Updates on Blumhouse’s Mockingbird and Stephen King adaptation Mercy

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

We're big fans of Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions here at AITH and are always excited when we hear of a new film coming from the company. Blumhouse has been responsible for some of the horror genre's biggest hits from the past several years, including PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, INSIDIOUS, SINISTER and THE PURGE, and there are several other films from the production company that we've been eagerly awaiting news on. Today we have updates on two of them: Bryan Bertino's MOCKINGBIRD and Peter Cornwell's Stephen King adaptation MERCY.

Blumhouse Productions is the spotlight of a recent Hollywood Reporter piece that gives a critical look at his production model. The article shared some small updates on MERCY and MOCKINGBIRD that we found interesting.

Explains THR, MERCY, directed by A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT‘s Peter Cornwell, finished shooting a year ago and is among the Blumhouse films sitting on Universal’s shelf. Studio chairman Donna Langley says the studio still is not counting it out, but doesn't reveal any release plans. Could this mean MERCY will be heading straight for VOD/DVD/Blu-ray, much like Joe Johnston's Blumhouse-produced NOT SAFE FOR WORK?

Starring Dylan McDermott, Frances O'Connor, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney, Shirley Knight, and Chris Browning, MERCY tells the tale of…

…two young boys (“The Walking Dead”'s Chandler Riggs and Super 8's Joel Courtney) who move with their mother to take care of their dying grandmother at her decrepit farmhouse. When they suspect that the elderly woman they love has encountered a dark spirit, they fear she might not be the only one who won’t make it through the summer alive. Once George (Riggs) and Buddy McCoy (Courtney) arrive at their Gramma Mercy’s (Shirley Knight), what they find inside her 150-year-old home is nothing short of terrifying. As the brothers experience deeply disturbing phenomena they believe to be the work of an ancient witch, they must fight for their lives and overcome the evil forces threatening their family. 

Also on the shelf is THE STRANGERS director Bryan Bertino’s MOCKINGBIRD, starring Todd Stashwick, Audrey Marie Anderson, and Alexa Lydo. That film wrapped in May 2012 and Langley confirms there are conversations about doing reshoots, stating that Blum “goes into complete hiatus” on some films, she says, “and he’ll go back into production when he has time and cracked the idea or execution.”

MOCKINGBIRD has been described as a…

…found footage thriller centering on three cameras that are given to three separate households on the same night with instructions to keep filming if they want to live, but as the night wears on, the characters are pulled into a deadly confrontation with each other at the behest of their unseen tormentor.

Hopefully we'll be hearing some news on these films soon. And by the way…where is Oren Peli's AREA 51? Seems like we've been waiting on that one forever!