Guillermo del Toro talks adapting H.P. Lovecraft for television. AMC+ releases first look at its Baba Yaga mystery series. Crystal Lake confirms revised timeline for Jason Voorhees. Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment. It’s Morning Spoilers!
Cosmic Motors
According to Vulture, Netflix has parted ways with Skydance Animation following the lukewarm reception of Spellbound and arguments concerning the upcoming Ray Gunn. Consequently, John Lasseter’s Cosmic Motors—a project described as “Cars in space”—will now be released at Paramount.
Happy Death Day 3
In conversation with Deadline, Jessica Rothe revealed a story is in place for a third Happy Death Day, “we’re just waiting for Universal and Blumhouse to [give us] just a little money.”
So, Chris Landon and I have actually broken the whole story, which was really fun. We went to an undisclosed location—a Le Pain Quotidien in between our houses—and sat there for hours and broke the third movie. And now, we’re just waiting for Universal and Blumhouse to [give us] just a little money. This is a Deadline exclusive. You heard it here first.
We are dedicated to do the legwork on our end, in terms of developing it and getting it to where it needs to be so that it becomes a no-brainer for the studio. Chris feels really strongly, and I agree, he’s come up with an incredible, incredible end of the trilogy and a way to kind of perfectly cap the movies.
River
Speaking of Jessica Rothe, Screen Daily reports the actresses’ upcoming “brutal” slasher movie co-starring Jane Levy has been acquired by Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Atomic Monster in a deal “reportedly upwards of $10,000,000.”
Clayface
The official Clayface Instagram page has released a new poster.
Casket Girls
Deadline and theblkscript have our first look at Gabrielle Union in the upcoming vampire movie, Casket Girls, co-starring Mike Colter, Raúl Castillo, Matt Frewer, and Thomas Lennon.
Crystal Lake
According to Empire, Crystal Lake features brand-new opening title music from longtime Friday the 13th franchise composer, Harry Manfredini. The outlet additionally confirms the show is set eight years before the events of the first movie, creating an alternate timeline in which Jason did not drown on September 13, 1957, but instead in the summer of 1971.
Later in the same article, showrunner Brad Caleb Kane states despite focusing on a grieving Pamela Voorhees one year after her son’s apparent death, Jason Voorhees will become the masked rampage killer we all know and love before the end of the season.
All the Jason-as-slasher stuff hits much later in the season. But when it hits, it hits hard.
The series is the story of Pam in the immediate aftermath of losing the one person she considers her reason for living, so we wanted to explore that relationship and all the love so we’d fully understand how she became the woman we know from the first movie.
Empire also has two new images from the series—one of a machete-wielding Pamela, the second of a crouching Officer Dorf.
Lovecraft x del Toro
During a recent Reddit AMA (via Bloody-Disgusting), Guillermo del Toro revealed he’s potentially interested in adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing At the Doorstep (which he mistakenly titles The Thing On the Threshold after a related RPG), The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Outsider for television.
Most of his stories, by virtue of their length, are better adapted to one-hour television programs or 30-minute television programs. I would love to adapt The Thing On the Threshold, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, or The Outsider, which is a horror story that is point of view until the final image.
Those are the ones that scared me the most or disturbed me the most. At The Mountains is the only one, I think, that is a full feature.
But I think it’s hard to adapt Lovecraft, because he uses adjectives that are very open. So you’ve got to co-direct, so to speak, every image. And when you make them into film, they become very precise. To me, the best adaptation of Lovecraft is Ridley Scott’s Alien, which is basically Mountains of Madness. Second-best adaptation for me is The Thing. I know it’s not Lovecraft, but it’s very Lovecraftian in its makeup effects language. I love In the Mouth of Madness. I love Stuart Gordon’s Dagon. I love The Resurrected by Dan O’Bannon. It’s full of craziness. There are a few movies that have been done in the right way.
Yaga
Finally, our heroes discuss fairy smut in a new clip from Yaga, an upcoming series reimagining the myth of the Baba Yaga as a sexy season-long mystery premiering this October 23 on AMC+.
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