Drew Goddard’s Cabin in the Wood has been on the shelves for two years. It will finally get its release next month and fans are eager to see the movie directed by Goddard and produced by Joss Whedon.
So why the long wait for the film? Whedon says film franchises like Saw led to the film being shelved for a while.
“We’ve had a growing disconnect between watching people getting murdered and ‘horror,’ which is not actually about murder,” Whedon tells Entertainment Weekly. “It can contain murder, but it’s not limited to it. We wanted to go back to old-school thrilling scares”
Whedon and Goddard said they wanted to use the project to turn the conventions of horror films on their head. And it took some work to convince studios the film could succeed.
“[We] did all the legwork and said, ‘This is the package, take it or leave it’,” Goddard said. “Luckily, people got it.”
Adding to the delay were financial issues with MGM. Goddard said he knew it could be a while before the release was back on track.
“It wasn’t just us,” Goddard said. “It was The Hobbit, it was James Bond. If they’re taking a while [to deal with those projects], we know, ‘Oh, it’s going to take us a while.'”
The movie remained in purgatory until April 2011, when Lionsgate jumped in and picked up the distribution rights – reviving the original, 2D version, just as Joss and Goddard intended.