real as the cuffs, as the dog. As real as the eclipse.”

Gerald’s Game Dir. Mike Flanagan

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asteroidz · 1 year

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“Life was a wheel, its only job was to turn, and it always came back to where it started.” ― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

#doctor sleep #the shining #stephen king #ewan mcgregor #movies #horror #thriller #mike flanagan #stanley kubrick #horror books #horror movies #horror films #my gifs #by asteroidz #classic film #horror classic #teal #blue #yellow

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brian-in-finance · 18 days

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Video 📹 from Instagram

Image: Chris Smith / The Wrap

The 18 Buzziest Films for Sale at TIFF 2024

Mike Flanagan’s “Life of Chuck,” Angelina Jolie’s “Without Blood” and Ron Howard’s “Eden” are all looking for buyers in Toronto

While the Toronto International Film Festival won’t officially launch a sales market until 2026, this year kicks off on Thursday with multiple buzzy titles for sale starring the likes of Ben Stiller, Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law and Tom Hiddleston.

Hollywood descends upon the Canadian metropolis for starry world premieres and the unofficial start of awards season. But for years now TIFF has also been a place of serious business. Last year the Glen Powell rom-com “Hit Man” sold to Netflix for $20 million at the festival after a raucous screening.

“They’ve very much shaped this festival with a sales environment in mind,” Intrepid Pictures CEO Trevor Macy told TheWrap as he prepared to head to TIFF with the Hiddleston-fronted Stephen King adaptation “The Life of Chuck,” from writer/director Mike Flanagan. “It seems like buyers are showing up in force.”

And to prove his point, Sony Classics scooped up “Jane Austen Ruined My Life” on Tuesday ahead of the festival.

Over 270 films are on the market this year, and Macy said that the demand “for strong titles in this moment of the market is going to exceed the supply of what good distributors have made internally.” He pointed to the success of Neon’s “Longlegs” this summer — the Nicolas Cage horror film grossed over $100 million off a strong marketing campaign — as an indie that connected with moviegoers theatrically.

But Jay Cohen, a partner at Gersh who heads film financing and is selling titles at the festival, cautioned that studios may only be looking to buy must-have titles, not filling out their slates. “There are really interesting films going to TIFF, but distributors already have pretty full slates,” he told TheWrap. “So the market will be driven more by passion less than need.”

Which means that only top quality films with identifiable audiences will attract buyers. Still, one agent noted that many of the buzziest sales titles, while officially unsold, already have distribution deals that have not been announced.

Macy and Intrepid are aiming to utilize what TIFF brings to the table — specifically when it comes to audiences — to find the right distributor for “The Life of Chuck,” which is a detour for horror filmmaker Flanagan, best known for “The Haunting” series on Netflix and the “Shining” sequel film “Doctor Sleep.” The new film is more “Stand by Me” than “The Shining,” and buyers haven’t prescreened it at all, so they will be seeing it for the first time at its world premiere in Toronto.

“From the time we made this movie, our first choice was Toronto because of the audience,” Macy said of the decision to debut at TIFF. “Our movie is fun and life-affirming but kind of sophisticated, so you want the right audience for that.” He and Flanagan had success a decade ago with the indie horror film “Oculus,” which found a buyer in Toronto and grossed over $44 million against a budget of just $5 million. It jumpstarted Flanagan’s career.

Will “The Life of Chuck” have the same success? Here’s TheWrap’s rundown of that and 17 of the other buzziest sales titles playing at TIFF this year.

Nutcrackers • Eden • The Life of Chuck • The Deb • Without Blood • On Swift Horses • The Last Showgirl • K-Pops • Daniela Forever • All Of You • Ick • Relay • The Friend • The Last Republican • Vice Is Broke • From Ground Zero • The Assessment

The Wrap

Remember to follow the link to read synopses of the 17 other films.

#Tait rhymes with hat #Good times #The Cut #2024 #The Wrap #4 September 2024 #World Premiere #Special Presentation #49th #Toronto International Film Festival #TIFF #5-15 September 2024 #Toronto Ontario Canada #Instagram Story #My screenrecording

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thegalaxyonherlips · 4 months

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Hi, I know people don't do this often anymore, but I've found that it's my best way to follow new blogs. And I'm in need of active blogs to follow 😅 So, if you post about these things, please give this post a like so I could potentially follow!

- From (MGM TV series)

- Yellowjackets

- The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor

- the Fall of the House of Usher

- Any Mike Flanagan really

- Castle Rock

- What we do in the Shadows

- The Last of Us

- Horror Movies, specifically:

- Any Jordan Peele movies

- Any Ari Aster movies

- FNAF

- Any horror starring Melissa Barrera, Kathryn Newton, Samara Weaving, Jenna Ortega, Mia Goth, or Keke Palmer

- Stephen King adaptions

- The big boy franchises like:

- Halloween

- Friday the 13th

- Scream

- Final Destination

- Nightmare on Elm Street

- Chucky (Child's Play)

- Saw

- And books like:

- Anything by Stephen King

- Riley Sager

- Joe Hill

- Graham Masterton

- Grady Hendrix

- Dean Koontz

Thank you for this!

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byjillianmaria · 2 days

Text

As I dive into the umpteenth draft of A Colder Home, I decided to do a meta dump similar to the one I did for Behind You! Very similar, actually... you'll notice that all of the photos are more or less in the same place. And that is because I am lazy. But not too lazy to ramble about inspirations under the cut!

SONGS

Once again, my eight track playlist for this WIP goes extremely hard, and once again, I could easy ramble about all eight of those tracks. I will stick to the three I selected for this graphic.

This Unrest by Siouxsie and the Banshees - In general, I associate this WIP with a lot of post-punk and goth rock, so of course I had to lead with an iconic goth rock band. The lyrics are haunting and capture a feeling of deep unease, which is the sort of feeling that pervades this book. Also, there are a lot of weird vocalizations in this... gasping noises that sound like someone being strangled, along with echoing, ghostly shouts. Both become very relevant.

Blue by The Birthday Massacre - I started associating this song with A Colder Home immediately upon hearing it. It absolutely calls to mind a house haunted by ghosts that are slowly being twisted by their anger the longer they stick around, the singing switching back and forth between calm and violent. The lyrics even reference a car crash! And the notion of "casting shadows in a pale shade of blue" does remind me of limited light making its way through snow-caked windows...

Double Dare by Bauhaus - Okay, I'm going to be real with you. I don't associate the lyrics of this song so much with this WIP. I mean, if you want to stretch it, you can say that Cleo's whole arc deals with her learning to "dare" to hope and to not live her life ruled by fear, but that's about it. What really gets this song for me is the heavy, oppressive instrumental. It absolutely sounds like a house that's weighted down with decades of pain and anger and guilt... a house that is now reflecting those emotions in destructive, violent ways.

BOOKS

Writing that influenced A Colder Home! Like the books I referenced for Behind You, I wouldn't consider these comp titles, just inspirational.

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones - SGJ is such an influential horror writer for me, with The Only Good Indians probably being one of my favorite books of all time, and is also a heavy influence for A Colder Home as far as pacing and tone. I haven't actually finished MHIAC yet — I have to read it slowly, because Jade's specific flavor of paranoia does not play very nicely with mine — but I included it as the reference title here because, like A Colder Home, its main character is a teenaged horror movie nerd.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - I mean, Hill House is THE haunted house novel. Of course I'm going to include it as a reference! The opening paragraphs of this novel are burned into my mind, and its characterization of a haunted house definitely influences how I write the house on Brewer Street. I'd also be pretty remiss not to bring up the Mike Flanagan adaption here... while it's decidedly its own thing separate from the novel, his specific brand of emotionally-fueled horror writing has definitely left its mark on me.

The Shining by Stephen King - I mean. A Colder Home is a book about people trapped by snow in a haunted location. Need I say more? Interestingly, both of these books also deal with themes of alcoholism and addiction, although they come from very different emotional places. Cleo also references the Stanley Kubrick movie at one point, which is, again, very different from the book. But as a film nerd, I think it makes sense that she'd think of that over the book... I do also wonder if the film's less sympathetic portrayal of Jack Torrence might have stuck with her more. She probably wouldn't like me pointing that out, though.

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe - Another work that gets directly referenced in the book! It's not a direct comparison or anything, but it gets referenced early, and over time more parallels can be drawn... Overall, thematically, this borrows a lot when it comes to complicated family dynamics, skepticism vs. rationality, and that sort of overall inevitability/hopelessness thing that goes on.

VIDEO GAMES

I'm not much of a gamer myself, but the way that the medium is able to tell horror stories is fascinating! I've enjoyed watching Let's Plays of both of these titles.

P.T. by Kojima Productions - P.T. was a playable teaser for a (tragically) scrapped Silent Hill game, and it remains one of the absolute creepiest things I have ever seen in my life. The sound design haunts me... every time I hear something that sounds like that creaky light, I break out in goosebumps. I cannot replicate the feeling of this thing in ink and paper, but goddamn it if I'm not going to at least try. Also, you can definitely feel Lisa's design in Virginia, one of the main ghosts of A Colder Home, haha.

Devotion by Red Candle Games - I'm really fascinated by the way the story unfolds in this, how the player is given these little vignettes and has to piece the story together from that. I think you can sort of see that in the way I approach some of the ghost scenes in A Colder Home... but, also, I'm very inspired by just how personal this game feels. The little details in the set design just really add to the sense that you know these characters, and makes the scares hit all the harder.

POETRY

Poetry can express in just a few lines the same emotion that it takes me thousands of words to dig into! One is not better than the other, but I'd lie if I said I wasn't inspired by it.

In The Pines by Alice Notley - Technically, I think the version of it in this graphic is from the song #6 by AroarA, but they pulled their lyrics directly from Alice Notley's book of poetry, so I feel like that's where the attribution lies. This poem absolutely gutted me the first time I read it... It makes me think of loving someone who is unwilling or unable to stop their self-destructive tendencies, and how hopeless that can feel. Which is, really, what's at the core of this book.

Selfishness by Margaret E. Bruner - This book deals a lot with complex feelings of grief, and some of the less savory feelings that comes from that. Anger, guilt, blame... these are all really human and understandable reactions to a loss, especially if that loss is sudden. The horror in A Colder Home comes from watching what happens when those emotions are all that's left... I think that poem really captures that energy.

#project: a colder home #writeblr

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