G.O. Parsons, the writer behind the Nicolas Cage-led horror comedy Willy’s Wonderland, is up to his old tricks. Parsons wants to give automated animals another go with the Beast of Bower Boulevard, a three-part digital comic debuting this week. Initially funded on Kickstarter, Beast of Bower Boulevard unfolds in a secluded ski town, where a sheriff’s deputy and his family investigate after things go quiet. Once they reach their destination, they discover the urban area is under attack by a robot dinosaur built by the military!
Beast of Bower Boulevard gives off ’70s and ’80s vibes with a splash of absurdity. Initially written as a screenplay, Parsons converted the script after working with publisher American Mythology on the Willy’s Wonderland comics. While Parsons is thrilled about the Beast of Bower Boulevard stomping onto the comic book page, he’s not ruling out a live-action adaptation if a studio shows interest.
“We wanted it to kind of look like if you found this thing, 40 years ago,” Parsons told The Hollywood Reporter.
In Willy’s Wonderland, Nicolas Cage stars as a quiet drifter who is tricked into taking a janitorial job at the now-condemned Willy’s Wonderland, but his mundane task suddenly becomes an all-out-fight for survival against wave after wave of demonic animatronics.
Previously while speaking with Entertainment Weekly, director Kevin Lewis said that Willy’s Wonderland is “a fun, wacky, crazy rollercoaster ride movie. Willy’s Wonderland is like a retro-throwback to the ‘80s. I grew up with Sam Raimi and Evil Dead and those kinds of fun ‘80s horror and action horror films. This was made — and I truly mean this — this was made by a fanboy for all the fanboys and -girls. A producer friend of mine, Jeremy Davis, brought me the project, and we both fell in love with it. We worked on it, we got Nic attached, he really fell in love with the project and saw our vision of it, and we got it going. Nic’s been a fantastic partner in this movie. It’s vintage Nic. He just brings so much to this movie. I think people are going to really dig it.” Lewis added that they shot the film in Atlanta at the start of 2020 and were able to wrap just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic put the kibosh on many major film productions. It’s also possible that we haven’t seen the last of demonic animatronics as Lewis teased that “if the movie gods decide it, I think there are many more adventures for Willy and his gang.”
While Cage is certainly the star of this very bizarre film, he doesn’t fight the forces of animatronic evil alone. Joining him for Willy’s Wonderland are Terayle Hill, Beth Grant, Caylee Cowan, Chris Schmidt Jr., Emily Tosta, Grant Cramer, Jonathan Mercedes, Ric Reitz, David Sheftell, Christian Delgrosso, Chris Warner, and Taylor Towery, among several others.
The Beast of Bower Boulevard is available now from American Mythology.