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‘Interview with the Vampire’ Hit Theaters 25 Years Ago Today
It was November 11, 1994, and Neil Jordan’s decadent adaptation of Anne Rice’s bestselling novel Interview with the Vampire was set to bring the author’s famed vampires to life for the first time on the big screen.
With an estimated budget of $60 million, the film opened number one at the box office with $36.4 million going on to take in $105 million in the US and a total of $224 million worldwide thanks in large part to the combination of Rice’s die hard fans and the brilliant casting which brought together some of the biggest stars at the time.
The film told the story of Louis (Brad Pitt), a centuries old vampire who, late one evening, decides to tell the story of his life in darkness to a young reporter (Christian Slater) which began one fateful night when he caught the attention of the foppish and sensual vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise).
Audiences were captivated by the story and the portrayal of Rice’s vampires by its leading cast. They seemed especially taken by young Kirsten Dunst as the child vampire Claudia. Dunst was eventually nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the film.
Casting for the film also boasted Antonio Banderas (Evita), Stephen Rea (The Crying Game), and Thandie Newton (Westworld).
Critical reviews were mixed though they leaned toward the positive.
“Although one of the characters in “Interview with the Vampire” begs to be transformed into a vampire, and eagerly awaits the doom of immortality, the movie never makes vampirism look like anything but an endless sadness,” famed film critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun Times. “That is its greatest strength. Vampires throughout movie history have often chortled as if they’d gotten away with something. But the first great vampire movie, “Nosferatu” (1922), knew better, and so does this one.”
The film seemed to spark the imagination due in large part to its aesthetic heightened by Elliot Goldenthal’s exquisite score, and fans continue to adore it 25 years later even as news of a new adaptation based on Rice’s entire Vampire Chronicles looms.
If you haven’t seen Interview with the Vampire in a while, it’s time to break out the DVD and give it an anniversary watch.
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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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‘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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