Posts

Buy / Wait / Rent: February 2019 Blu-Ray Releases

/0 Comments/in , , /by

We sift through the new release heap so you don’t have to!

Welcome to Horror News Network’s Buy / Wait / Rent, a monthly article devoted to the most highly-anticipated horror releases on blu-ray. Here you will find the best home video releases of each month, along with our opinion on whether each film is a must-own on the first day of release, something you should wait to buy until it goes on sale, or something you’re better off renting for a one-time watch. And now, on to the notable new releases of February 2019! read more

‘Escape Room’ Continues to Impress at Weekend Box Office

/0 Comments/in , /by

Adam Robitel’s Escape Room continued to defy expectations, finishing fifth at the weekend box office with an additional $8.9 million for a total of $32.5 million so far.

The film picked up where it left off last week, maintaining its theater count in spite of two new wide releases (The Upside and A Dog’s Way Home) and continued competition from Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, and Mary Poppins Returns.  Escape Room’s box office only declined 51% this week, which is a better than normal drop for most films. When compared to recent entries from the horror genre such as the Nazi zombie splatfest Overlord (which dropped 63% in its second weekend and finished with only a $41 million gross world-wide) and The Possession of Hannah Grace (with a similar decline, but much less in revenue, ending with only $35 million world-wide), Escape Room seems to be bucking typical trends and surviving in a crowded marketplace. read more

‘Overlord’ Finishes Third at Box Office; ‘Venom’ and ‘Halloween’ Continue to Add to Totals

/0 Comments/in , /by

Bad Robot’s long-delayed and rumored about World War Two zombie tale Overlord finished third at the weekend box office while the break-out hits of October, Venom and Halloween (2018), continued to pad their already impressive totals.

Overlord, once rumored to be the fourth installment in the Cloverfield franchise, finished third with a modest $10.1 million dollar debut.  The hard-R tale of mad zombie science run amok may have been too much for the average movie-goer (who gave the film a mediocre B Cinemascore rating), but Overlord did score high with critics (the film currently has an aggregate rating of 81% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes).  The film will certainly earn back all of its production costs ($38 million) once international sales are included, but don’t expect Overlord to perform much better over the coming weeks with continued competition from tent-pole pictures from all of the major studios. read more

‘Halloween’ Crosses the $150 Million Mark at Weekend Box Office

/0 Comments/in , /by

Although Halloween (2018) fell from the number one spot at the box office, the film did manage to cross the $150 million dollar mark with another strong weekend.

Halloween finished fifth overall with just over $11 million at this weekend’s box office due to some strong competition from three new films, including the ghost of Freddie Mercury in the Queen bio-pic Bohemian Rhapsody (an estimated $50 million dollar), Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms ($20 million),the R-rated comedy Nobody’s Fool ($14 million), and A Star is Born (which as of now, narrowly defeated Halloween with $11.1 million). Halloween also pulled in some very strong mid-week numbers, performing especially well (naturally) on Halloween with $5.5 million in receipts. read more

Horror News Network’s Fall 2018 Horror Movie Preview

/0 Comments/in , /by

After a mild summer, the fall heats up with a cornucopia of films for horror fans.  The fall schedule brings us highly anticipated remakes and sequels such as Halloween, Suspiria, and The Predator, potential franchise starters such as The Nun, Venom, and Overlord, as well as some scary movies that the whole family can enjoy including The House With the Clock In It’s Walls and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween.   So it is time to get ready for some cinematic treats (and inevitable tricks) this Halloween season with your favorite annual guide! read more

Trailer for J.J. Abrams’ WWII Zombie Movie “Overlord” Arrives

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The trailer for the film Overlord dropped today and man, it looks gruesome. Directed by Julius Avery on a script from Billy Ray (Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games) and Mark L. Phillips (The Revenant, Vacancy), Overlord tells the story of a group of American soldiers who get dropped behind enemy lines during D-Day and discover that the Nazis are working on some messed up experiments to fight their enemies with (ie. zombies).

With a cast that includes Jovan Adepo (Mother!), Wyatt Russell (Everybody Wants Some), Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones), and Bokeem Woodbine (The Rock), Overlord looks sure to please horror fans not only with gore and scares but also with solid performances. When asked for a comment about the film, J.J. Abrams (producing under his company Bad Robot) plainly stated that “it’s bat-shit crazy”. read more

‘A Quiet Place’ Sequel Announced

/0 Comments/in , /by

Be really quiet….now scream!! Paramount Studio Chief Jim Gianopulos announced at CinemaCon that an inevitable sequel to A Quiet Place is indeed in the works.  

Gianopulos stated “If you told me five years ago that an almost silent film starring the very funny guy Jim from The Office would have been a hit at Paramount, I would have said, ‘Well, I should go work at Paramount.'”

In other movie news, according to the Hollywood Reporter, J.J Abrams,”…also appeared by video to tease the horror film Overlord, and to announce a new Cloverfield movie was in the works” and he was also clear, unlike earlier reports that Overlord “… is not a Cloverfield movie.  We are actually developing a true, creative Cloverfield sequel.” read more

Paramount to Continue ‘Cloverfield’ Story Theatrically Despite Netflix’s $50 Million Purchase of ‘Paradox’

/0 Comments/in , /by

As the dust settles on the surprise release of The Cloverfield Paradox on Netflix, we are beginning to learn more and more about the inner workings of the Paramount franchise and where it will go from here. While the sale of the third Cloverfield film to Netflix’s streaming platform provided the studio with some much-needed instant revenue, it is being reported that the franchise will continue in cinemas.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s sources say that Netflix paid Paramount more than $50 million for the rights to stream The Cloverfield Paradox. Negotiations reportedly began over the holidays and were finalized in January in time for the major Super Bowl stunt we all witnessed on Sunday. The sale means that Paramount likely thought they couldn’t earn at least $50 million at the domestic box office, and the movie’s low critical reviews and mixed fan reaction suggests they probably made the right choice to sell the movie. The studio still plans to bring the movie to China, so it will be interesting to see how The Cloverfield Paradox performs on an open market. read more

‘Cloverfield 4’ Reportedly Complete and Ready to Hit Theaters This October

/0 Comments/in , /by

Fans might go from “not much Cloverfield” to “a whole lotta Cloverfield” in just a few short months! In early January, we learned that the release date for the yet-to-be titled third entry in the Cloverfield franchise was delayed (again) to April of 2018. The original release date for that film was scheduled for way back in February of 2017. It then got pushed to October, 2017 and then February 2018 before landing on its final (?) release date this April. Now, according to a special report, the fourth Cloverfield film will hit theaters just six months after the third one premieres!
 read more