'30 Days of Night' Sequel Gets a Director

Although you wouldn't say 30 Days of Night was a phenomenon, the 2007 arctic vampire film (based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith) has already led to a webisode series and a TV movie, with talk of a sequel ebbing and flowing for a couple of years. Now it appears that the second film is closer than ever. Bloody Disgusting says Ben Ketai, who wrote the two off-shoots in the series, has been hired to direct 30 Days of Night: Dark Days. It will go into production next month in Vacouver. The good news: Stella Oleson is back. The bad news: It won't be Melissa George. Damn it. She's so good in this genre. This time around, she'll join a band of vampire hunters to fight Lilith, one of the elder vampires who has sought out Stella to get revenge over the events in Barlow from the first movie. As near as I can tell, the story comes straight from the graphic novel sequel, also called Dark Days. A few months ago, there was also some talk that this will be a direct-to-DVD release, which would explain why George passed (or wasn't even a consideration) and why the producers have promoted from within to find the director instead of going with a more experienced name. There must still be an audience for this, though, if this marks the third follow-up in two years. I love the concept, so key to making a vampire or zombie movie work, but I thought it got away from David Slade a little bit in the first movie. So maybe going lo-fi is really the way to go.

Comments

[Vince]

I don't have much hope for this. I wish the first film was a Zack Snyder-esque take on the graphic novel, but what I got instead was one of the most unintentionally funny horror movies of recent years- I, no joke, laughed harder at this movie than I did watching "Year One".

And boy do I love me some Melissa George. But, who knows, this might be alright for a Netfilx Blu-Ray rental in the future.