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Star Wars and Horror
Star Wars and Horror
In celebration of May the 4th, let’s look at some of the connections between Star Wars and Horror.
Casting Carrie and Star Wars
Brian De Palma and George Lucas held auditions for Carrie and Star Wars at the same time. A lot of the young actors’ auditioned for both films. According to Carrie Fisher, De Palma interviewed the actors instead of Lucas. It has been long rumored that De Palma wanted Carrie for Carrie. But she would not do the nudity, Carrie Fisher denied this rumor. William Katt (Tommy Ross) almost got the part of Luke Skywalker. But the role went to Mark Hamill instead.
Frankenstein and the Monster
Star Wars, not the first time Peter Cushing and David Prowse worked together. They had both been in Hammer Studio’s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) Cushing portrayed Frankenstein and David Prowse was the monster.
Exorcist II and Star Wars
1977 was the same year James Earl Jones did his first voice as Darth Vader in Star Wars and portrayed Older Kokumo in Exorcist II. Now imagine James Earl Jones in the recording studio doing his voiceover in Star Wars in the Kokumo costume. Scary!
“When Linda Blair did the girl in The Exorcist, they hired Mercedes McCambridge to do the voice of the devil coming out of her. And there was controversy as to whether Mercedes should get credit. I was one who thought no, she was just special effects. So when it came to Darth Vader, I said, no, I’m just special effects. But it became so identified that by the third one, I thought, OK I’ll let them put my name on it.” James Earl Jones
Star Wars got Alien made
Riding high off the success of Star Wars 20th Century Fox needed a Sc-Fi follow up and the next script on the table was Alien. Ridley Scott himself revealed how Star Wars forced him to make Alien.
“I never saw or felt audience participation like that, in my life. The theater was shaking. When that Death Star came in at the beginning, I thought, I can’t possibly do Tristan and Isolde, I have to find something else. By the time the movie was finished, it was so stunning that it made me miserable. That’s the highest compliment I can give it; I was miserable for week. I hadn’t met George at that point, but I thought, Fu*k George. Then, somebody sent me this script called Alien. I said, wow. I’ll do it.” – Ridley Scott – Deadline
Count Dooku, Count Dracula
Christoper Lee turned down the role of Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars, that went to his good friend Peter Cushing. The both of them starred in Hammer Horror films together as Count Dracula and Van Heising. It is clear George Lucas was a fan of their work.
Phantasm, Captain Phasma
When J.J Abrams first saw Captian Phasma’s design, he felt it reminded him of the 1979 horror film Phantasm. Going so far to name the character in reference to the movie. Abrams being a fan actually helped with the 4k restoration of Phantasm.
Closing thoughts
It was a blast to look at some of the connections between Star Wars and Horror and if you think we missed something. You would be wrong we got lots more for another time. May the 4th be with you!
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
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.
“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:
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Movies
‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
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.
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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News
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
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.
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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