Woah, major shakeup for a film that was announced just two weeks ago, and is supposed to come out next year. Was this thing in production when these changes happened? I can't find much of an answer to that just yet.
Regardless, Variety is reporting that Rob Savage ("Other Mommy"), who was originally attached, has left "Molepeople" over "scheduling conflicts." Ben Wheatley is now directing the horror film from Blumhouse Atomic Monster and Paramount Primal.
Furthermore, LaKeith Stanfield, originally announced as the lead, is out too. No reason was given for his departure, and no replacement has been announced. That's a lot of moving parts.
Nathan Elston wrote the script, which follows a man who ventures into the abandoned tunnels under New York City and stumbles onto a warped underground community living down there. Paramount is distributing, and the release date is still locked for August 27, 2027. That doesn't give Wheatley much time, especially with a lead role to recast.
The timing is hard to ignore for Savage. His latest, "Other Mommy," just got hammered by critics. It sits at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences didn't love it either, giving it a D+ CinemaScore. It still made money, grossing $85M worldwide on a budget of around $20M, so Blumhouse has no complaints there.
Wheatley broke out with the cult-horror gut-punch "Kill List" (2011) and the black-and-white acid trip "A Field in England" (2013), only to spend the years since sliding from midnight-movie provocateur to journeyman.
The English filmmaker is coming off the somewhat watchable Bob Odenkirk starrer "Normal" and, before that, the pandemic-era horror flick "In the Earth," a half-hearted attempt to get back to his indie roots. The man needs a win. He's been off for a while now, with "High-Rise," "Free Fire," his Netflix-backed "Rebecca" remake, "In the Earth" and "Meg 2: The Trench" all landing somewhere between forgettable and misbegotten. "Normal," one of those innumerable "Taken" ripoffs, was probably the best of a bad run.
Major shakeup for a film that was announced just two weeks ago, and is supposed to come out next year. Was this thing in production when these changes happened?