Here's one story we're not sure anyone could have quite predicted: Renny Harlin has already started shooting a remake of Bryan Bertino's 2008 home invasion horror The Strangers. And he's planning a trilogy.
Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez and Gabriel Basso are starring in the new film, which finds Petsch’s character driving cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest.
When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.
Bertino's film starred Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, and became a sleeper hit that spawned a 2018 sequel, The Strangers: Prey At Night, written by Bertino but directed by Johannes Roberts.
Harlin and Lionsgate are not looking to have the grass grow under the new movie's feet, hatching a deal for two follow-up entries that the director will handle. The cameras are rolling now in Slovakia, from a script by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland.
"My mother instilled the love of movies in me through the world of Hitchcock and other masters of suspense and horror. My breakthrough to Hollywood happened with the success of A Nightmare On Elm Street 4," says Harlin. "It is only fitting that I get to return to my favorite genre with the incredibly well written trilogy of The Strangers. The characters and the storyline are all grounded in reality and offer me an endless tapestry of haunting visuals in bringing these movies alive.”
“When setting out to remake The Strangers, we felt there was a bigger story to be told, which could be as powerful, chilling, and terrifying as the original and could really expand that world,” adds producer Courtney Solomon. "Shooting this story as a trilogy allows us to create a hyperreal and terrifying character study. We’re fortunate to be joining forces with Madelaine Petsch, an amazing talent whose character is the driving force of this story."