As George Romero proved with zombie masterpiece Dawn of the Dead, shopping malls make for a really fun horror movie setting. Following in the footsteps of Dawn, and don’t forget Chopping Mall, is a new horror-comedy titled Dead Mall, and we’ve got all the details today. Read on, shoppers!
Per Deadline, Fox has acquired Dead Mall, a pitch that will be written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Don’t recognize those names? They’re the Academy Award-winning writers of Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, and they also wrote and directed The Way Way Back.
The pitch is a comedy-horror movie set in a dead mall. The title comes from a growing national phenomenon, these second tier malls that are scattered about the country, skeletal shrines to a boom in shopping. When the shoppers stopped coming, the malls fell into disrepair and closed. Set in that backdrop, the comedy concerns an ensemble of 40-year old guys and girls, seemingly with enough brainpower to escape a slasher film-quality killer, but maybe not.
Kevin Walsh is producing through B Story, and Faxon and Rash will be executive producers.
