Before he was the go-to guy for Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies, director Gore Verbinski supplied ample nightmare fuel to audiences with his 2002 horror film The Ring, which is based on the Japanese movie of the same name and follows a woman who discovers a cursed videocassette tape. Now, after a string of big-budget, mainstream projects, Verbinski is finally returning to his scary-movie roots with the upcoming thriller A Cure For Wellness.
And if the latest trailer for the film is a good indication of what’s in store for audiences, Verbinski’s return to horror might be well worth the wait.
Directed by Verbinski from a script penned by Revolutionary Road and The Lone Ranger screenwriter Justin Haythe, A Cure for Wellness casts Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) as a young executive who’s tasked by his company’s board of directors with retrieving the CEO from a mysterious facility in the Swiss Alps, where he had traveled to recover from an unknown affliction. As he soon discovers, the facility turns out to be more than just a simple health spa, and he finds himself pulled deeper into the its secret agenda after he’s diagnosed with the same mysterious illness afflicting everyone there.
Along with DeHaan, the film also stars Harry Potter franchise actor Jason Isaacs and Nymphomaniac and The Survivalist actress Mia Goth.
Verbinski’s remake of The Ring was received positively by professional critics and general audiences alike, and benefitted from the good buzz by achieving the rare feat of earning more in its second week in theaters than it did in its first. Over the course of its 22-week run in theaters, The Ring raked in more than $249 million — not bad for a film that cost just $48 million to make.
A Cure for Wellness is scheduled to hit theaters February 17, 2017.
