At one time, the studio Lionsgate was one of the most prominent names in horror, bringing the world films like THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, CABIN FEVER, the HOSTEL films, and of course the SAW franchise. In recent years, their focus drifted away from horror a bit, but now they’re nostalgic for the days when they were a major force in the genre and are looking to get back into the scares business in a major way. As Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns says,
We used to own horror. We’re going to own it again.”
The first step in their mission to take ownership of the genre is the development of a horror-thriller project called COBWEB, which Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee and Jon Berg are in negotiations to produce. Andrew Childs is executive producing, with Jim Miller and Meredith Wieck overseeing things for Lionsgate.
COBWEB began as a spec script written by Chris Thomas Devlin. In the story,
a boy’s abusive parents have always told him the voices he hears in the walls of his house are only in his head. But when he discovers that they’re real, he conspires to let them out.
That’s an intriguing description, and I’m interested in finding out what sort of things are making all that noise in the walls. If COBWEB really wants to scare the hell out of me, the creatures in the walls would be a bunch of CAT’S EYE trolls. Unfortunately, that’s not likely to be the case.
We’ll keep you updated on COBWEB and Lionsgate’s horror plans as more information is made available.