CJ Entertainment Announces New Horror Film Label 413 Pictures

August 1, 2018

Written by Kelli Marchman McNeely

Kelli Marchman McNeely is the owner of HorrorFuel.com. She is an Executive Producer of "13 Slays Till Christmas" which is out on Digital and DVD and now streaming on Tubi. She has several other films in the works. Kelli is an animal lover and a true horror addict since the age of 9 when she saw Friday the 13th. Email: horrorfuelinfo@gmail.com


 

CJ Entertainment announced today they have launched the new horror label, 413 Pictures, whose name is derived from ‘4’ being an unlucky number in Asia and ‘13’, an unlucky number in the U.S.

The new label aims to release between two and four English-language genre films and four to five local-language Asian genre films each year. It will have a broad appeal to both Asia and Western markets as its contents will incorporate horror elements from both cultures.

The first films to be released under the 413 Pictures label in the U.S. will be Hide and Seek (going into production this fall) and The Housemaid (going into production next year). CJ Entertainment is developing, financing and producing both films.

Joel David Moore (“Avatar” franchise) is directing Hide and Seek – a remake of the hit Korean social horror-thriller written and directed by Huh Jung and released to wide critical and commercial success in 2013. The movie builds upon themes related to the widening gap between the upper 1% and the lower class.  As the population in urban areas balloon and real estate prices skyrocket, lower-income segments of society are finding themselves continually getting pushed out. This film explores the question of “what if” when those left marginalized decide to take matters into their own hands.

The Housemaid is an English language remake of Vietnam’s highest grossing horror film of all time. Academy Award® winner Geoffrey Fletcher is adapting the screenplay for CJ and 413 Pictures. The original Housemaid, directed by Derek Nguyen, was a massive hit with a story that explores racial and social themes through a period/romance/horror film. The remake stays true to this concept, taking place in the deep South during the Reconstruction Era.

The movie pipeline for 413 Pictures will be working on both original projects and remake projects and is interested in working closely with talents who have original ideas for genre films. The focus will be on elevated thriller and supernatural horror films.

CJ has been expanding mightily in Southeast Asia, making local-language films that have connected with local audiences and spurred strong box office performance. Given the success of this tailored business model, CJ has remained aggressive in pursuing local-language productions and currently has a number of films in development across territories throughout Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, that will be released over the course of the next two years, including the Thai horror film A Portrait of a Beauty.

Portrait of a Beauty, which will go into production at the end of this year and be released in 2019, is being financed and produced by CJ Major Entertainment, a joint venture between CJ ENM and Major Cineplex Group, Thailand’s largest cinema company. The adapted version will be written by Eakasit Thairaat, one of the most prominent horror screenwriters in Thailand (“4BIA,” “13 Beloved”).  It will mark the feature debut of Surapong Ploensang, one of the top commercial directors in Thailand.

The company’s move to launch the standalone genre label 413 Pictures comes at a time when horror films, in particular, are drawing audiences to theaters in record numbers worldwide and reinforces CJ Entertainment’s commitment to strengthening its leadership position in global feature film productions and targeted local-language films.

Said Francis Chung, “Our vision for 413 Pictures is to produce unique and original genre films, globally and locally, as well as identifying and evaluating IP that can be remade in other territories around the world.”

Francis Chung added, “Beyond the tremendous commercial upsides to having a dedicated, branded genre label, an important aspect of 413 Pictures will be to discover and nurture emerging genre voices in Asia for both local and US markets.”

2018 has been a very active year for CJ Entertainment. In addition to closing the aforementioned deals with Geoffrey Fletcher for The Housemaid and Joel David Moore for Hide and Seek, the company optioned rights to the haunting, non-fiction best-selling book, “The Vanished” and signed Academy Award® nominee Phyllis Nagy to direct and write; and closed a deal with Drake Doremus to direct the internally developed Aurora –.a sweeping romantic drama with a supernatural element and a big “what if” question at its core, which Salvador Paskowitz is writing.

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