WWE Studios head Michael Luisi recently talked to Entertainment Weekly following the announcement of a deal between WWE Studios and KISS frontman Gene Simmons.
Simmons and WWE are collaborating on a horror movie production label called Erebus; you can read a few excerpts from Luisi below:
Michael Luisi Talks Wrestlemania 31:
Well, it’s WrestleMania weekend, which is definitely the Superbowl, if you’re a WWE fan. It’s our 31stinstallment. And as I’m speaking to you know, I’m actually looking out the window of my hotel room in San Jose and I can see just massive amounts of WWE fans who are walking around the city.
How did WWE team up with Gene Simmons?
We met through a mutual business acquaintance and we sat down together at his home in Bel Air and we hit it off instantly. I discovered very quickly that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. We started talking about our favorite movies, and our favorite types of movies, and we both realized that we loved great horror films. And now we’re moving forward on our first two pictures, so it’s very exciting.
What other projects are WWE Studios currently working on?
Sure. We’ve got a movie that’s in postproduction now called Killing Hasselhoff, which is a very funny and irreverent, R-rated comedy. It stars Ken Jeong from Community and David Hasselhoff, playing himself. Ken’s character is a guy who has participated since he was a young man in a celebrity death pool with all of his best friends and he gets into some financial trouble. His pick is David Hasselhoff and he decides that the only way he’s going to get out of those financial straits is by actually figuring out a way to kill Hasselhoff. And then it becomes a very comical journey as Ken’s character attempts to do something horrible but in a very funny and comedic way. There’s lots of recognizable faces in there: Jon Lovitz, Will Sasso, Jim Jefferies. And most importantly—to WWE fans—Hulk Hogan is in the movie as well. So, that’s a fun one for us. We’ve also got a movie, with Jason Blum and Blumhouse, called Incarnate. That’s a a supernatural thriller starring Aaron Eckhart, and we have a Superstar doing a cameo in that named Mark Henry. That’s directed by Brad Peyton, who among other things, did the upcoming disaster film San Andreas, that Dwayne Johnson is the lead in.
WWE Studios’ first project with Erebus is called Temple. According to the official synopsis, the film is about “a team of highly trained operatives trapped inside an isolated military compound after its artificial intelligence is suddenly shut down. While investigating the source of the malfunction, the crew begins to experience strange and horrific phenomena as they attempt to uncover who or what killed the team previously stationed at the compound.”
