I understand why all these remakes of crappy generic slasher films are greenlit. The things are cheap and, uh — wait, this seems familiar somehow…
Anyway, you might not think the remake of Black Christmas is a good precedent for anything, but it actually is. The film only pulled in $16 million or so in the US, which is less than any recent PG-13 Asian horror remake. However, Black Christmas only cost $9 million, so its low gross was ultimately irrelevant. Compare that with Pulse, which grossed $20 million against a budget of $20 million. And all that was required to get Black Christmas to $16 million was a small bit of advertising and gimmick holiday release.
That’s why Lionsgate’s impending remake of My Bloody Valentine (announced last summer) is not much of a gamble. The original was about a guy who killed people for throwing a party on Valentine’s Day, and Bloody-Disgusting says the remake now has a director in the form of Patrick Lussier.
For a while, Lussier made his living editing TV shows like MacGyver and Highlander before moving on to edit features like Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Scream, Halloween H20 and D3: The Mighty Ducks. His “big break” came when he got to helm the second sequel to The Prophecy. His lone theatrically-released film thus far is Dracula 2000.
Also news is that the script was written by first-timer Zane Smith; I don’t know anything about the guy, but he could be a former Braves’ pitcher, Craig Sheffer’s character in Instant Karma, the author of a book called Anglomerika or this guy.
Shooting begins in March, and, to complete the formula, it’ll have a gimmick release the day before Valentine’s Day next year.