Ten years is a lifetime in the film industry.
To put that into perspective, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was viewed as little more than wishful thinking back in 2007, when Jon Favreau and the Powers That Be quietly began plotting an Iron Man post-credits scene involving a certain Nick Fury. Twelve months later, Favreau’s standalone pic launched Robert Downey Jr.’s career into the stratosphere and the rest is history. But 2008 also witnessed the release of a lesser-known horror pic. Its name? The Strangers.
Headed up by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, the home invasion thriller became something of a cult hit nine years ago and now, after enduring a prolonged spell in pre-production, The Strangers 2 is officially on the cards. Former Mad Men star Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman have all climbed aboard to anchor the horror sequel, while Johannes Roberts of 47 Meters Down fame is at the helm, directing a script penned by Strangers scribes Bryan Bertino and Ben Ketai.
The elevator pitch? Hendricks, Madison, and Pullman will form a dysfunctional family unit “whose road trip takes a turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park and the power goes out. As they hunker down for the night in a borrowed trailer, three familiar masked psychopaths pay them a visit to test their every limit.”
With the film now well into production, the lid is starting to be peeled back and today, we’re happy to present to you the first photo from the sequel, which can be seen above. Not only that, but we’ve also learned that it’s been retitled Strangers: Prey at Night and assigned a release date of March 9th, 2018.
Thankfully, that’s not too far off now and though we’ve still yet to see any footage from the pic, it sure sounds like classic horror material. In fact, speaking about his vision for the project not too long ago, Roberts revealed that he’s looking to none other than John Carpenter for inspiration:
“I mean, I always bring a lot of John Carpenter with me because that’s what I grew up on, but also maybe going back a bit earlier to the seventies movies, from Don’t Look Now to Duel, the Spielberg movie, even Christine a bit, the John Carpenter movie. All of these influences are finding their way into the movie, but I think it’s going to be a real fantastic movie. I’m super excited about it.”
With a promising cast and a talented director steering the ship, things are shaping up quite well for Strangers: Prey at Night and we don’t imagine it will have any trouble carrying the torch handed down by the original.
