There's no doubt the film industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, but away from the production shut-downs and postponed release dates one unlikely movie has been having it's Hollywood moment.
Low-budget indie horror The Wretched has become one of just five films in more than 20 years to top the US box office for five weeks – the others being Titanic, Avatar, The Sixth Sense and Black Panther, to put it into context.
While it sounds like an impressive achievement, it has to be said that due to the COVID-19 lockdown there's not exactly a lot of competition out there at the moment, with most studios choosing to hold their films back or release them straight to on demand.
But indie company IFC Films has bucked that trend by sticking to its release schedule and rolling out films as planned at the few movie-going venues that are still open for business – mainly drive-in theatres.
The Wretched's writers and directors, brothers Drew and Brett Pierce, admit they never expected their horror to have the impact it has.
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"It felt like a joke at first," Drew told Sky News' Backstage podcast.
"We had our first week and we only opened up in 12 theatres, but we'd done really well… and then they obviously rolled out into more theatres and we thought it might die off, but the audience I think embraced the movie and loved the movie so much that word of mouth spread, coupled with obviously how weird times are and that drive-ins are sort of this great escape, and it just kept growing.
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"It's been like this snowball rolling downhill, you know… We were shocked at first and now it's just so exciting."
Brett says it has been hard to get his head around the film's reach during lockdown.
"It's weird because we're locked up in our apartments and it's just like we keep hearing all of this stuff and seeing it online, and then part of it doesn't feel like it's actually happening because we're cooped up," he said. "But I guess there is an outside world that's moving forward."
The Wretched tells the story of a teenager, struggling with his parents' divorce, who takes on a 1,000-year-old witch posing as the woman next door.
It pays homage to classics of the genre including Fright Night and Rear Window, and the brothers may have always been fated to have successful careers in horror, as their father, Bart Pierce, created the special effects on cult classic The Evil Dead.
Drew says growing up around film-makers definitely influenced the siblings.
"We witnessed our dad making shorts with [Evil Dead director] Sam Raimi and that whole crew on and off as we grew up, even past Evil Dead.
"They were shooting these little stop-motion shorts and stuff outside in the back yard and we'd be around, so film-making is sort of part of life. I think most people see it as sort of this untouchable thing, but I mean, the truth is we kind of embraced that.
:: Listen to the Backstage podcast on Apple Podcasts, Read More – Source
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