Jessica Alba (Machete) is stepping in for Gemma Arterton (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) in Relativity Media and Atlas Entertainment’s The Wright Girls, an upcoming remake of Japanese filmmaker Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s bad roommate thriller 2LDK.
“Entourage” actor Kevin Connolly is attached to direct, replacing Andy Fickman (Race to Witch Mountain). Penned by Easy A writer Bert Royal, the story follows two actress roommates as they go from close girlfriends to bitter enemies while competing for the same movie role.
Alba is coming off the Robert Rodriguez sequel Machete Kills and will be seen in the Sin City sequel A Dame to Kill For. The Wright Girls will shoot in Los Angeles in April.
Phase 4 Films has released a trailer for Mark Hartley’s Patrick, a remake of Richard Franklin’s (Psycho 2, Cloak & Dagger) 1978 Australian frightener about a man who falls into a comatose state after murdering his mother and her lover, and begins to use psychokinetic powers to communicate with his hot nurse.
Sharni Vinson (You’re Next) toplines the thriller as Nurse Kathy Jacquard. Co-stars include Charles Dance (“Game of Thrones”), Rachel Griffiths (”Six Feet Under”), and Jackson Gallagher as Patrick. It arrives in selected theaters and VOD on March 14.
Christina Cole joins NBC and Lionsgate TV’s upcoming remake of “Rosemary’s Baby,” a four-hour event miniseries based on the 1967 Ira Levin horror novel about a young expectant mother who suspects her husband and new apartment complex neighbors are plotting to abduct and sacrifice her baby to Satan.
Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden) is attached to direct the series from a script by Scott Abbott (Queen of the Damned) and genre hero James Wong (Final Destination). Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) plays Rosemary Woodhouse.
Cole will co-star as Rosemary’s friend Julie. She joins a cast that includes Patrick J. Adams as Rosemary’s husband Guy Woodhouse and Jason Isaacs and Carole Bouquet as Rosemary’s married neighbors Roman and Margaux Castevet.
Gillian Jacobs (“Community”) joins Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers), Jim Parsons (“Big Bang Theory”) and old-people actress Ellen Barkin in Visions, a new micro-budgeted frightener from Blumhouse Productions (Paranormal Activity, The Purge).
Visions stars Fisher as a pregnant woman who starts to have disturbing visions while with her husband at his vineyard home. Jacobs plays a young neighborhood woman who befriends Fisher. The film is directed by Kevin Greutert (SAW 6) from a script by Lucas Sussman (Below).
Jacobs, best known for her role as Britta Perry on NBC’s “Community,” is coming off the horror-comedy Milo. Notable creds include the apocalyptic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Box, Gardens of the Night and the Chuck Palahniuk adaptation Choke.
Twilight Saga star Nikki Reed is set to star in Email, a supernatural thriller from Singaporean director Kelvin Tong (The Maid). Reed will play a journalist investigating the mysterious death of her sister in Singapore, who uncovers a string of odd murders tied to a cursed email.
The film, described by producers as a cross between The Ring and The Grudge, will shoot in Singapore in May.
This won’t be the first time Reed is tormented by electronic mail. In 2010, she starred in the indie slasher Chain Letteras a popular high school senior, who along with her friends is stalked by a sadistic killer known as the Chain Man when they fail to pass along a chain email.
You’re going to need a bigger TV to fully enjoy the experience that is Syfy’s Sharknado 2: The Second One. The sequel shoots Feb. 13 in New York for a July premiere, and features the return of original lead Tara Reid (pictured).
Reid will reprise her role as April Wexler, the busty and estranged wife of a Venice beach bar owner who rescues her from a shark-hurling twister dubbed a Sharknado. The part is Reid’s most notable since starring in the American Pie franchise.
Sharknado 2: The Second One reunites Reid with Ian Ziering (“Beverly Hills 90210”), who plays her husband. Together they set out to save New York from a new sharknado. The film is directed by Anthony Ferrante and written by Thunder Levin, the creative masterminds behind last year’s Sharknado.
Brain Damage Films has set a Feb. 4 DVD and VOD release date for Slaughter Daughter. The indie slasher is described by the filmmakers as the “heartwarming tale of a psychotic daughter who teams up with a jailed murderer to slay her mother on her wedding day.”
Slaughter Daughter features an interesting cast: Leesa Towland (Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1), Nicola Fiore (Ms. Cannibal Holocaust), Ruby Larocca (Call Girl of Cthulhu), and Tim Dax, the facially-tatted gay porn actor who inadvertently starred in the anti-Islamic YouTube short The Innocence of Muslims.
The Innocence of Muslims portrayed the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a hypersexual child molester. The film was said to have provoked the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead on Sept 11. That turned out to be bullshit.
Voltage Pictures has released a trailer for Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem, an Orwellian-based sci-fi drama about a computer geek named Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), hired by a mysterious corporate figure (Matt Damon) to solve a mathematical formula that would reveal life’s meaning.
Judging by the trailer, The Zero Theorem is pure gonzo madness that looks unwatchable unless you’re tripping on goof-balls. It does, however, feature French starlet Melanie Thierry (Babylon A.D.) prancing around as a seductive and slutty attired nurse.
Robert Rodriguez’s El Rey Network has released a trailer for “From Dusk Till Dawn,” a 10 episode re-imagining of the 1996 film about fugitive brothers Seth and Richie Gecko, played here by D.J. Cotrona (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) and Zane Holtz (Vampires Suck), trapped by vampire strippers while on the lam in Mexico.
The abducted Fuller family is played by Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) as preacher and patriarch Jacob, Madison Davenport (Noah) as his teen daughter Kate, and Brandon Soo Hoo (Ender’s Game) as adopted son Scott.
Rounding out the cast are Don Johnson as Sheriff Earl McGraw, Adrianne Palicki as a woman from Seth Gecko’s past, Lane Garrison (”Prison Break”) as Benny’s World of Liquor clerk Pete, and Eiza González as Titty Twister stripper and vampire-queen Santánico Pandemonium.
Disney has released a new trailer for Maleficent, a re-imagining of the Sleeping Beauty tale told from the perspective of the iconic villainess, played by gorgeous Angelina Jolie. Elle Fanning co-stars as Aurora, the sleepiest of them all.
Set to Lana Del Rey’s haunting “Once Upon a Dream,” the trailer shows off Maleficent’s creepy lair, demonic army, and sinister, but oh-so-sexy, smile. Joli’s casting as Maleficent is reason enough to catch the film when it opens May 30 (that gives you 4-months to learn how to pronounce Maleficent).
