by Kara Grimoire, Nov 13 2014 // 6:00 AM

Director M. Night Shyamalan has partnered with Jason Blum of Bloomhouse Productions in order to produce a self-financed, low budget project he had been keeping under wraps. The film, called The Visit, is intended as a return to his earlier work and to productions outside the ‘traditional’ studio system.
The Visit concerns a brother and sister visiting their grandparents’ isolated Pennsylvania farm. Eventually, the youngsters discover the seniors are keeping a dark secret and it quickly becomes apparent to the children they may not be going home.
The Visit was written, directed and self financed by Shyamalan and shot near the director’s Pennsylvania home. The partnership with Blumhouse Productions allowed for a first-look arrangement with Universal and the company specialized in low budget genre pictures. Blumhouse’s most recent successful production was Ouija.
M. Night Shyamalan produced the film with Blum and Marc Bienstock, with Steven Schneider and Ashwin Rajan executive producing.
Universal Pictures has set September 11, 2015 as the release date.
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Posted in: Directors · Movies · News · Universal Pictures
Tagged: Bloomhouse Productions, Dark Secret, Horror, Indie Films, Low Budget Film, M. Night Shyamalan, The Visit, Thriller, universal studios
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by Jonathan Weilbaecher, Jul 19 2012 // 3:30 PM
If you have never had a chance to experience Halloween Horror Nights at either of the Universal Theme Parks, you are missing out. No theme park fully embraces a holiday quite like Universal.
They take their normal park and transform it into a series of haunted houses and amusements all set to different themes and franchises. While the are not always scary, the production values are always of the highest order. You also have to traverse through the park knowing at any time people with chainsaws could be jumping up behind you at any time.
Good clean fun.
This year Universal is adding two new franchises to their stable of haunted houses, Silent Hill and The Walking Dead. The Silent Hill attraction, announced at comic-con, is the first to be based on a video game. The haunted house will most likely take it’s cues from the iconic imagery of the early games and the upcoming movie.
The Walking Dead attraction was just made official today. While zombies are nothing new to the Halloween Horror Nights experience, The Walking Dead as a franchise offers a very specific escape and survive experience that will be fun to re-live if they can pull it off.
Check out a preview teaser of The Walking Dead attraction after the jump and try to find your self at a Universal Park this fall for some spooky fun.
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Posted in: Horror · News · Thriller · TV · Universal Pictures · Video Games · Zombies
Tagged: Halloween Horror Nights, Haunted Houses, Los Angeles, News, Orlando, Silent Hill, The Walking Dead, Theme Parks, TV, universal studios, Video Games
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by Diane Panosian, Aug 26 2010 // 12:00 PM
In a world of constantly evolving tech, SyFy’s Eureka stays ahead of the game. The writers seem to have an unending amount of innovations up their sleeves. Between the giant robot spiders, A.I. in the house of tomorrow, and cloud sculpting devices, the scientists at Global Dynamics are kept pretty busy.
That makes double for their new director, Douglas Fargo, played with an affable, geeky charm by Neil Grayston. Just like Fargo, Neil is curiouser than a cat when it comes to gadgets.
The Flickcast: What do you think of the future technology on Eureka that has actually come to pass?
Neil Grayston: I’m always blown away. Sometimes it’s funny if you look back at the first season, some of our “high-tech gadgets” have already been surpassed in the real world a billion times over. It’s like we were really on top of that, someone was really thinking back there. I like looking back and seeing what we maybe thought of before hand and then what the real world was actually leaps and bounds (developing). It’s kinda cool knowing what real scientists are doing and what they’re actually making up.
FC: Do you ever have trouble with the highly scientific, technical lines on the show?
NG: Those are the lines that I usually will…like sometimes I’m going to admit, I cheat, I have my little sides and I cut out just the little technical lines and I make them as small as possible and I hide them in my wardrobe so that you won’t see anything. And then just before a take I’ll just look them over.
I’m fine with the dialogue and the back and forth, but am I going to say a pulsating ionsphere photostar or is it a photographic pulsar ionsphere? You know it’s those little things that I can look up on Wikipedia forever and forever. Fortunately, the Wikipedia entries are written by people who know what those things mean.
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Posted in: Comic-Con · Editorial · Exclusive · Interviews · News · SyFy · TV
Tagged: Allison Blake, Allison Scagliotti, Colin Ferguson, Comic-Con, Douglas Fargo, Ed Quinn, Eureka, Future, future tech, futuristic, gadget, Gadgets, GD, Geek, Giant Spiders, Global Dynamics, government, High Tech, Hover, Hover Bikes, Hovercraft, Neil Grayston, Research, Robots, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, San Diego Comic Con 2010, San Diego Comic-Con, Science Fiction, SCIFI, SDCC, Spiders, SyFy, Tech, Technology, TV, universal studios
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by Diane Panosian, Aug 25 2010 // 8:00 AM
SyFy’s Eureka and Warehouse 13 are filled to the brim with gizmos a plenty and government geniuses. Much like the perfect swirl at Pink Berry, when these two shows crossover they form the perfect blend of high tech adventures. So, when The Flickcast sat down with the energetic, witty, and down to earth Neil Grayston, we couldn’t help but inquire about his fictional and non-fictional cohort Allison Scagliotti.
Neil Grayston, who plays Douglas Fargo on Eureka, it seems is an international man of mystery. I say international because he is in fact from Canada, and mystery because who knew he used to be a wrestler and still keeps his black belt firmly pressed? I’m sure this is why Allison Scagliotti of Warehouse 13 finds her pal perpetually fascinating.
The Flickcast: Is it fun seeing Warehouse 13’s Allison Scagliotti in San Diego?
Neil Grayston: Yeah, well it’s funny, Allison and I met a year ago, here at Comic-Con. We hit it off pretty much right away and we’ve kept in touch and we’re like really, really good friends. And then, we got paid to hang out and work together for 2 weeks, and make out and stuff.
We have a very similar way of doing things- we answer each other’s sentences so many times and we have the same punch lines. Like when another person has just said something and we’ll both try to make a clever quip and it’ll be at the same time with the same inflection.
It was really fun, I hope I can go back, because the whole Warehouse 13 cast is great and the whole Eureka cast is great, and we all sort of blend quite well together.
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Posted in: Comic-Con · Exclusive · Interviews · Sci-Fi Channel · TV · Universal Pictures
Tagged: Allison Scagliotti, Colin Ferguson, Comic Con 2010, Comic-Con, Douglas Fargo, Ed Quinn, Eddie McClintock, Eureka, Geek, geeky, Interview, Joanne Kelly, Neil Grayston, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC, Summer, SyFy, TV, universal studios, Warehouse 13
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by Diane Panosian, Aug 24 2010 // 9:00 AM
The future is always changing, especially if you’re a fan watching Eureka on SyFy this summer. This season, Eureka’s main characters changed their time line when they traveled back to 1947. They returned to find their character’s lives slightly altered. Apparently, they never listened to Doc Brown’s words of wisdom.
Douglas Fargo, once an impetuous and lovable assistant, is now the head of Global Dynamics and finds his employees haven’t taken well to his dictator-like leadership tactics of the past.
We got the chance to sit down with the new director of GD, Douglas Fargo, played enthusiastically by Neil Grayston. Surprisingly, he was more than willing to spill the classified goings-on of this nation’s most secret and innovative town.
The Flickcast: Which of Douglas Fargo’s personality traits will help him in his new position as Director of Global Dynamics?
Neil Grayston: Well I think it’s his strange, I’m not going to say tenacity, but his curiosity is probably going to help him. Because you know he is the guy who always pushes the buttons and maybe now he might actually take a little sec to ask what that button does before pushing it, but he’s still going to go and investigate and see what’s what. You know, he’s not one to be lazy on the job. I think that will work well for him.
FC: Can you talk about the new direction of the series and how the alternate reality has effected this season?
NG: Well the big thing with the time shift is that everyone’s been completely reinvigorated by it, from the actors to the writers and even the network are all very, very excited. This year I’ve been in and talking to people and everyone seems really, genially enthusiastic about it which is great.
Especially on our side, we’re having so much fun doing it, we get to figure out our characters again and try to figure out, ok, well what would they do if they were another person but they still remembered who they were.
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Posted in: Exclusive · Interviews · News · SyFy · TV
Tagged: Allison Scagliotti, Colin Ferguson, Comic-Con, Douglas Fargo, Ed Quinn, Eureka, Geek, Neil Grayston, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, SDCC, SyFy, TV, universal studios
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by Diane Panosian, Jul 2 2010 // 11:00 AM
While on the red carpet of Universal Studio’s King Kong 360 3D premiere I happened upon the very lovely and enthusiastic Yvette Nicole Brown of NBC’s Community. I thought that by the time she made it on over to us, she’d be bored silly of talking about a big, gruff gorilla with bad morning breath, so we talked Comic-Con instead.
Upon meeting the lively actress I couldn’t help but ask about my favorite TV episode of the entire year: Community’s “Modern Warfare. ” It was the best action movie spoof I have seen in quite some time. She joyfully agreed. I know many a guy who loves to quote from movies, and after watching “Modern Warfare,” I couldn’t help but quote from it with maniacal glee. One quote in particular sums it up, “Checkmate bitches! And tell the Drama Club their tears will be real today.”
We also talked about the blessed event known as Comic-Con. She will be a Comic-Con newbie this year. So, all those who make it to the mic to ask questions at the Community panel, I ask you be gentle.
Watch and enjoy the interview after the jump and keep on watching The Flickcast, because you never know what stars might pop up.
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Posted in: Exclusive · Interviews · NBC · News · TV · Universal Pictures
Tagged: 3D, Comic-Con, Community, Joel McHale, King Kong, Modern Warfare, NBC, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC10, the view, universal studios, universal studios hollywood, Yvette Nicole Brown
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by Diane Panosian, Jun 30 2010 // 5:00 PM
Diane here and fresh off the red carpet premiere of Universal Studios’ Hollywood latest attraction, King Kong 360 3D. If you have a chance to swing on by this summer, it is worth the wait.
Yesterday while walking among a 360lb Bengal Tiger, a 13 foot Python, a feisty monkey, and tribal dancers who kept on telling me to touch their dinosaur bones I became entranced with the world of Skull Island and a gorilla who’s eaten one too many Big Macs.
I was not alone, The Office’s Craig Robinson, Oscar Nunez, and Kate Flannery, along with Kevin Smith, Yvette Nicole Brown of Community, Wayne Brady,Wanted and King Kong’s Thomas Kretschmann, and a very shy Christopher Lloyd were all there sampling the gourmet apps and reveling in a filmed introduction to the experience by none other than a slimmed down Peter Jackson in 3D.
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Posted in: Announcements · Recommendations · Reviews · Sci-Fi · Universal Pictures
Tagged: attraction, Christopher Lloyd, Community, Craig Robinson, kate flannery, Kevin Smith, King Kong, oscar nunez, Peter Jackson, ride, skull island, Summer 2010, The Office, theme park, Thomas Kretschmann, Universal, Universal Pictures, universal studios, universal studios hollywood, Wanted, wayne brady, Yvette Nicole Brown
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