Cast and Plot Details Revealed for New ‘Children of the Corn’ Movie Filmed During Pandemic

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As we learned and reported last month, producer Lucas Foster (Ford v Ferrari) and director Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Ultraviolet) managed to continue production on a new take on Stephen King’s Children of the Corn over in Australia despite the pandemic shutting down most productions across the world, and Variety reports today that filming has now wrapped.In an article that digs into precisely how the production managed to safely continue during these unprecedented times, Variety spills the beans on cast and plot details as well.

‘Children of the Corn’ Reboot Story Hints at a Prequel

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While most movie productions have been shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, a new Children of the Corn movie that filmed in Australia found ways to keep going. The movie has now wrapped, and details are finally trickling out, including cast members and a brief synopsis. From the looks of things, this latest take on Stephen King‘s short story will be a prequel, detailing how those children of the corn got so darn creepy to begin with.

Last month, word broke that yet another Children of the Corn movie was on the way. The news came accompanied with the surprising reveal that the production, which was set up in Australia, was able to keep filming while virtually every other film production shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, all we really knew about the film beyond that was that Kurt Wimmer was in the director’s chair.

Now, Variety has more info. Elena Kampouris (Before I Fall), Kate Moyer (When Hope Calls), Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame), and Bruce Spence (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) are part of the cast, and, as producer Lucas Foster puts it, this new Corn has “almost nothing to do with” the 1984 Children of the Corn movie. That’s not really a surprise, all things considered since pretty much every single Children of the Corn sequel has almost nothing to do with the film preceding it.

The new Children of the Corn “describes the events leading up to, and including, the massacre of the adults of a small town in Nebraska by their children, after the adults’ irresponsibility ruins the crop and the children’s future.” In case you’re rusty on the whole Children of the Corn story, the first film followed a couple – played by Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton – who wound up in the creepy town of  Gatlin, Nebraska, where all the adults are dead, and a horde of evil kids run wild. This synopsis sounds like it’s going to be a prequel to that story.

Children of the Corn 1984 was adapted from the Stephen King story of the same name, but it was a very loose adaptation. The story is brief, and ends on a rather nasty note. It also doesn’t go into specific detail as to how the town of Gatlin ended up in its nightmarish state, so that’s where this new movie comes in, I suppose. Based on everything I’m reading here, I’m 99.9% sure this latest Children of the Corn is going to be a straight-to-VOD flick, as that’s par for the course for the series at this point.

New Children Of The Corn Film Details Revealed, Filmed During Pandemic

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Children of the Corn fans, a new film is on the way, and it was filmed during the pandemic. The new movie won't have anything to do with the original 1984 film or the series that has followed really. Instead, it will reimagine the story from the original Stephen King novel somewhat, using it more as a jumping-off point. Elena Kampouris ("Before I Fall") and Kate Moyer ("When Hope Calls") starring, as well as well known Australian talent Callan Mulvey ("Avengers: Endgame") and Bruce Spence ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"), are the actors in this version, with Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Ultraviolet) directing and being produced by Lucas Foster. They talked about the precautions they took on set to Variety.

"You can theorize all you like about safety protocols, but until you get on set, you don't really know. But I can now tell you it is impossible to keep a camera crew 1.5 meters apart," producer Lucas Foster ("Ford v Ferrari") told Variety. "We ended up taking hundreds of measures. We did not trust the whole. Instead, we broke down every scene separately. Night. Day. Crowds. Interiors. And so on, assessing different levels of risk," Foster said. "We had the insurance in place before we hit the ground, and I made sure to have paid the premiums before I left the U.S.," Foster said. "I treated the film like an indie movie, one with no margin of error and lots of insurance," Foster says he took out three policies: for travel, production, and the kind of specifics that can occur on a horror-action movie. We did not use a completion bond. If we had, we would probably have been considered unfilmable and got shut down," Foster said.

It's still crazy to me that nobody really had any idea this film was coming until like two months ago. There is no planned release date or anything yet, but you can bet it will go straight to VOD streaming.

‘CHILDREN OF THE CORN’ REMAKE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY WRAPS IN AUSTRALIA DESPITE CORONAVIRUS

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During this unprecedented pandemic, we could now add the Children of the Corn remake to the list of essential services! Writer/director Kurt Wimmer and his crew completed the shoot for the new film with the help of some health and safety protocols, and an assortment of insurance policies.

In an interview with Variety, producer Lucas Foster shared some details on how they were able to accomplish such a feat:

“You can theorize all you like about safety protocols, but until you get on set, you don’t really know. But I can now tell you it is impossible to keep a camera crew 1.5 meters apart… We ended up taking hundreds of measures. We did not trust the whole. Instead, we broke down every scene separately. Night. Day. Crowds. Interiors. And so on, assessing different levels of risk.”

Foster bought insurance policies very early on in the pandemic. Shortly thereafter, insurance companies stopped offering them, which is why Corn got to proceed with production while so many other movies are currently suspended.

“We had the insurance in place before we hit the ground, and I made sure to have paid the premiums before I left the U.S.,” Foster said. “I treated the film like an indie movie, one with no margin of error and lots of insurance.”

According to Variety, Foster took out three different insurance policies: one for travel, one for production and another for “the kind of specifics that can occur on a horror action movie.”

“We did not use a completion bond. If we had, we would probably have been considered unfilmable and got shut down.”

Fans who are looking for a Children of the Corn remake that closely follows the 1984 original (based on a short story by Stephen King) may not get what they’re looking for as Foster says the new film has, “almost nothing to do with” the original. He says, “We went back to the (Stephen King) story and free-associated from there.”

Children of the Corn is expected to release in theaters in 2021. Stay tuned to Horror News Network for complete coverage of this upcoming film as soon as it breaks!

CAST AND STORYLINE DETAILS REVEALED FOR NEW CHILDREN OF THE CORN FILM MADE DURING THE PANDEMIC

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As we learned and reported last month, producer Lucas Foster (Ford vs. Ferrari) and director Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Ultraviolet) managed to continue production with a new version of Stephen Kings Children of the corn in Australia despite the pandemic that has shut down most productions around the world, and Variety reports today that filming is now complete.In an article that describes exactly how production could be safely continued in these unprecedented times, Variety also spills the beans on details of the casting and action.The cast of the new film includes Elena Kampouris (Before I fall) Kate Moyer (“When hope calls”) Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame) and Bruce Spence (The street fighter).

Variety Details: “The film describes the events that led to and including the massacre of adults in a small town in Nebraska by their children after the irresponsibility of adults ruined the harvest and future of children.” Using comments from producer Lucas Foster, the site also notes that the new film “has almost nothing to do with the original 1984 classic”.

“We went back to history and free from there,” said Foster.

Visit Variety to read the whole piece and see a set photo at first glance.

Children of the Corn wraps its “coronavirus-defying” production in Australia

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The upcoming re-imagining of Children of the Corn has wrapped its production, reports Variety. What makes this such a striking news piece is the majority of filming happened during the current global health crisis, which has closed the doors on several film and television productions around the world.

Principal photography for Children of the Corn began in New South Wales in early March, just as the coronavirus outbreak was forcing productions into shutdown around the world.

“We ended up taking hundreds of measures,” said producer Lucas Foster We did not trust the whole. Instead, we broke down every scene separately. Night. Day. Crowds. Interiors. And so on, assessing different levels of risk. You can theorize all you like about safety protocols, but until you get on set, you don’t really know. But I can now tell you it is impossible to keep a camera crew 1.5 meters apart.”

Besides the unusual production, Foster opened up to Variety about the direction this new version is going, stating the new film has “almost nothing to do with” Fritz Kiersch’s 1984 movie: “We went back to the [original Stephen King short story] and free-associated from there.”

The upcoming Children of the Corn will describe the events leading up to, and including, the massacre of the adults of a small town in Nebraska by their children. This heinous act comes after the adults’ irresponsibility ruins the crop and the children’s future. For comparison, in the 1984 film, the children had already taken over the town.

Are you looking forward to a new version of Children of the Corn? Let us know in the comments or on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…

Kurt Wimmer’s Children of the Corn Remake Wraps Production

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After making headlines last month for continuing to film on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia despite the COVID-19 lockdown laws imposed throughout the country, producer Lucas Foster has confirmed that production has officially wrapped on director Kurt Wimmer’s upcoming remake of the 1984 horror film Children of the Corn.

“We’re thrilled to be able to announce the completion of principal photography with Elena, Kate, Callan and Bruce who lead our cast on this reimagining of Stephen King’s timeless short story,” Foster said in a statement (via Deadline). “We’d like to thank our cast and crew for their unrivalled professionalism, banding together to work to bring this movie to life. It was incredibly important to us to us to keep our production alive and to keep people employed and productive for as long as we could do so safely, during this crisis. We accomplished that – no one got sick and we all figured out how to work together as a team to do our jobs while keeping our cast, crew and workplace, safe and secure. We’d also like to thank Screen NSW, Safe Work NSW and all those vendors and suppliers who worked with us as valuable partners during the shoot to ensure the health and safety of our cast and crew was protected.”

In interview with Variety, Foster has finally opened up about their decision to move forward with the filming, revealing that they were able to safely carry out production through the guidance of Safe Work NSW (New South Wales) and safety expert and stunt coordinator, Jon Headey, who both handled the film’s shoot schedule and production strategies that were placed to ensure the health and safety of the entire crew.

“You can theorize all you like about safety protocols, but until you get on set, you don’t really know. But I can now tell you it is impossible to keep a camera crew 1.5 meters apart,” Foster said. “We ended up taking hundreds of measures. We did not trust the whole. Instead, we broke down every scene separately. Night. Day. Crowds. Interiors. And so on, assessing different levels of risk,”

The Children of the Corn remake is being described as the events leading up to, and including, the massacre of the adults of a small town in Nebraska by their children, after the adults’ irresponsibility ruins the crop and the children’s future.

In addition, Foster has revealed that Wimmer’s film won’t really be connected to the Fritz Kiersch’s 1984 version. “We went back to the story and free-associated from there,”

The film stars young actors Elena Kampouris (Before I Fall), Kate Moyer (When Hope Calls), Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame) and Bruce Spence (The Road Warrior).

RELATED: Stephen King Was To Feature in Scrapped Dark Tower Series

The remake will be produced by Lucas Foster, Doug Barry and John Baldecchi with Wimmer, Mathieu Bonzon, Donald P. Borchers, Pascal Borno, John Fragomeni, Brian LaRoda, Keri Nakamoto, Andre Gaines and Sean Harner serving as executive producers.

The 1984 Children of the Corn feature adaptation of Stephen King‘s short story of the same name was directed by Fritz Kiersch and written by George Goldsmith. The movie starred Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton, and earned $14.6 million at the box office. The movie centered on a young couple who become trapped in a remote town where a dangerous religious cult of children believe that everyone over the age of 18 must be killed.

La nouvelle adaptation de “Les Enfants du Maïs” (“Children of the Corn”) dévoile son intrigue et son casting

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En pleine pandémie de Covid-19, une équipe de téméraires avait obtenu l’autorisation de continuer le tournage de leur film : une indispensable (non) douzième (eh oui) adaptation des Enfants du Maïs (Children of the Corn) de Stephen King. L’intrigue et le casting viennent d’être révélés.

Car oui, tout ce qu’on savait de cette adaptation jusqu’à ce que des images du tournage fuitent, c’était : absolument rien. Qui ? Pourquoi ? Avec qui ? Quand ? Où ? Tant de questions sans réponse et en tête de liste : comment une nouvelle de 30 pages peut en être à son 12e film (un dollar-baby – donc non commercialisé -, une franchise de 8 films, un spin-off, un remake, et ce film) ? Aucune idée.

Mais aujourd’hui certaines questions trouvent des réponses, alors que le tournage est terminé.

Le casting de ce nouveau Enfants du Maïs est donc notamment composé de :

• Elena Kampouris (Le Dernier Jour de ma Vie)

• Kate Moyer (When Hope Calls)

• Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame)

• Bruce Spence (Mad Max 2)

Côté intrigue, on nous révèle que “le film décrit les événements qui ont conduit au massacre des adultes d’une petite ville du Nebraska, notamment par leurs enfants, après que l’irresponsabilité des adultes aie ruiné la récolte et l’avenir des enfants.” Une histoire qui semble donc proche de celle de Stephen King sauf qu’avec autant d’adaptations il faut savoir se renouveller. Ce que semble avoir compris le producteur Lucas Foster, qui affirme que le nouveau film n’a “presque rien à voir avec” le classique original de 1984 puisque celui se position comme un préquel, à savoir le massacre des adultes par les enfants.

Voilà qui promet, et qui devait donner vie à un hors-série épique du podcast Le Roi Stephen quand on verra le film à sa sortie… En attendant, pour tout savoir de la nouvelle Les Enfants du Maïs et de ses 11 adaptations, écoutez notre épisode du Roi Stephen qui y est consacré :

Et comme disait l’autre, n’oublions pas que “bien Malachi ne profite jamais”.

Si vous n’avez pas la référence, je ne peux que vous conseiller de lire la nouvelle, qui se trouve dans le recueil Danse Macabre :

• Acheter Danse Macabre au Livre de Poche : sur Amazon / sur la FNAC

Children of the Corn Remake Wraps in Australia Under Unprecedented Circumstances

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Producer Lucas Foster shares a behind-the-scenes look at his new Children of the Corn movie which puts a twist on Stephen King's classic novel.

Children of the Corn is getting a reboot at the hands of producer Lucas Foster (Ford v Ferrari). After completing the shoot for the film in Australia under unique circumstances, which defied the world's current state of affairs, Foster gave an interview. He revealed that this new take on the horror classic will be pulling most of its cues from the original Stephen King short story, rather than the 1984 outing, the version that most general audiences are familiar with.

"[It has] almost nothing to do with [the 1984 movie]. We went back to the story and free-associated from there."

The cast of young actors picked for the remake include Elena Kampouris (Before I Fall) and Kate Moyer (When Hope Calls) in starring roles. There is also Australian talent Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame) and Bruce Spence (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Having the young actors involved in the movie during a time of global emergency and lockdown was especially difficult, as Foster goes on to explain.

"We ended up taking hundreds of measures. We did not trust the whole. Instead, we broke down every scene separately. Night. Day. Crowds. Interiors. And so on, assessing different levels of risk."

A lot of movies are just now getting back to production. Shooting is set to resume soon on such awaited releases as The Batman, Avatar 2 and Marvel's Chang-Chi. Lucas Foster says this about working in a post-quarantine inviroment where the pandemic is very much still raging on across the world.

"You can theorize all you like about safety protocols, but until you get on set, you don't really know. But I can now tell you it is impossible to keep a camera crew 1.5 meters apart."

Safety manager Jon Heaney was in charge of keeping the show running under these unprecedented circumstances. Australia has protocols in place to ensure everyone's safety on set. Producer Lucas Foster explains that they purchased their insurance cover early, though a lot of companies are refusing to include compensation for disease infection.

"We had the insurance in place before we hit the ground, and I made sure to have paid the premiums before I left the U.S. I treated the film like an indie movie, one with no margin of error and lots of insurance.We did not use a completion bond. If we had, we would probably have been considered unfilmable and got shut down."

While 1984's Children of the Corn is today viewed as something of a horror classic, with scenes and dialogues often quoted in pop culture, the movie upon its release was not received well by critics. The acting of the titular children and the standard slasher tropes the movie employed were seen as detracting from the quality of the source material. In fact, Stephen King himself had written the script for the 1984 film, which was rejected in favor of another writer's reworking of the plot into a standard horror-thriller.

So Stephen King fans will no doubt be glad to hear the remake will be looking to the writer's short story for inspiration instead of the movie. The original short story, also titled Children of the Corn, originally appeared in a 1977 Penthouse issue, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.

The short story tells the tale of a vacationing couple who arrive at the small, isolated town of Gatlin in rural Nebraska. There they come to the realization that the adults of the town had all been killed by an army of possessed children, and that they are the next targets. The rest of the story follows the attempts by the couple to escape the fate of the town adults at the hands of their murderous children.

Interestingly, a similar premise was presented in the recent horror franchise Sinister, which also deals with children being beguiled by evil forces into murdering their families. The new Children of the Corn movie might have more things similar to that franchise than the 1984 movie, not least because the upcoming remake is also set in present times instead of keeping the action set in the 1970s.

Hopefully, all that risk and hard work will pay off with a satisfying new movie experience for horror fans to enjoy. Variety was the first to deliver this news.

Shooting During the Pandemic: How Global Producers Have Found New Ways to Work

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From Sydney to Seoul, filmmakers are developing resourceful new ways to keep going: "There is something great about how working under these conditions has brought everyone together."

The streets outside MMC Studios in Cologne, Germany, are empty. But inside, it is business as usual — almost — for the crew of Unter Uns, a hit German teen soap that has continued to shoot even as the rest of the country, and most of the world, has gone into lockdown due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"When the German government introduced stay-at-home measures [on March 22], we paused production for a week," says the show's producer Guido Reinhardt. "We had to figure out how we could comply with the new quarantine regulations and still keep working."

It's a problem facing film and television producers worldwide. Desperate to resume shooting, production teams face the daunting task of overhauling established workflows and establishing new security and safety protocols to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 era.

While U.S. producers are still figuring out the details — the major studios, production facilities, unions and guilds are discussing new on-set directives with state and municipal health officials — shooting on several international films and series is already underway. While each production is its own case, and legal and safety parameters vary from country to country and state to state, international producers are already gathering experience about how to shoot during a pandemic. They are doing the beta testing that Hollywood could look to as it starts to get working again.

In Cologne, Reinhardt's team, with typical German thoroughness, came up with an 80-point plan covering everything from mandatory temperature checks and tightened security at the studio entrance to hand washing and social distancing on set. The soap's scribes reworked scenes to ensure no more than three castmembers were in front of the camera at any one time and that everyone was at least 1.5 meters [around 5 feet] apart, as required by the country's coronavirus regulations.

"We have a corona stick, a 1.5 meters pole we use to make sure everyone keeps their distance," says Reinhardt. "And we use visual tricks, shooting long focal lengths, or over the shoulder, to give the impression the actors are closer together than they actually are." The new episodes, which will air in the summer, continue the series' regular pre-COVID-19 storyline. "We don't know what the situation will be like outside when they go to air, so we decided not to address the crisis in the show but to keep to our own, fictional world," he says.

Unter Uns actors all do their own makeup, with the professional makeup artists, in a room nearby, guiding them via video chat. Every personal item on set, from makeup to props and catering, is individually wrapped and marked for a single actor's hands only. Reinhardt has cut the on-set crew size in half and even set up some physical barriers, including a 6.5-foot-square plexiglass shield between the camera operator and the sound technicians. It takes longer — six days, not the usual five — to shoot a week of six, 30-minute episodes, but Reinhardt has kept his entire crew employed and the show on track.

UFA Serial Drama, the company that produces Unter Uns, is using the same 80-point COVID-19 guidebook for two other German soaps — Alles Was Zählt (also shot at MMC Studios) and Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten, produced on the Studio Babelsberg lot outside Berlin.

On the other side of the world, Australian soap opera Neighbours has taken a similar approach. Producer Fremantle Australia (Fremantle is also UFA's parent company) resumed production on the beloved serial drama April 26, splitting the purpose-built Neighbours studio lot in Melbourne into three distinct units with three separate production teams and only three actors allowed to cross between them.

As with the German productions, the Aussie soap has banned on-air physical contact, like hugging or kissing, and has a protocol in place should a member of the crew fall ill.

"There will be no more than 100 people a day in any area, we'll implement the 4-square-meter rule and the 1-and-a-half-meter social distancing rule," Fremantle Australia managing director Chris Oliver-Taylor told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, referring to Australia’s social distancing guidelines. "We're going to assume if someone does get sick we don't need to shut the entire shoot — we just close that group and carry on."

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As Hollywood Maps Out Its Return, New On-Set Protocols Take Center Stage

On the outskirts of Sydney, producer Lucas Foster (Ford v Ferrari) and director Kurt Wimmer have managed to quietly continue their shoot on The Children of the Corn, a remake of the 1984 horror classic, despite lockdown measures imposed across Australia on March 23.

Foster secured an exemption to the general quarantine rules, which limit public gatherings to two people, by working closely with state film board Screen NSW and regional health-and-safety body Safework NSW to design the production's protocols. The film's outdoor locations, its local cast and crew, and its status as an independent production have meant it was not subject to studio-based furloughs and shutdowns that have hit other film shoots across the country.

Screen NSW said Children of the Corn "significantly reduced its cast and crew size and is implementing health and safety protocols in line with government restrictions for workplaces … and is keeping local police informed on their operation."

Low-budget, largely self-contained productions with limited crew have been best able to adjust to new COVID-19 conditions. In Latvia, producer Yu-Fai Suen was able to finish shooting on his WWII fantasy horror feature Warhunt, starring Mickey Rourke, despite the country introducing lockdown measures shortly after production had begun.

"We got the news that the country was closing down and shutting its borders within 48 hours," Suen tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I contacted Mickey's agent to ask if he would fly in early...We got him just in time."

On set, the entire Warhunt crew, including director Mauro Borrelli, wore masks and kept to strict hygienic measures, including twice-daily temperature checks, social distancing off camera and regular disinfecting of equipment.

Suen said he's worked out a special dispensation from the Latvian government to allow in cast and crew for future productions. "We have an arrangement with a private jet company to bring in any talent from Europe to mitigate the risk of infection during flights," Suen wrote in an email. "We can start our next production within weeks."

Visiting cast will have to be quarantined at a hotel in the Latvian capital of Riga for 14 days before shooting can begin.

The idea of quarantining the cast and crew of a film or series is a key part of the plan Tyler Perry has floated to reopen his Atlanta-based studio to shoot his series Sistas and The Oval for BET. But such methods require a largely closed set and a production that can rely mainly on local crews.

Tim King, executive vp production at Scandinavia's SF Studios, has put two of the firm's Danish productions on hold during the COVID-19 shutdown: the big-budget period epic Margrete – Queen of the North, which features Danish star Trine Dyrholm as 15th century monarch Margrete I; and intimate psychological drama The Pact, which Bille August will direct from the Karen Blixen novel of the same name.

"Margrete is a long and complicated shoot, the biggest Danish production of all time, involving actors from seven different countries; [The Pact] is a Danish shoot with a fully Danish cast and a limited number of locations. In terms of stress level, its relatively straightforward. It will cost money, we'll need extra precautions, but we should be able to get that going," King says. "With Margrete we were planning to shoot in Prague, but even if the Czech Republic allows it, we don't know how we'll get there: Will the airports be open? Will we be able to drive through Germany?”

Pavlina Zipkova, head of the Czech Film Commission, tells THR the commission has applied to the Prague government for a lifting of COVID-19 restrictions for local TV and film shoots and is hoping the county can open for business as early as May. As a major hub for international productions — big-budget Amazon series Carnival Row, starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, and fantasy epic The Wheel of Time are both scheduled for Czech backlot shoots — reopening Prague would send a strong positive signal to the global industry.

"Our proposals include requiring visiting talent and crew to do a COVID-19 test before they travel and another when they arrive, with quarantine until the second test comes back negative," says Zipkova. Other safety protocols, including mandatory face masks, social distancing on set and regular temperature checks, have been outlined in guidelines from the European Film Commissions Network, which represents national bodies across the continent.

As producers wait for countries like the Czech Republic and Denmark — which is looking to June as a date for restarting local shoots — to get going again, for a handful of territories it remains, almost, business as usual.

Sweden, which has so far taken a more lax regulatory approach to containing the coronavirus, never officially banned production, and some shows, like the popular crime series Beck, have continued, albeit under stricter hygienic conditions.

It's a similar story in Iceland, where per-capita COVID-19 testing has been high — more than 12 percent of the island's population of 364,000 has been tested, compared to just 2 percent in Germany or less than 1 percent in the U.S. — and infections (around 1,700 to date) and deaths (10) low.

Local director Baltasar Kormakur has continued production on his local-language Netflix series Katla even as the streamer shut down operations worldwide. It helps that Katla is shooting with an entirely Icelandic crew, all of whom were tested and cleared for COVID-19 before they began work. New production protocols include color-coding by department to ensure groups are kept separate and gatherings do not exceed the 20-person maximum allowed by Iceland's current health guidelines.

The island is hoping to attract more international productions as it begins loosening restrictions. From May 4, the government plans to expand the limit on gatherings to 50 people and, from May 15, begin lifting foreign travel restrictions. As with Latvia, producers in Iceland have suggested a model whereby foreign crews arrive on a private, chartered plane and are then bused to a remote hotel near the set where they can be effectively quarantined for the duration of the shoot.

"If we get government approval on Monday we can be up and running by Tuesday," says Iceland's film commissioner, Einar Hansen Tomasson. "It's a huge opportunity because we are one of the few places with a lot of space, relatively few people and a government that's done a great job in containing the virus."

South Korea also avoided major production disruptions during the pandemic, in large part because of the country's highly effective testing and contact-tracing efforts, which have been praised for flattening the infection curve. The biggest disruptions to South Korean film shoots, in fact, have been caused by crews deciding it was unsafe to shoot at planned locations overseas. Studio Megabox Plus M's crime film Bogota, starring Song Joon-ki, had to pull out of production in Colombia in March to return home to Seoul. Showbox's thriller Kidnapping, starring Ha Jung-woo and Ju Ji-hoon, was similarly postponed after its locations in Morocco were deemed unsafe. Within South Korea, however, most productions have forged ahead uninterrupted.

Alongside Iceland, Korea is the only territory where Netflix has allowed production to carry on. The streamer's supernatural drama series The School Nurse Files and Sweet Home are both currently shooting on the peninsula. A Netflix spokesperson told THR that the company's producers in Korea were in the process of drafting a set of best practices and health protocols that will be shared with Netflix's production hubs around the world as they move toward a resumption of shooting. "We'll be looking to roll out, or at least share, some of the things we have learned in Korea with our teams in other locations," the spokesperson said (adding that they were not at liberty to divulge details of the Korea office's coronavirus health and safety practices).

In neighboring China, where the pandemic began months ago, local producers are the closest anywhere to a return to pre-COVID normality. Community transmissions in the country have mostly been brought to a halt, and most businesses — excepting cinemas, theme parks and live entertainment venues — have reopened their doors.

China's leading film studios — Bona Film Group, Huayi Brothers Media, Wanda Film and Enlight Media — tell THR that they are awaiting further official guidance before returning to full-scale tentpole film production. Most of the big studios already have films awaiting release upon the reopening of China's movie theaters.

Television production — primarily regionally produced commercial drama — has resumed shooting in various parts of the country on a substantial scale. Hengdian World Studios, one of China’s largest production facilities, opened up again in early February, as did the sprawling Oriental Movie Metropolis in Qingdao. A spokesperson for the Qingdao studio said the facility established a working group to implement coronavirus safety measures in collaboration with the regional government. "Our cleaning teams are carrying out virus eradication measures constantly; our security team does temperature checks and takes detailed information on everyone who enters and exits the facility."

The Qingdao studio says it has been urging productions to pare back staff to the bare essentials — China is infamous for its enormous, and often redundant, production crews — and is restricting the flow of traffic around the studio grounds to prevent mixing between productions. And catering teams have made sure that all production staff eat individually rather than serve the family-style meals common to most Chinese shoots.

A return to normal, even the Chinese version, is a distant prospect for countries like the U.S. and U.K., where governments are still battling to contain COVID-19. But out of desperation comes inspiration. In Britain, drama producers have found creative solutions to lockdown restrictions, creating new ways to tell stories without face-to-face contact.

For Jeff Pope, Oscar-nominated for co-writing Philomena with Steve Coogan and the producer behind 2018's Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie, the pandemic inspired Isolation Stories, a series of four 15-minutes shorts set during the pandemic and due to begin airing on British broadcaster ITV May 4. 

With public gatherings banned, the series was shot entirely in the homes of its actors — which include award-winning U.K. names such as Sheridan Smith, David Threlfall, Robert Glenister and Eddie Marsan, and, in several cases, their children — and filmed by a family member, with a trained operator giving whistle-stop camera lessons on their doorsteps (while maintaining the strict 2-meter distancing rule).

Not permitted to set foot inside the actual houses, the production teams worked remotely via Zoom from their own individual homes, seeing the footage shot live on their computer screens and giving advice to the camera operator (which in the case of Glenister, was his wife, Celia Glenister) through an earpiece. 

"They were all in little boxes on the screen around what the camera was seeing. … It was a fascinating way to work," Pope tells THR, adding that the directors learned an etiquette when it came to talking through scenes with the actors and explaining if something wasn't quite right. "Obviously, you can't just blurt that out because everyone's listening, so if [the director] needed to give a note, he logged off or hit mute and called direct."

The speed in which Isolation Stories — which Pope says he was focused on airing while the "crisis was still ongoing" — has been remarkable, the series going from an initial idea by Pope to transmission on ITV in just a month. Netflix has greenlit its own quarantine anthology series from Orange Is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan but has yet to announce a release date.

At the BBC, meanwhile, another scripted series has been fast-tracked amid the pandemic. A remake of Alan Bennett's hugely acclaimed monologue series Talking Heads, which first broadcast in 1988, was announced at the end of April and is now in production at London's Ealing Studios under the direction of Nicholas Hytner and featuring an ensemble of actors including Jodie Comer, Martin Freeman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Imelda Staunton.

"We're going to learn an awful lot about what is achievable," BBC drama head Piers Wenger told a web conference hosted by the Edinburgh TV Festival shortly after the show was announced, adding that he greenlit the 12-part series during lockdown while considering what might be able to go into production quickly.

"There's been huge ingenuity on the part of the producers," he said. "The restrictions are really clear — you can't move a [scenery] flat that requires two people, you can't do hair and makeup on actors. … Inevitably, that slows the shoot down. Until you can put two actors together in a room it's going to be very hard to make drama normally."

Until then — basically until there is a vaccine for COVID-19 — the industry will have to deal with the new normal of producing under the pandemic.

"It's not ideal, but there is something great about how working under these conditions has brought everyone together, there's a new sense of solidarity," says German producer Reinhardt. "And a new sense of respect. After an actor has to do their own makeup for a month, they have a renewed appreciation for the work of their colleges."

‘Children of the Corn’ Finished, Shoots Safely Through COVID-19

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The Children of the Corn reboot is now headed to post-production. The film’s shooting schedule was disrupted back in early March after the coronavirus pandemic forced people into isolation.

Undaunted, director Kurt Wimmer, created call times that were adherent to safety measures and continued shooting through the pandemic.

Deadline reports that Wimmer worked with “Safe Work NSW and film safety expert Jon Heaney,” to accomplish the new production schedule. Since the entire cast and crew were on location in Australia the change was an easy one to make. There is no further clarity on exact on-set health protocols.

CREW ADHERE TO SOCIAL DISTANCING PROTOCOL DURING COVID SHUTDOWN TO CONTINUE WORKING

Although the film is an adaptation of Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, there is no official title yet. The filmmakers have said the story is based on King’s written short, but has “’almost nothing to do with’ the 1984 movie.”

Producer Lucas Foster (Ford v Ferrari) had this to say about the wrap:

“We’re thrilled to be able to announce the completion of principal photography with Elena, Kate, Callan and Bruce who lead our cast on this reimagining of Stephen King’s timeless short story,” said Foster. “We’d like to thank our cast and crew for their unrivalled professionalism, banding together to work to bring this movie to life. It was incredibly important to us to us to keep our production alive and to keep people employed and productive for as long as we could do so safely, during this crisis. We accomplished that – no one got sick and we all figured out how to work together as a team to do our jobs while keeping our cast, crew and workplace, safe and secure. We’d also like to thank Screen NSW, Safe Work NSW and all those vendors and suppliers who worked with us as valuable partners during the shoot to ensure the health and safety of our cast and crew was protected.”

The film follows the events that lead up to mass parricide in a small Nebraska town.

The movie stars Elena Kampouris (Sacred Lies), Kate Moyer (The Handmaid’s Tale), Australian talent Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame) and Bruce Spence (The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King).

Expect it to hit theaters in 2021.

Children of the Corn: Kurt Wimmer's Remake Wraps Shooting in Australia

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The treasure trove of Stephen King remakes continues on with Kurt Wimmer's upcoming remake/retelling of Children of the Corn. The film, which luckily avoided the coronavirus shutdown, has officially wrapped production in Australia. The governmental orders allowed for the film to continue shooting despite the virus as long as safety measures were fully upheld. Producer Lucas Foster has revealed via Deadline that the movie has completed its shoot and will move on to post production:
“We’re thrilled to be able to announce the completion of principal photography with Elena, Kate, Callan and Bruce who lead our cast on this reimagining of Stephen King’s timeless short story. We’d like to thank our cast and crew for their unrivaled professionalism, banding together to work to bring this movie to life. It was incredibly important to us to us to keep our production alive and to keep people employed and productive for as long as we could do so safely, during this crisis. We accomplished that – no one got sick and we all figured out how to work together as a team to do our jobs while keeping our cast, crew and workplace, safe and secure. We’d also like to thank Screen NSW, Safe Work NSW and all those vendors and suppliers who worked with us as valuable partners during the shoot to ensure the health and safety of our cast and crew was protected.”
This new Children of the Corn will feature the events leading up to and following through the murder of all the adults in a small rural community. It's said that this will not be connected in any way to the 1984 film but offers a new "free associated" telling of the King story. 

Principal shooting is complete for new Children of the Corn movie

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A yet-to-be-titled reimagining of Stephen King’s short story and a reboot of the movie franchise that began in 1984 has finished principal photography. The film will depict the events that lead up to mass parricide in a small Nebraska town.

Initially, film’s Australian shooting schedule was knocked back in early March after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Nevertheless, the producers and writer-director Kurt Wimmer surged on by using safe distancing techniques, according to Deadline.

The filmmakers have said the story is based on King’s written short but has “’almost nothing to do with’ the 1984 movie.” The movie stars Elena Kampouris (Sacred Lies), Kate Moyer (The Handmaid’s Tale), Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame) and Bruce Spence (The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King).

“We’re thrilled to be able to announce the completion of principal photography with Elena, Kate, Callan and Bruce who lead our cast on this reimagining of Stephen King’s timeless short story,” said producer Lucas Foster.

He added: “We’d like to thank our cast and crew for their unrivalled professionalism, banding together to work to bring this movie to life. It was incredibly important to us to keep our production alive and to keep people employed and productive for as long as we could do so safely, during this crisis. We accomplished that – no one got sick and we all figured out how to work together as a team to do our jobs while keeping our cast, crew and workplace, safe and secure. We’d also like to thank Screen NSW, Safe Work NSW and all those vendors and suppliers who worked with us as valuable partners during the shoot to ensure the health and safety of our cast and crew was protected.”

The film is now headed to post-production for a 2021 release.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN Reboot Facilities on the Bloodbath of Adults

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Producer Lucas Foster says that Equilibrium and Ultraviolet director Kurt Wimmer’s “reimagining” of Stephen King’s Youngsters of the Corn has “virtually nothing to do with” director Fritz Kiersch’s 1984 film.

He says that whereas the film relies on the identical traditional King quick story, “We went again to the story and free-associated from there.”

As a substitute, it’ll middle on the occasions main as much as, and together with, the bloodbath of the adults of a small city in Nebraska by their kids, after the adults’ irresponsibility ruins the crop and the youngsters’s future.

The movie is predicted to be accomplished by the tip of the yr.

Lucas Foster (Ford v Ferrari) produces the reboot with Doug Barry (FML) and John Baldecchi (Comfortable Demise Day). Wimmer, Mathieu Bonzon, Donald P. Borchers, Pascal Borno, John Fragomeni, Brian LaRoda, Keri Nakamoto, Andre Gaines, and Sean Harner are govt producing.

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The unique movie begins as doctor Burt Stanton (Peter Horton) and his girlfriend, Vicky (Linda Hamilton), drive throughout the Midwest, their journey involves a sudden halt after they encounter the physique of a murdered boy within the street. In attempting to contact the authorities, Burt and Vicky wander right into a small city populated solely by kids, followers of sinister younger preacher Isaac Chroner (John Franklin). Quickly the couple is fleeing the youthful fanatics, who wish to sacrifice them to their demonic deity.

The movie sports activities a 35% approval ranking over on Rotten Tomatoes with a Critics Consensus that reads: Youngsters of the Corn’s robust premise and starting will get shucked away for a kiddie thriller that runs in circles.

Kurt Wimmer Wraps ‘Children Of The Corn’ Reboot In Australia After Cast & Crew Isolate Together During Lockdown Shoot

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Kurt Wimmer Wraps ‘ Children Of The Corn ’ Reboot In Australia After Cast & Crew Isolate Together During Lockdown Shoot

There can’t be many examples of this – Kurt Wimmer , whose credits include writing and directing Equilibrium, has wrapped production on a feature film shot on set entirely during the lockdown.…

Happy Death Day). Wimmer wrote and directed and also executive produced with Mathieu Bonzon, Donald P. Borchers, Pascal Borno, John Fragomeni, Brian LaRoda, Keri Nakamoto, Andre Gaines and Sean Harner.“We’re thrilled to be able to announce the completion of principal photography with Elena, Kate, Callan and Bruce who lead our cast on this reimagining of Stephen King’s timeless short story,” said producer Lucas Foster. “We’d like to thank our cast and crew for their unrivalled professionalism, banding together to work to bring this movie to life. It was incredibly important to us to us to keep our production alive and to keep people employed and productive for as long as we could do so safely, during this crisis. We accomplished that – no one got sick and we all figured out how to work together as a team to do our jobs while keeping our cast, crew and workplace, safe and secure. We’d also like to thank Screen NSW, Safe Work NSW and all those vendors and suppliers who worked with us as valuable partners during the shoot to ensure the health and safety of our cast and crew was protected.”

“Congratulations to the cast and crew for their perseverance during these unparalleled times to safely bring this classic remake to life here in Richmond and regional NSW,” added Grainne Brunsdon, Head of Screen NSW. “It is an example of the screen industry thinking innovatively and collaboratively to ensure our creative sector continues to thrive.”

International sales on the project will be handled by Timeless Films’ Ralph Kamp.Subscribe toand keep your inbox happy.

New Children Of The Corn Will Have Almost Nothing To Do With Original

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One of the crucial surprisingly long-lived franchises, Children of the Corn will quickly have its eleventh entry. The collection that started with a 1984 Stephen King brief story adaptation grew to become a direct-to-video mainstay within the 1990s beneath Dimension Movies, and has extra not too long ago obtained a Syfy remake and 2018’s Children of the Corn: Runaway.

We now know that the newest installment, once more simply titled Children of the Corn, has wrapped its difficult manufacturing although, with solid and plot particulars additionally not too long ago being revealed. Producer Lucas Foster and director Kurt Wimmer have developed the brand new model of Corn as one thing distinct from the prevailing franchise, though we’d be stunned if there wasn’t a whole lot of corn and a few creepy kids within the combine. The movie’s manufacturing in Australia was capable of proceed throughout the pandemic, and is being ready for what seems to be a 2021 launch, though whether or not this may embrace a theatrical run is unknown at the moment.

Children of the Corn is being described by Foster as having “nearly nothing to do with” the 1984 tackle the Stephen King story, and that they’ve “free-associated” from the fundamental plotline. The new film will cowl how grownup irresponsibility and a poor crop in a small Nebraska city prompted native kids to stand up and kill their mother and father, and should not cowl the aftermath of individuals stumbling into the seemingly abandoned city a number of years later.

The filmmakers apparently maintained strict social distancing measures throughout manufacturing, with tons of of various precautions in place to attempt to management danger, and sufficient insurance coverage to cowl issues. When it comes to casting, Children of the Corn will embrace Earlier than I Fall‘s Elena Kampouris and Kate Moyer of When Hope Calls in main roles, in addition to appearances by Callan Mulvey of Avengers: Endgame and Bruce Spence (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).

What do you consider there being yet one more Children of the Corn film, although? As at all times, tell us within the feedback part down beneath.

Children of the Corn Remake Wraps in Australia Under Unprecedented Circumstances

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Children of the Corn is getting a reboot at the hands of producer Lucas Foster (Ford v Ferrari). After completing the shoot for the film in Australia under unique circumstances, which defied the world’s current state of affairs, Foster gave an interview. He revealed that this new take on the horror classic will be pulling most of its cues from the original Stephen King short story, rather than the 1984 outing, the version that most general audiences are familiar with.

“[It has] almost nothing to do with [the 1984 movie]. We went back to the story and free-associated from there.”

The cast of young actors picked for the remake include Elena Kampouris (Before I Fall) and Kate Moyer (When Hope Calls) in starring roles. There is also Australian talent Callan Mulvey (Avengers: Endgame) and Bruce Spence (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Having the young actors involved in the movie during a time of global emergency and lockdown was especially difficult, as Foster goes on to explain.

“We ended up taking hundreds of measures. We did not trust the whole. Instead, we broke down every scene separately. Night. Day. Crowds. Interiors. And so on, assessing different levels of risk.”

A lot of movies are just now getting back to production. Shooting is set to resume soon on such awaited releases as The Batman, Avatar 2 and Marvel’s Chang-Chi. Lucas Foster says this about working in a post-quarantine inviroment where the pandemic is very much still raging on across the world.

“You can theorize all you like about safety protocols, but until you get on set, you don’t really know. But I can now tell you it is impossible to keep a camera crew 1.5 meters apart.”

Safety manager Jon Heaney was in charge of keeping the show running under these unprecedented circumstances. Australia has protocols in place to ensure everyone’s safety on set. Producer Lucas Foster explains that they purchased their insurance cover early, though a lot of companies are refusing to include compensation for disease infection.

“We had the insurance in place before we hit the ground, and I made sure to have paid the premiums before I left the U.S. I treated the film like an indie movie, one with no margin of error and lots of insurance.We did not use a completion bond. If we had, we would probably have been considered unfilmable and got shut down.”

While 1984’s Children of the Corn is today viewed as something of a horror classic, with scenes and dialogues often quoted in pop culture, the movie upon its release was not received well by critics. The acting of the titular children and the standard slasher tropes the movie employed were seen as detracting from the quality of the source material. In fact, Stephen King himself had written the script for the 1984 film, which was rejected in favor of another writer’s reworking of the plot into a standard horror-thriller.

So Stephen King fans will no doubt be glad to hear the remake will be looking to the writer’s short story for inspiration instead of the movie. The original short story, also titled Children of the Corn, originally appeared in a 1977 Penthouse issue, and later collected in King’s 1978 collection Night Shift.

The short story tells the tale of a vacationing couple who arrive at the small, isolated town of Gatlin in rural Nebraska. There they come to the realization that the adults of the town had all been killed by an army of possessed children, and that they are the next targets. The rest of the story follows the attempts by the couple to escape the fate of the town adults at the hands of their murderous children.

Interestingly, a similar premise was presented in the recent horror franchise Sinister, which also deals with children being beguiled by evil forces into murdering their families. The new Children of the Corn movie might have more things similar to that franchise than the 1984 movie, not least because the upcoming remake is also set in present times instead of keeping the action set in the 1970s.

Hopefully, all that risk and hard work will pay off with a satisfying new movie experience for horror fans to enjoy. Variety was the first to deliver this news.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN

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Lockdowns be damned, a pandemic couldn't stop Kurt Wimmer's Children of the Corn reboot from being filmed in its entirety. According to Deadline, production on the project has officially wrapped after the cast and crew worked together on a joint isolation to restrict the potential for the virus to be spread. Either way, it's pretty impressive they got through this whole thing given all the uncertainty of the past few months. Could this be a preview of the "new normal" ahead of us?

The Wild Way Stephen King's Children Of The Corn Reboot Managed To Film During Quarantine

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We heard a lot about the films and TV series that were shut down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it might be a little surprising that there was at least one film that actually stayed in production. But the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s Children of the Corn did just that -- it was shot entirely during quarantine.

Kurt Wimmer’s newest film began principal photography while the rest of the world was shut down. The production on the yet-to-be-titled Children of the Corn adaptation began in Australia at the beginning of March, right around the time that social distancing measures were taking root around the world. When faced with the question as to whether they could continue production, Kurt Wimmer and the rest of the crew consulted with Screen NSW, one of the film’s primary financial backers.

According to Deadline, the team ultimately decided to continue with production after enlisting the help of safety expert Jon Heaney. After adjusting their shooting schedule, they were able to keep filming because they created a set of strategic guidelines. Firstly, the cast and crew entered into a joint isolation, made possible because they’d already been on set together before the worldwide lockdowns began. That meant they were able to limit the potential spread of coronavirus if one of the crew members ended up getting sick.

While the team did not specify what exact health and safety measures were put in place during shooting, or whether or not they were testing for coronavirus, they did say no one got sick during principal photography and credited the professionalism of the cast, crew and vendors that worked with them.

In a statement, Head of Screen NSW’s Grainne Brunsdon said that the film’s successful shoot is “an example of the screen industry thinking innovatively and collaboratively to ensure our creative sector continues to thrive.”

As Hollywood begins to re-open and resume production on other projects, it will be interesting to see how film sets accommodate the continued threat of COVID-19. The fact that the Children of the Corn adaptation was able to be wrapped successfully without any major incidents is a good sign, for sure -- it means that it’s possible for the show to go on, as long as the right safety precautions are taken.

Details are still scant as to what the film will look like. We know the film stars Elena Kampouris, Kate Moyer, Callan Mulvey and Bruce Spence and that rather than being a pure adaptation, it will be a prequel of sorts, centering on the events leading up to the original Children of the Corn story. What we do know is that regardless of the finished product, it has already earned its place in cinema history.

The New CHILDREN OF THE CORN Movie Will Be a Prequel Leading Up to the Events of Stephen King's Story

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Equilibrium director Kurt Wimmer has completed shooting his upcoming Children of the Corn movie, which is inspired by the classic story written by Stephen King. The movie was initially reported as being a remake, but now we’ve learned the film will actually be a prequel.Producer Lucas Foster recently talked to Variety and said that the upcoming movie has “almost nothing to do with” the 1984 movie, which was directed by Fritz Kiersch. He explained that they “went back to the story and free-associated from there.”It’s said that the film “describes the events leading up to, and including, the massacre of the adults of a small town in Nebraska by their children, after the adults’ irresponsibility ruins the crop and the children’s future.”