Richard Matheson alert; Dana Andrews redux

(Thanks to Vince Keenan for sending me this)

Cameron Diaz to star in 'The Box'
Richard Kelly to direct horror film
By MICHAEL FLEMING

Media Rights Capital has set Cameron Diaz to star in "The Box," a PG-13 horror film that will be directed by "Donnie Darko" helmer Richard Kelly.

Kelly wrote the script based on a Richard Matheson short story. Production will begin in the fall.

Pic will cost north of $30 million and Media Rights Capital is committed to bankroll the entire film, as it did with "Babel" and Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno."

Based on the Richard Matheson short story "Button, Button," the film casts Diaz as a young woman who is given a mysterious box by a stranger. She's told that certain things will happen depending on which buttons she presses.

Kelly and Sean McKittrick will produce and Ted Hamm will be executive producer.

The recent $20 million opening of "1408" made the star-driven high concept supernatural thriller "The Box" feel like a viable financial proposition.

"The storyline has all the commerciality of 'The Ring,' but with Richard and Cameron, this film can rise to the level of 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Others,'" said Modi Wiczyk, the former Endeavor agent who founded and runs MRC with Asif Satchu.

"My hope is to make a film that is incredibly suspenseful and broadly commercial, while still retaining my artistic sensibility," Kelly said. "I am especially excited to be working with Cameron Diaz, an actress I have always admired."

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117967834.html
---------------

From Tom Piccirilli:

Just a note to say you were spot on calling Dana Andrews the spiritual brother to Robert Ryan. FALLEN ANGEL, LAURA, and WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS makes him my #2 in noir faves behind Ryan.

He was also damn good in CURSE OF THE DEMON, a classy horror movie that's so good it ramps up from a B-flick to at least an A minus.

Ed here: Thanks for reminding me about CURSE OF THE DEMON. Even given the cheapo effect near the end (one that Jacques Torunier battled against putting in) "Curse" is for me one of the few horror films that unsettle me--there's something unspoken going on that's really unseemly. Much as there is in Val Lewton's The Seventh Victim which I watched again last week. I'm glad to see "1408" make money. Maybe now there'll be room again for grown-up horror instead of kiddie gore.