For the studio-owned streamers like Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount+, it’s not really trendy to do original films anymore. There are exceptions, like Hulu which still gets their own 20th Century Studios films, but with Paramount+, the best you’re probably going to get is day-and-date Nickelodeon TV movies. But again, exceptions exist. Take the horror movie Vicious starring Dakota Fanning. After being taken off of Paramount Pictures’s theatrical release schedule in December, it has now been set for an October 10 release on Paramount+.
Being a horror release in October, it’s likely to receive some sort of tout in the streamer’s Halloween offerings when the season comes, as the previous regime decided it would make a good at-home option. Will it still be Peak Screaming? Who knows. The film written and directed by Bryan Bertino was originally set for…a week ago in February 2024, the same time The Naked Gun was set for Smurfs’s eventual July 18 slot, and Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie, Better Man, and Novocaine were dated to where the latter two stuck and the former currently awaits. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem sequel was not so lucky. In fact, the October 2024 moves of Naked Gun and Smurfs into their final positions was when Vicious was moved up to February because it was “ready”. A search for a better theatrical date apparently came up fruitless.
Fanning stars as Polly in the film, who receives a gift from a late-night visitor and becomes trapped in a world where reality is not what it seems. She has lately seen in The Watchers and The Equalizer 3, and series Ripley and The Perfect Couple. Vicious also features Kathryn Hunter, Mary McCormack, Rachel Blanchard, Devyn Nekoda, Klea Scott and Emily Mitchell.
Vicious will also be released on the digital marketplace on its Paramount+ premiere date and will head to Fantastic Fest next month alongside Primate, Sony’s Sisu: Road to Revenge, Universal’s Black Phone 2 and Lionsgate’s The Strangers — Chapter 2. Bertino had coincidentally directed the 2008 film that was the previous iteration of the franchise, this relaunch being started last year by the first chapter.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter