Fox orders slasher comedy Dead Mall from Oscar-winning writers

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

DEAD MALL. Has that not been a horror movie yet? Apparently not. But it’s about to be. According to Deadline, 20th Century Fox has acquired a pitch from Nat Faxon and Jim Rash – co-writers of THE DESCENDANTS, which won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2012 – that capitalizes on the North American phenomenon of major malls closing and being left abandoned by combining it with a quirky horror movie storyline that sounds like it might be in the vein of THE FINAL GIRLS.

The pitch is a comedy-horror movie set in a dead mall. The title comes from a growing national phenomenon, these second tier malls that are scattered about the country, skeletal shrines to a boom in shopping. When the shoppers stopped coming, the malls fell into disrepair and closed. Set in that backdrop, the comedy concerns an ensemble of 40-year old guys and girls, seemingly with enough brainpower to escape a slasher film-quality killer, but maybe not.

Rash and Faxon will also executive produce and direct DEAD MALL, which evidently had the interest of several studios before Fox won out.