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Peter Sullivan Talks Stan Lee and “The Sandman”

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When Peter Sullivan was casting around for an idea for his new film, The Sandman, he didn’t just want to make a standard boogeyman movie.  In fact, after researching boogeymen from all around the world, it occurred to him that perhaps the way to go was to take a character whose lore wasn’t menacing at all and create a new monster all together.

“I don’t know if I heard the song on the radio, or how it suddenly occurred to me,” the writer/director explains.  “But suddenly the idea of the Sandman struck me, and I immediately began developing the script.”

It’s not a new concept, really.  The Tooth Fairy, the Gingerbread Man, Rumpelstilskin, and even Pinocchio have been given the horror treatment in the past.  What sets The Sandman apart from these other films lies in the powerful little girl who brings him to life.

“From the beginning, we had this discussion about our central character, Madison,” Sullivan says.  “We can give her a sinister power, but does that mean she’s evil herself?  You think of her like the Incredible Hulk.  The Hulk is a monster, but his human side isn’t at all.”

In his exploration of this idea, Sullivan realized that he was really writing an origin story, one that wouldn’t be out of place in the X-Men universe.  The story opened a door for the director that he’d wanted to walk through for a long time when Stan Lee, himself, came aboard as a producer.

“”We’ve been looking to do a project with Stan Lee for a while, now, and this seemed like just the right thing,” he says.  “It basically asks the question of what you would do if you had a super power you couldn’t control and there was no Professor Xavier around to help you.”

Mr. Lee quickly agreed to the project and before long, the other necessary elements began to fall into place in the shape of two horror icons and one very special actor to play Sullivan’s monster.

“We had a working relationship with Tobin Bell from a movie we’d done together before called Ominous,”  Sullivan pointed out about the star of the hugely successful Saw franchise.  “He was front and center in my mind when I was writing the character of Valentine.  He’s very ambiguous and Tobin plays that type of character extremely well.”

For the role of Dr. Amanda Elliot, the psychiatrist who has spent her career studying children with special abilities, Sullivan lucked out again with Amanda Wyss.  The actress who broke into the horror scene with the role of Tina in A Nightmare on Elm Street, seemed a perfect fit to Sullivan.  After all, the Sandman is a creature of dreams turned nightmare in his story and he and the actress both saw it as coming full circle.

It was in the casting of Mick Ignis as the titular creature, however, that the film really came together.

Mick Ignis (Instagram)

“When we were first discussing the role, we were going to use a stuntmen,” he says.  “But then Mick was brought to my attention and I brought him in.  After talking to him for about an hour, I just knew that he was the one who should play this role.”

Ignis, who you might have seen on “Stan Against Evil”, has a complete passion for playing creatures and brings more than expected to his roles.  Sullivan praised Ignis for disappearing into the role and also for his dedication and excitement about the film.

“He loves the process.  He’s like a kid in a candy store!  Everyday I’m getting texts from him about something he’s seen about the film and how excited he is.  He really has a terrific passion for what he does.”

When all the elements came together, Sullivan was able to create a film he can’t wait for you to see.  The Sandman will air on Syfy on October 14th with a DVD release after the first of the year.

Mark your calendars and don’t miss the premiere of this fun creature feature!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC5ygditmDs

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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