HAMMER Film Productions, the maker of 1960s Dracula films starring Christopher Lee, is prowling for co-investors as it returns to film-making with a remake of a Swedish vampire tale.
Hammer showed scenes from the drama Let Me In to about 6 000 cheering fans last month at the Comic-Con International convention in San Diego. The London-based studio, which has raised $100 million (R730m) for operations and production, is looking for an equally enthusiastic response at the box office to attract money to co-finance future films.
"You only get the chance once to impress investors with your ability to deliver profitable and enjoyable movies," chief executive Simon Oakes said.
Hammer is releasing its first film in 31 years after London's Exclusive Media Group acquired the company and its library of 295 titles in 2007. Let Me In enters theatres as audiences have flocked to Summit Entertainment's Twilight teen-vampire movies and HBO airs its third season of True Blood.
Let Me In is based on Let the Right One in, a Swedish film adapted from the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
The film tells the story of a lonely, bullied boy who makes friends with a girl in his flat complex. Her arrival coincides with a series of gruesome murders in their small New Mexico town.
Hammer, which plans to keep production budgets at about $15m, is developing a script for The Woman in Black, a ghost story based on the long-running West End play. Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe had agreed to star, the studio said last month.
Hammer raised its $100m fund through Netherlands-based Cyrte Investments, a private-equity firm backed by Big Brother creator John de Mol, in May 2008.
Tighter credit would make it more difficult to draw in additional investors for making movies, Oakes said. "Hopefully these films will go well and we will attract other people to invest with us."
"So many of the individual investors have been disappointed by the business. What we're hoping to do is show we're a well managed company," he said.
The first three Twilight films, made for about $155m in total, have generated more than $1.7 billion in global ticket sales, according to researcher Box Office Mojo.
Low-budget horror has also been a reliable performer for Hollywood. The six Saw films, distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment, were each made for $11m or less and have averaged $122m in worldwide sales, according to Box Office Mojo.
Last year's surprise hit Paranormal Activity, made for $15 000, generated $193m globally for Viacom's Paramount Pictures.
One challenge for film-makers is that the genre is also among the most crowded. Each success spawns a host of imitators, said Hal Vogel, an independent media analyst based in New York.
"There will be film buffs for any genre and there certainly will be for horror films," Vogel said. "But I think they have kind of burned out their audience because of repetition."
Founded in 1934, Hammer became known for horror with the release of The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955 and The Curse of Frankenstein. The studio kept on making movies until 1979, when it released The Lady Vanishes, according to Internet Movie Database. British actor Christopher Lee was frequently cast in Hammer movies such as Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride and Taste the Blood of Dracula.
The Hammer brand still resonated among horror fans, said Devin Faraci, the editor of the movie news website CHUD.com. Let Me In was an effort at updating the image for a new generation of viewers, he said.
"People have a very specific idea of what a Hammer movie is," Faraci said. "Hammer is very gothic. It is Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and it is classic monsters."
Initially, Hammer would focus on new material and would eventually remake films from the library, Oakes said. Hammer planned to steer clear of slasher and torture films, he said.
"I want to make smart horror," Oakes said. "You can make an emotionally and psychologically frightening film without any blood, if you want to."
Let Me In is being distributed by Overture Films.
Relativity Media acquired Overture's marketing and distribution staff last month from John Malone's Liberty Media. Hammer is completing post-production work on The Resident, a thriller starring Hilary Swank, and seeking a distributor.
The original Let the Right One In, released in 2008, gained a following among horror fans and critics even as it played with subtitles in only 53 US theatres.
The film took in $11.2m in worldwide ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo, and was named best narrative feature at New York's Tribeca Film Festival and best foreign movie by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.
Of 156 reviews posted on Rottentomatoes.com, 152 were positive.
The movie's popularity among horror fans has put extra pressure on Hammer. Oakes hired Cloverfield director Matt Reeves to write and direct the film.
Kodi Smit-McPhee, 14, who co-starred in The Road, plays the boy.
Chloe Moretz, 13, from the superhero satire Kick-Ass, portrays the boy's mysterious friend.
At the Comic-Con presentation, Reeves narrated footage from three key scenes to reassure the audience that he had maintained the original's focus on story and character.
"All of what is so great about Lindqvist's story has to be there," Reeves said in an interview. - Bloomberg