'Blair Witch' Director Reinvents Bigfoot in 'Exists'

Brian Steele has been cast as Bigfoot  in Exist, past credits include
Hellboy, Predator, Underworld and Terminator Salvation (click pic to enlarge)

"The film is the first in a trilogy exploring and reinventing the Bigfoot myth. We all remember the terror of watching such classics as THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, and I look forward to making Bigfoot scary again." -- "Exist" director Eduardo Sanchez.

Another Sasquatchploitation movie. (Read our top 51 Sasquatchploitation movies) Except this one has a big budget behind it. Not only does it have a familiar director, Eduardo Sanchez from "Blair Witch" fame, it will star creature celebrity Brian Steele as Bigfoot whom will be costumed and designed by WETA workshop, famous for Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and Avatar.

Exist is in the News againa as Casting has been complete and production has been given a start date; April 9, 2012. Below is a collection of reports from around the web, conveniently collected for you fans.

VARIETY -  JUN 27, 2011

Bigfoot 'Exists' in new film

By DAVE MCNARY

Haxan Films and Amber Entertainment are looking for Bigfoot, setting an October start date for lensing "Exists," with "Blair Witch Project" director Eduardo Sanchez to helm.

"Exists," written by Jamie Nash and Sanchez, follows a group of twentysomethings who take a trip to a cabin deep in the wooded wilderness and are methodically hunted by a Bigfoot-like beast.

"The film is the first in a trilogy exploring and reinventing the Bigfoot myth," Sanchez said. "We all remember the terror of watching such classics as 'The Legend of Boggy Creek,' and I look forward to making Bigfoot scary again."

Robin Cowie, Gregg Hale and Andy Jenkins of Haxan and Jane Fleming and Mark Ordesky of Amber are producing.

Weta Workshop and Spectral Motion are collaborating with the production team on the design and build of the monster, to be portrayed by Brian Steele ("Hellboy," "Predators," the "Underworld" trilogy). The film will be shot outside Austin, Texas, at Spiderwood Studios, and casting will begin in August with a focus on unknown actors. SRC: Variety

FEARNET - APR 6, 2012

Cast Selected for "Exist"
by Alyse Wax

Eduardo Sanchez, the man behind The Blair Witch Project and the upcoming Lovely Molly has announced his next film: Exists.  Hit the jump for more.

Returning to the found-footage style that launched his career, Exists follows a group of friends on a weekend camping trip who discover they are being stalked by Bigfoot. Jamie Nash (Lovely Molly, Altered) wrote the script, with an ensemble cast that includes Dora Madison Burge (Humans Versus Zombies), Roger Edwards (Spy Kids 4), Denise Williamson (Spirit Camp), and newcomers Chris Osborn and Samuel Davis. SRC: FearNet.com

WE ARE MOVIE GEEKS - April 5, 2012

Haxan Films And Amber Entertainment To Start Production On EXISTS April 9, 2012

By Michelle McCue

Haxan Films and Amber Entertainment announced today they will start production on EXISTS on April 9th at Spiderwood Studios in Elgin, TX with Eduardo Sanchez (The Blair Witch Project, Lovely Molly) directing.

Produced by Robin Cowie, Jane Fleming, Andy Jenkins and Mark Ordesky. The screenplay is written by Jamie Nash. The ensemble cast includes Dora Madison Burge, Samuel Davis, Roger Edwards, Chris Osborn and Denise Williamson. Brian Steele (Predators, Hellboy), the well-known “suit actor” will play Bigfoot. The film’s Executive Producers are Gregg Hale and Reed Frerichs.

EXISTS is Sanchez’s first foray into found footage since The Blair Witch Project. The film is a horror-thriller that chronicles a group of friends who set out into a remote Texas woods for a weekend of fun and are stalked and hunted by Bigfoot.

This is the second film produced under a multi-picture collaboration between Haxan Films (Blair Witch Project) and Amber Entertainment (The Frozen Ground). The first, Lovely Molly garnered critical acclaim after bows at the Midnight Madness lineup at Toronto and SXSW and is being released by Image Entertainment on May 18th. Production Designer Andrew White and Cinematographer John W. Rutland are also returning.

Sanchez and Haxan Films are repped by APA, Caliber Media and Stuart Rosenthal. Burge is repped by Tag Talent with Davis, Edwards and Osborn repped by Collier Talent. Williamson is repped by Pastorini-Bosby Talent. SRC: WeAreMovieGeeks.com

Frozen Bigfoot Hoaxer to be Interviewed on "Extinct?" Podcast

What a way to celebrate April Fools Day, then to interview the biggest hoaxer of the millenia. True we are only 12 years into this millenia, but so far Rick Dyer wins.

Rick Dyer with Tom Biscardi during a 2008 Press conference.

You may Remember rick Dyer from the 2008 Frozen bigfoot hoax that was all the craze. You can go back in time and follow our complete coverage, including CNN video at our Georgia Gorilla link.

Today our friends at The Bigfoot Report, the folks responsible for the EXTINCT? series, are interviewing him live at  http://www.thebigfootreport.com/p/watch-extinct-podcast-live.html. Tune in at 2:00pm PST/2:00 EST! Michael Merchant (a/k/a SnowWalker Prime) has already expressed his excitement on his YouTube Channel.

NPR: Why Did Bigfoot Grow Up in the Northwest?

A Selection of Bigfoot Books (Photo by Bellamy Pailthorp)

I mean there was no mistaking. These were either cleverly hoaxed or they were the real thing, there was no room for misinterpretation of some other animal – a bear or human walking around barefoot." -- Dr. Jeff Meldrum

Below is a reprint of an article that was posted on NPR's website titled, "Why Did Bigfoot Grow Up in the Northwest?" This is a part of the "I Wonder Why..." weekly series that covers attributes in the Northwest that locals find endearing, odd, even irritating.

By Bellamy Pailthorp

It’s one of the most enduring legends of the Northwest – hundreds of people report sightings of Bigfoot every year. Native American stories also call it Sasquatch or “the Hairy Man.”

The idea of a giant, ape-like creature that hides in the woods and might be related to humans has been around for centuries.

Why has this “myth” endured in the Northwest? Is it because Bigfoot is really here? Or, is it because it’s the kind of wild alter ego Northeasterners love to imagine for themselves?

 

Legend continues to grow

Naturalist writer David George Gordon with his "Field Guide to the Sasquatch." Photo by Bellamy Pailthorp

Now, the Internet has pushed the popularity of Bigfoot to new heights, with sightings compiled on dozens of websites. There is even a Sunday night cable TV show:Animal Planet’s “Finding Bigfoot” launched last spring and is now one of the channel’s top three series, ever.

But it’s not just ratings-driven TV shows that are drawn to this material. Respected Seattle naturalist David George Gordon has written a book about Bigfoot, “Field Guide to the Sasquatch.”

“Yeah. This is a field guide – you know, a guide to go out and seem ’em,” Gordon says, as he stifles a chuckle, “to a creature that I can’t really confirm or deny its existence. So, if you read the book, you’ll see a lot of ‘purportedly’ and ‘supposedly’ and ‘alleged’ … a lot of qualifiers.”

His guidebook surveys scientific arguments for and against the existence of Sasquatch.

 

Really? Yes!

The first modern “evidence” that there might really be an ape-like creature living in the forests of the Cascade Range appeared 45 years ago.

It’s a grainy, black and white film from 1967 of an alleged Bigfoot sighting at Bluff Creek in Northern California. It shows a female Sasquatch striding along a creek bed. At one point, she turns and looks at the camera.

The film has created a lot of believers. Others remain highly skeptical.

“It could be anything,” says Patricia Kramer, a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington.

“We can’t tell what it is because it’s so grainy and dark. I mean, I don’t know what it is,” she says.

But not all scientists so readily dismiss the possibility of a Sasquatch. Idaho State University Professor Jeff Meldrum first saw the Bigfoot film when he was a kid in Spokane. That planted the seed for his career in anthropology.

But it wasn’t till 1996 that he got really hooked. He found a fresh set of muddy tracks in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, near Walla Walla. The details were astonishing.

“I mean there was no mistaking. These were either cleverly hoaxed or they were the real thing,” Meldrum says. “There was no room for misinterpretation of some other animal – a bear or human walking around barefoot.”

 

Compelling evidence …

As he made casts of the footprints and took in the dynamics of the motion that must have created them, he says the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He came to the conclusion that he was in a place where a Bigfoot had walked, just that morning.  

“I sat there and contemplated, do I go down this path or not?” Meldrum recounts. “But I thought, How can I walk away from this?”

He had seen a colleague (Professor Grover Krantz) ostracized for researching Bigfoot. But Meldrum made up his mind to risk his career too, because he was so convinced by the evidence he was seeing.

 

… not for this scientist

Professor Patricia Kramer in a classroom where she teaches anthropology at the university of Washington. She tells her students there is no real evidence to prove existence of a Sasquatch, "it's fiction." Photo by Bellamy Pailthorp.

Still, for skeptics like UW Professor Patricia Kramer, the plaster casts are just as murky as the old film footage.

And as for all the reported sightings of Bigfoot every year? She thinks people just like to believe.

“It’s a myth,” Kramer says. “It’s something interesting to talk about – over a beer at the meetings. Or on a field trip. Or on a backpacking trip, like talking about werewolves and vampires out on the Olympic Peninsula, right? I mean, it’s fiction.”

 

Why in the Northwest?

And for writer David George Gordon, having the Sasquatch as a kind of wild-man alter ego fits right in to the culture of the Northwest, with all its mysterious rainforests and unexplored wilderness.

“We have a real thing about the wilds and we like to think there’s lots of stuff out there that we don’t know about,” Gordon says. “So I think that’s part of our mythos, that there’s a whole wild ecology out there that we know nothing about.”

Modern science may soon be able to prove once and for all whether Bigfoot exists. A lab in Texas is working on DNA testing of alleged Sasquatch samples. The results are expected any day now.

But no matter what they show, the stories of a hairy wild man hiding in the woods of the Northwest are likely to endure.