Madison Iseman, the goldilocked stunner who morphs into Jack Black in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, is reprising her role for a sequel to the 2017 Sony blockbuster, starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Black as avatars in a mysterious video game serving as a portal to the real world.
Iseman, who made her horror debut in the “Sweet Tooth” story of the 2015 horror anthology Tales of Halloween, was catapulted by Jumanji’s success—and her stunning good looks— into lead roles in Sony’s Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween and New Line Cinema’s upcoming Annabelle sequel.
Johnson, Hart, Gillan, and Black are all slated to return for the Jumanji sequel, as is director Jake Kasdan. New faces include Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, and Awkwafina (Crazy Rich Asians). Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle made more than $400 million in the States and just under a billion dollars globally.
Rosario Dawson is set to co-star in Sony Pictures Zombieland 2: Double Tap, the long awaited sequel to the hit 2009 horror-comedy, starring Woody Harrelson (Tallahassee), Jesse Eisenberg (Columbus), Abigail Breslin (Little Rock), and Emma Stone (Wichita).
The sequel takes our heroes on a journey from the White House to the American heartland, meeting new survivors along the way and battling stronger breeds of the undead. Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) directs from a script by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Deadpool).
Dawson’s notable creds include Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, Barry Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black II, D.J. Caruso’s Eagle Eye, and Danny Boyle’s Trance, in which she performs what is arguably the best onscreen nude scene ever.
Universal has unveiled a new trailer for Jordan Peele’s Us, the eagerly anticipated followup to his Oscar-winning directorial debut Get Out. The film pits a family of four against monstrous doppelgängers during a home invasion of their beachside home in Northern California.
Critics are already sucking Peele’s dick over the film, praising him as an innovator and genius because they’ve either never watched a lot of horror or have never seen a black person make a good movie. That said, the movie does look pretty freaky!
Hot train wreck Lindsay Lohan is back on track with new MTV show “Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club” and horror indie Among the Shadows. While neither looks promising, Among the Shadows appears to be less catty…it’s about werewolves!
Lohan plays a hot First Lady who hires a hot private-eye chick who comes from a long line of werewolves to find out who’s trying to murder her husband and together discover a deadly conspiracy or something.
Lohan made her horror film debut in the 2007 serial-killer drama I Know Who Killed Me and co-starred in Robert Rodriguez’s grindhouse actioner Machete and Dimension Films’ Scary Movie 5.
A trailer has gone online for director Joe Berlinger’s upcoming Ted Bundy biopic, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile. The film tells Bundy’s tale from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer.
Berlinger is the noted documentary filmmaker behind Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster and the Paradise Lost true-crime docs. He is working off a script by new scribe Michael Werwie. Zac Efron (Neighbors) portrays Bundy and Lily Collins (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones) plays Kloepfer.
AMC is set to unleash the second half of “The Walking Dead’s” ninth season on Feb. 10. A lot has already happened: Rick’s gone. Jesus is gone. Maggie is gone. Tara is… regrettably not gone (here’s hoping new enemies The Whisperers—assholes sporting cadavar skin to live among the dead—have a need for a plus-size).
A new teaser for the mid-season premiere has gone online.
A trailer has gone online for Lords of Chaos, Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund’s ode to Norwegian black metal pioneers Mayhem — a band so diabolically disturbed they make Slayer look like choir boys. Rory Culkin stars as the group’s founder Øystein Aarseth, know by his stage name, Euronymous.
In addition to kickstarting the death metal scene, Mayhem is infamous for torching churches, satanic shennanigans, and the violent demise of its founding members. The film arrives in theaters Feb. 8 and On Demand Feb. 22.
Anne Hathaway is set to star as the Grand High Witch in director Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of the 1983 British children’s novel “The Witches” for Warner Bros. Coming off his criminally underrated Welcome to Marwin, Zemeckis will also write the film’s screenplay and produce alongside Alfonso Cuaron (Roma) and Guillermo del Toro.
Envisioned as an American period piece, The Witches is set in the Gothic South during the 60s and follows a young, orphaned boy taught to identify witches by his grandmother, a former witch hunter. The Grand High Witch rules over all witches and orchestrates a plan to turn children into mice to be killed like vermin.
Hathaway is coming off Nacho Vigalondo’s trippy sci-fi comedy Colossal. Her notable genre creds include the 2008 thriller Passengers, Tim Burton’s awful Alice In Wonderland, and Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar.
HBO has released its first official teaser for the eighth and final season of its beloved fantasy series “Game of Thrones.” Set to run only six lengthy episodes, the show premieres April 14 and is described by producers as “an incredibly emotional haunting bittersweet final season.”
No new footage provided in the teaser, but the promo reminds us of the ordeal the Starks have suffered and the struggles still to come as the voices of Ned and Lyanna Stark speak to Jon Snow and Sansa and Arya Stark about…about…well, dammit, I don’t remember anymore! It’s been two years!
Sarah Michelle Gellar is dipping her foot back into the horror pool with the psychological thriller Sometimes I Lie, an adaptation of the international bestselling novel by Alice Feeney written for the screen by Robin Swicord (Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
Gellar plays a woman who wakes up in the hospital paralyzed and unable to speak nor open her eyes, but can hear those around her and suspects her husband is responsible for her condition. The show alternates between her present state, childhood memories, and the week before her accident.
Gellar, best known for her iconic turn as Buffy Summers in Joss Whedon’s hit series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” made quite a splash in horror early in her career, starring in blockbuster films The Grudge 1 & 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Scream 2. Maybe this is a step back in the right direction?
