It’s a strange(r) time Froy Gutierrez…
The 24-year-old Mexican American actor will star opposite Madelaine Petsch and Gabriel Basso in a Lionsgate remake of the 2008 horror film The Strangers, which has entered production in Slovakia.
Renny Harlin is directing the film, which will be the first in a trilogy, having locked in a deal to helm the subsequent pair.
The original film The Strangers was a home invasion film that Bryan Bertino wrote and directed in his feature debut, with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman starring.
It registered as a sleeper hit upon its May 2008 release via Universal Pictures and came to be appreciated in the years following as a cult classic, with the sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night being released in March 2018.
The new Strangers film will follow Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.
Lionsgate plans from there to expand the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels.
Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland wrote the franchise launcher, to be distributed worldwide by Lionsgate.
“My mother instilled the love of movies in me through the world of Hitchcock and other masters of suspense and horror. My breakthrough to Hollywood happened with the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4,” noted Harlin. “It is only fitting that I get to return to my favorite genre with the incredibly well written trilogy of The Strangers. The characters and the storyline are all grounded in reality and offer me an endless tapestry of haunting visuals in bringing these movies alive.”
“When setting out to remake The Strangers, we felt there was a bigger story to be told, which could be as powerful, chilling, and terrifying as the original and could really expand that world,” said Solomon. “Shooting this story as a trilogy allows us to create a hyperreal and terrifying character study. We’re fortunate to be joining forces with Madelaine Petsch, an amazing talent whose character is the driving force of this story.”
“When you’ve got two horror aficionados like Courtney Solomon and Renny Harlin coming together, you’ve got all you need to create some incredibly smart, lean-forward-in-your-seat, addictively thrilling entertainment,” said Mark Canton. “Fans of the original film will be blown away; new audiences will discover the intensely unnerving world of The Strangers.”
“The Strangers taps into such primal fears that it will always be relevant,” added Eda Kowan, Lionsgate’s EVP of Acquisitions & Co-Productions. “But what truly sets this project apart is the way the filmmakers have expanded the story and given these characters a new life.”
Gutierrez plays Jamie Henson on the Freeform series Cruel Summer, which has been renewed for a second season, and has also been seen on shows like Light as a Feather, Teen Wolf and One Day at a Time. Also coming up for the actor is the long anticipated Hocus Pocus 2, which is slated for release on Disney+ on September 30th.