The 2008 home invasion thriller The Strangers is set to be rebooted as a three-part film trilogy – beginning with The Strangers: Chapter 1. Renny Harlin, the director of Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2 and Deep Blue Sea, is attached as director, reimagining the original Bryan Bertino film starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.
“I didn’t really know anything about it when I saw it and I just loved it. I thought it was fantastic and it’s stuck in my mind as one of my favorite horror films,” Harlin told Entertainment Weekly, who shared the first photos from the trilogy, seen above and below.
“When this opportunity came to me, the idea of not doing a remake or a reboot but doing a trilogy based on the original film, I thought it was an incredible opportunity,” he added. Later in the interview, Harlin outlined how the production found the suitable actors for the reboot.
“Obviously Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman did a fantastic job in the original film and those were some big shoes to fill,” said Harlin. “We looked long and hard for our scream queen. When I spoke with Madelaine I just knew that she was an exceptional person, exceptional actor, and that’s what it took to play this part. In the same way, after looking long and hard, we found Froy Gutierrez, who is another wonderful young actor. We wanted a couple who feel natural and relaxed together.”
Harlin believed the key to the trilogy would be a “natural” and “very real” relationship between Gutierrez and Petsch. “It’s the realism,” the director added. All three films were filmed in Slovakia throughout 2022 and hailed by Harlin as “the challenge of a lifetime” and “incredibly demanding” for the cast and production crew.
Written by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and produced by Courtney Solomon and Mark Canton, The Strangers Trilogy is scheduled to land in cinemas in 2024.
