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Warren Zide Inks Deal With Parallel Media; Lines Up Bat Out of Hell

by Kevin Powers
April 17, 2008
Source: Variety, ShockTillYouDrop.com

It sounds like Warren Zide, producer of the American Pie and Final Destination franchises, deserves a congratulatory round of applause today. Variety reports that Zide has inked an agreement with Parallel Media worth $70 million to be spread across eight films. One of those upcoming films, Bat Out of Hell, gets the teaser treatment today via STYD, who tells us the film promises to put a new spin on the classic monster movie, but set entirely up in an airplane.

Hell is written by TV series "Masters of Horror" writers Scott Swann and Drew McWeeny (of AICN) and apparently goes like this: "The story is set on a red eye flight from Los Angeles to New York and something lurking in the cargo hold has a certain group of passengers concerned." Not much to go on right now, sure; but I hope passengers are more than "concerned" considering these two writers. The airplane setting can be really fun (e.g. Red Eye, Snakes On A Plane), but it can be tricky to execute considering the contained and controlled environment. It sounds pretty interesting so far.

Bat Out of Hell should fall within the $4 to $15 million production range, which is the anticipated budget for the varying genre films that will be produced under the new division of Parallel Media headed by Zide. But do we really need more genre films like this? Zide has Final Destination 4 on their plate right now, which I really don't have an interest in seeing. Not to rag on the guy, but his deal with Parallel seems a straight game of numbers having little to do with anything truly creative. But hey, Swann and McWeeney get to pen a full-fledged movie, so perhaps that'll kick their horror careers up a notch. I haven't seen the "Masters of Horror" series, so I'm not exactly that clear on the talent here.

Before Hell hits, however, Zide will jump to the other side of the genre spectrum and produce a comedy called Demoted that's to be directed by J.B. Rogers of Say It Isn't So and American Pie 2 previously.

Airplane photo courtesy of hordurinn on Flickr.

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Scorpio

Sounds like "Dracula 2000" or "Terror at 37,000 Feet", or "Horror Express" on a plane.
http://movieguyreviews4u.blogspot.com Ryan

Kind of a disappointing premise.
Feo Amante

A Revenant story that takes place entirely on the plane? Sounds like FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD aka PLANE DEAD to me. But you know what it really doesn't sound like? Original! An unusual step for Zide. Like them or not, one thing American Pie and FINAL DESTINATION had in common was their originality. Swann and McWeeney wrote Cigarette Burns and Pro-Life for John Carpenter during his Masters of Horror duty. Horror fans disliked both episodes, particularly Cigarette Burns. According to the DVD extras, John had to work with the both of them to turn their scripts into something that was more original and less derivative (especially on Pro-Life, where the characters were one-note doodles). Hopefully, the two learned from the Master ( a TRUE Master of Horror) and this movie will be more than the plot suggests.