For the most part, the company has done very well with the aforementioned titles, but it has a slew of other projects waiting in the wings or sitting on the shelf waiting for release, including Mockingbird, the sophomore effort of The Strangers‘ Bryan Bertino, Oren Peli’s Area 51 and the Stephen King adaptation Mercy (based on the story “Gramma”).
All three of those films have long since wrapped shooting and are in various stages of completion. You’d think they would be done by now, but there’s a reason they’re still on the shelf. THR spoke to Universal chairman Donna Langley who provided a bit of insight as to what is happening…at least as far as Mockingbird and Mercy are concerned. Universal has a deal with Blumhouse. Area 51 resides at Paramount.
From THR…
Mercy, directed by Peter Cornwell, finished shooting a year ago and is among the Blumhouse films on Universal’s shelf — but Langley says the studio still is not counting it out. The same goes for director Bryan Bertino’s Mockingbird, which wrapped in May 2012; Langley confirms there are conversations about doing reshoots to see whether the film can be salvaged. Blum “goes into complete hiatus” on some films, she says, “and he’ll go back into production when he has time and cracked the idea or execution.”
So, it appears Mercy, directed by Peter Cornwell, and Mockingbird are “works in progress” just as Area 51 has been since 2009.
Mockingbird stars Todd Stashwick, Audrey Marie Anderson and Alexa Lydon. Stashwick and Anderson will play a couple who receive a video camera with a document of strict instructions. If they don’t follow the rules, they’re told someone will die. The film will follow their hellish ordeal as they do what they are told.
