In Abigail, a group of kidnappers capture a wealthy businessman’s daughter and hold her for a $50 million ransom. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the duo behind Scream and Scream VI, directed Abigail. Naturally, there are going to be comparisons between Abigail and Scream. However, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett revealed that one of the biggest inspirations for Abigail was an influential ’80s movie: The Breakfast Club.
“The ‘ensembleness’ of it all was a big conversation,” Gillett told GamesRadar+. “We talked a lot about The Breakfast Club, which is one of our favorite movies of all time, and the idea of the cast of The Breakfast Club being hired to kidnap a young woman, who is then revealed to be a vampire for us was like, ‘Boy, yeah, that’s fucking awesome.’ Like, that just seemed like such a hilarious idea for a movie.”
Star Melissa Barrera added that Abigail shared similarities to Ready or Not, a 2019 film directed by Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett.
“It’s very different to Scream in a lot of ways; I think the formula is different, the mix of genres is a little more fearless,” Barrera said in the same interview. “It’s all the things that Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] know how to do really well and it’s definitely going back to their Ready or Not roots.”
What to Expect in Abigail?
“After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight,” the official synopsis reads. “In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
Abigail stars Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, William Catlett, Kevin Durand, and Angus Cloud as the kidnappers, while Alisha Weir plays Abigail.
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett (Radio Silence) direct Abigail from a screenplay by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick. Producers include William Sherak, Paul Neinstein, James Vanderbilt, Tripp Vinson, and Chad Vilella. Ron Lynch and Macdara Kelleher are set to executive produce.
From Universal Pictures, Abigail arrives in theaters on April 19, 2024.
