#Pam Grier Joins Pet Sematary Prequel

Pam Grier has boarded the Pet Sematary prequel in the works at Paramount+. The upcoming movie, which is still as of yet untitled, serves as a prequel to the studio’s reboot that was released in theaters in 2019. Not much else has been revealed about the plot, but the prequel will delve into the origin story of the cursed graveyard that brings back the dead as something much more sinister than they were before.

As of now, details about Grier’s role in the Pet Sematary prequel haven’t been revealed. Several names have previously been announced for the cast, as it’s been reported that Jackson White (Mrs. Fletcher) will play a young Jud Crandall, the elderly neighbor played by John Lithgow in the reboot and Fred Gwynne in the original Pet Sematary. The prequel also stars Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant), Jack Mulhern (Mare of Easttown), Natalie Alyn Lind (The Goldbergs), and Isabella Star LaBlanc (In an Instant).
RELATED: Pet Sematary Prequel Wants Mrs. Fletcher Star Jackson White as Young Jud Crandall
The untitled Pet Sematary prequel serves as the directorial debut for screenwriter Lindsey Beer (Sierra Burgess Is a Loser). Jeff Buhler, the writer of the remake, returns to pen the script for the prequel. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are producing.

Preceded by the Stephen King novel and Mary Lambert’s 1989 movie adaptation, Pet Sematary was directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer with a script written by Buhler. Reimagining the Creed family were new cast members Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, Jete Laurence, and Hugo and Lucas Lavoie. The movie also starred Obssa Ahmed as Pascow, Alyssa Brooke Levine as Zelda, and John Lithgow as Jud Crandall.

Critics were split on the new Pet Sematary, but it was a hit at the box office, grossing more than $113 million on a budget of $21 million. Soon after the original’s release in 2019, Buhler said there were discussions at Paramount to expand the franchise with another movie. At the time, he suggested that a prequel might be the way to go and offered some details as to what the story might entail.

“So a lot of the ideas that we’ve been batting around currently, recently, have all been about, more about digging into the mythology of the town, these rituals that children present, the mythology of the Micmac, the Wendigo, the cemetery, the origins, Jud’s life,” the screenwriter explained at the time, via ComicBook.com. “So it looks like, I don’t want to promise anything, because we don’t know, we’re not even down the road on an idea yet.”

Pam Grier might be best known for starring in several of the most popular blaxploitation movies of the 1970s including Coffy, Foxy Brown, Scream Blacula Scream, Bucktown, and Friday Foster. Decades later she earned great acclaim for her lead role as the titular character in Quentin Tarantino’s crime drama movie Jackie Brown in 1997. Grier also starred on TV shows like The L Word and Bless This Mess and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for her work in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child.

Filming on the Pet Sematary prequel is set to begin in August. A release date hasn’t yet been set, but it will reportedly be developed exclusively for the streaming service Paramount+. This news was first reported by Variety.

Topics: Pet Sematary