It’s been nearly three years since the project was first announced and after an exchanging of studios, the long-awaited Jacob’s Ladder remake starring Michael Ealy (The Intruder) was acquired by Vertical Entertainment and a month ahead of its release the first trailer for the mind-bending thriller has been revealed, which can be viewed in the player below!
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The Jacob’s Ladder remake is directed by David M. Rosenthal (The Perfect Guy) from the screenplay by co-writers Jeff Buhler and Sarah Thorp. It will star Michael Ealy (Think Like a Man, Seven Pounds), Jesse Williams, Nicole Beharie, Karla Souza, Guy Burnet and Joseph Sikora. In the meantime, the film’s international rights are being shopped around at Cannes.
The 1990 Jacob’s Ladder starred Tim Robbins and was directed by Adrian Lyne. It centered around Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran living in New York City. Haunted by his past, Singer begins a descent into madness that threatens to blend reality and delusion with the threat of Dante-inspired damnation. The new take on the property is said to reexamine the themes of the original against a contemporary backdrop, with Jacob Singer getting his life back together after his brother is killed in Afghanistan. Once he learns his brother may be alive, the lines between reality and paranoia start to blur.
The original was a modest commercial success and garnered generally positive reviews from critics for its surreal and unpredictable story, disturbing visual effects and Robbins’ performance and has garnered a large cult following over the years and has been cited as a direct influence on a number of works over the years, including namely the Silent Hill video game and film franchises, the second season of the hit FX horror series, American Horror Story: Asylum, and the 2014 horror video game The Evil Within.
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If you have DISH, you can check out the new Jacob’s Ladder this month while everyone else will have to wait for the film to hit theaters on August 23.