After a three year absence, director David Slade is returning to the silver screen. THR reports that the director has signed on to helm The Widow, a thriller from screenwriter Ray Wright (2010’s The Crazies). The thriller will follow a young woman who soon learns that her chance meeting of a lonely widow was anything but. Vendome Pictures (Source Code) will handle the financing for the movie, which is slated to begin production later this year.
Slade’s last theatrical effort was 2010’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and since that time he has returned to the world of television as executive-producer/sometimes director of the well-received NBC drama Hannibal. Slade’s previous directorial efforts include 2005’s sexual predator thriller Hard Candy starring Ellen Page and 2007’s 30 Days of Night, a horror film adapted from the classic Steve Niles graphic novel. In other words Slade and the thriller genre go hand in hand so The Widow is right up his alley.
Slade’s work as a director is near-impeccable (I liked 30 Days of Night a lot, thank you very much) so anything he’s involved with I can definitely get behind. The Widow has a generic plotline but with a solid writer and a solid director behind it I’m sure the actual finished product will be much better. If you don’t want to wait to see what Slade’s up to, you can watch new episodes of Hannibal on NBC. It’s a lot better than you think it is, I promise you.
Any thoughts on The Widow? Given his history as a director, are you surprised there aren’t any vampires?