'Mother Land', About A Family Haunted By An Evil Spirit, Coming From Shawn Levy And Lionsgate

Shawn Levy, a producer and filmmaker with a successful and eclectic career, will produce Mother Land, a new Lionsgate horror movie about a family haunted for generations by an evil spirit. The project hails from a spec script by Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby, and Levy will produce with Stranger Things producing partner Dan Cohen.Variety has the story on Mother Land, describing it as "centered on a family that has been haunted by an evil spirit for years. Their safety and their surroundings come into question when one of the children questions if the evil is real." Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby, who wrote the 2016 film Mean Dreams, wrote the script. Mean Dreams was Bill Paxton's final film before his untimely death.

Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen will produce through their 21 Laps banner, while Lionsgate's Aaron Janus and Chelsea Kujawa and 21 Laps' Emily Morris will oversee the project. It's yet another title Levy can add to his very weird resume – a resume that includes Night at the Museum, Real Steel, Stranger Things, the Unsolved Mysteries reboot, Arrival, and the upcoming Ryan Reynolds movie Free Guy. Like I said: eclectic.

Levy and Cohen also recently snapped up the rights to a Reddit creepypasta story, My Wife & I Bought a Ranch, that follows a couple, Harry and Sasha, who buy their dream house in Idaho, only to then learn "there is a malevolent spirit in the valley, one that manifests itself by coming to the house in the same manner at the start of each season. There are certain steps that must be followed to keep the spirit out of their house, and the tension and violence grows with each gory ritual." Interesting that both Mother Land and My Wife & I Bought a Ranch both involve the presence of an evil spirit. Evil spirits are going to be big soon, gang! 21 Laps also have the post-apocalyptic romantic comedy Love and Monsters, starring Dylan O'Brien, due out on video on demand on October 16, 2020.