First Trailer for AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING

When looking over the 2016 release schedule in anticipation of making my most anticipated list for the year I scoffed at the fact there was another attempt to reboot an old horror franchise on the books. That said, I didn't expect to see much in the way of marketing for the film as the April Fool's Day release currently pits it against Rings (another attempt to reboot a now eleven year old franchise) and it seemed as if the distributor would drop the film without much heads up and simply hope for a little bit of return on the brand name alone. Even stranger than pitting two similar movies against one another on a weekend primed for a horror breakout (the original Insidious made $13 million on a $1.5m budget on this weekend five years ago) though is that Blumhouse and The Weinstein Company have released the same trailer that was originally posted for the film almost two years ago. This new Amityville was actually shot in 2014 and was originally set for a January 2015 release, but clearly that didn't pan out. What has happened and why the film was delayed more than a year is anyone's guess, but star Bella Thorne has confirmed having to do re-shoots as late as last week. No word on whether or not writer/director Franck Khalfoun (P2, Maniac) has been involved in those re-shoots, but it seems the two production companies are finally ready to distribute the film even if they're not up for delivering a new trailer with some of this new footage that is apparently being shot. Either way, the original release date doesn't bode well for the films quality and the long road to release could definitely mean bad things for the final product, but the last time we visited the Amityville house (2005's re-make of the original starring Ryan Reynolds) MGM raked in $65m domestically on a $19m budget so the reasoning behind this is understandable. Amityville: The Awakening also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cameron Monaghan, Thomas Mann, Taylor Spreitler, Kurtwood Smith, Mckenne Grace and opens on April 1st, 2016.   

THE GIVER Review

I somehow managed to make it through all of middle school, jr. high and high school without ever cracking open a copy of Lois Lowry's The Giver. This wasn't due to the fact I was trying to avoid the work; I can remember seeing other kids reading it all around me in my seventh grade year and the cover with the old man and his wiry beard is an image that will always strike me as intriguing, but for one reason or another I was never made to sit down and read it and by the time I was in high school it was a distant memory. Why a feature film adaptation hasn't been made before now is quite curious, but with the recent wave of young adult adaptations it is also pretty clear why we are getting a version of this story now. Unfortunately, despite the fact Lowry tapped into exploring the themes and ideas present here in a way that younger audiences might understand first this doesn't automatically mean the film version will be as appealing or revelatory. Today, we live in a world of Harry Potter and Twilight where books that teens actually read are turned into massive franchises ultimately marginalizing the literature. In this world every quasi-popular series has been taken, given the Hollywood treatment in an attempt to launch a franchise and if they fail they're never heard from again. It is a vicious game won only if you have a large enough, pre-determined fanbase. There have been some unfortunate casualties (Beautiful Creatures) and some that were dead on arrival and deserved to be (The Mortal Instruments). Still, as the pack exists right now it is The Hunger Games and everything else. There is an air of earnestness about this version of The Giver though from the construction of its aesthetic to the performances given by actors that would widely be considered above this material that it doesn't have to be the big kid on the block. Sure, it is another cautionary tale set in a dystopian future (though the Chief Elder would have you believe it's a utopia) where one young person who has grown accustomed to a certain, strict way of life is declared different and breaks the societal rules that eventually lead him/her to discovering what the adults couldn't, but there is something sincere trying to be said here. There is an honesty to the production and a conviction in its story and ideas that is hard to shake while completely satisfying as a movie-going experience.

First Trailer for THE GIVER

The Giver was the 1994 novel that I never made it around to reading despite the fact everyone around me was talking about it in my seventh grade reading class. I don't know how it slipped by me and feel really bad about having never caught up with it, but I guess the fact there is now a movie adaptation heading our way is as good a motivation as any to finally dive in. As I said yesterday when posting the first trailer for The Maze Runner, the race to find the next big Young Adult franchise spun from the pages of hit novels is in full speed, but while this initial teaser trailer wants you to believe The Giver is some kind of companion piece to Divergent (which opens this Friday and where you'll likely see this playing prior), the nature of the novel itself feels very different than the dystopian trilogies that have saturated the market as of late. This is a single novel that only recently received a sequel, but still, not in the common sense of the word and one that studios might find both difficult and rather pleasing to adapt into a straightforward film series. As for this first look at the footage though, I'm impressed with what scope the film seems to take on, but as we've seen so many versions of the "perfect futuristic society" lately they are all beginning to blend together and this trailer does nothing to say that The Giver has anything new to offer. I want to believe the narrative and the characters alone will be enough to set this apart and that the rumors about major changes being made when adapting the book for the screen are false as the original novel was a slim work and one I am definintely keen on diving into before August. The Giver stars Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgard, Katie Holmes, Cameron Monaghan, Taylor Swift and opens August 15th.