Exclusive: Producers Phil Lord & Chris Miller Shopping Hot New Christmas Comedy 'The In-Claus'

Happy Tuesday, folks!

It was a very busy Labor Day Weekend in Tinseltown, as reactions to his fall’s hottest Oscar contenders poured in from the Venice and Telluride film festivals. I’ll sort the wheat from the chaff later this week, I promise…

This weekend saw Weapons reclaim the domestic box office crown, taking in more than $12 million in its fourth frame, and edging out Universal’s 50th anniversary re-release of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws ($10 million), not to mention Darren Aronofsky’s crime movie Caught Stealing and Jay Roach’s comedy The Roses, which opened to $9.5 million and $8 million, respectively.

I opted to skip The Roses and see this weekend’s other new release, The Toxic Avenger, which was about what I was expecting — and yet somehow still a little disappointing. Other than some gnarly gore, this was just Troma-level schlock dressed up with a cool cast, and frankly, I’m not surprised it sat on a shelf for the past two years. What does surprise me is that Legendary produced this movie. I have no idea why.

Peter Dinklage was good as Toxie, and I loved what Elijah Wood was up to, but nothing else worked, from Kevin Bacon’s villain to Jacob Tremblay’s dancing teenager. I like Macon Blair as an actor — he’s great in Green Room — but as a director, he’s now 0-for-2 in my book. Let’s hope the upcoming Dave Franco-O’Shea Jackson Jr. comedy The Shitheads turns things around…

I also watched the latest episode of Dexter: Resurrection — it’s Hot Dinklage Summer in this household, with Roofman on the way soon — and enjoyed the way the show said goodbye to one of its best characters. No spoilers here, though it’ll be obvious to anyone who has seen the show this season.

Speaking of Dexter, Paramount/Showtime recently canceled the prequel, Dexter: Original Sin, despite initially renewing it. I think that’s because of how well Resurrection has been performing. It’s clear that audiences want to see Michael C. Hall as the character, not Patrick Gibson. While the party line is that the Dexter brain trust simply couldn’t find a way to tell more stories about Young Dex, I fully believe that Showtime had room in its budget for two Dexter shows — Resurrection, and the Trinity Killer prequel series that’s still in the works, and will probably be heating up soon.

Finally, speaking of serial killers, I’ll be weighing in soon on Peacock’s upcoming John Wayne Gacy series, Devil in Disguise, which begins streaming on Oct. 16. I binge-watched the entire series last week, and it’ll be interesting to talk about as someone who has read the Terry Sullivan and Peter T. Maiken book Killer Clown.

Tonight, you’ll read about the hot new Christmas movie that Lord & Miller are shopping, the latest moves that David Ellison is making at Paramount, and my thoughts on the trailer for Andrew Renzi’s Netflix documentary, aka Charlie Sheen, which I expect will cause a stir on the service when it begins streaming on Sept. 10.

There are also items about the latest hires — and exits — at SNL, Seth Rogen teaming up with Anna Kendrick, Disney’s new original animated movie, HBO Max’s release date for the It prequel series, and a ton of interesting casting news.

Paid subscribers can enter the Sneider-Verse to read more…

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.