The Cabin in the Woods 10th anniversary is being celebrated this year so come join us we take a look back at this rather incredible horror movie a decade later.
The Cabin in the Woods was a passion project for Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard.
They both knew what rough story they wanted to tell but nothing really came of it. After some unsuccessful film projects from them individually they decided to pursue this project.
Locked in a hotel room they conceived a screenplay within 3 days and Goddard took over as director despite them being hesitant and reaching out to other directors beforehand including Victor Salva.
It’s probably for the best they swerved that guy.
The budget of the film was $30 million and filming commenced in March 2009 in Vancouver. Director of photography Peter Deming was behind the camera who had worked on Evil Dead II and the Scream films.
The Cabin in the Woods is a film that splits off into multiple genres and is a very unique horror movie.
What starts as a generic cabin in the woods style horror quickly spirals into something more grandiose and quite frankly spectacular with the addition of an underground facility who are controlling various horror movie elements to release on the world above.
Over 60 types of monsters were created for the film with makeup artist David LeRoy Anderson of AFX studios tasked with creating the creature effects for the movie.
The cast at the time was relatively unknown but how quickly can things change as Chris Hemsworth is now a household name with Marvel fans across the globe.
We have the slutty girl, the athlete, the scholar, the fool and the virgin. A very stereotypical cast that was done absolutely on purpose along with our very own final girl in Kristen Connolly’s character Dana.
Sigourney Weaver was the big draw for this movie, she placed the director of the underground facility in this rather genre diverse movie.
Filming wrapped in May 2009 and the film was set to be released in February 2010 but Avatar scuppered the plans.
The success of avatar saw studios wanting to covert their films into 3D and as a result they delayed the release of The Cabin in the Woods to January 2011 so the movie could be converted to 3D.
The problems stacked up as a result and on June 17th, 2010 MGM announced that the film would be indefinitely shelved with uncertainty surrounding the finances of the studio.
Lionsgate showed interest in the project and took it on in 2011 after acquiring distribution rights. Lionsgate were aiming for an April 2012 release.
Lionsgate’s gamble paid off and the film was a major success grossing $66.5 million worldwide against its $30 million budget.
Receiving rave reviews across the board and constantly on some of the best horror movies to watch list The Cabin in the Woods not only helped the cast to go on to find success but catapult Goddard and Whedon, especially into the stratosphere of Hollywood fame and huge blockbuster projects.
Celebrate The Cabin in the Woods 10th Anniversary by picking up a copy on Amazon HERE
