Urban Legend | |
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Directed by | Jamie Blanks |
Written by | Silvio Horta |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | James Chressanthis |
Edited by | Jay Cassidy |
Music by | Christopher Young |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Countries | |
Language | English |
Budget | $14 million[3] |
Box office | $72.5 million[3] |
Urban Legend is a 1998 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks, written by Silvio Horta, and starring Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, and Michael Rosenbaum, and is the first installment in the Urban Legend film series. Its plot focuses on a series of murders on the campus of a private New England university, all of which appear to be modeled after popular urban legends. In addition to its younger cast, the film features supporting performances from Robert Englund, Loretta Devine, John Neville, and Brad Dourif.
Filmed in Toronto in the spring of 1998, Urban Legend was released in the United States on September 25, 1998. It was a commercial success, grossing $72.5 million worldwide on a budget of $14 million, but received generally negative reviews from critics, with chief criticisms being that the film was a blatant rip-off of Scream (1996). The film has been credited by both cinema and folklore scholars as being one of the first major films to redistribute the urban legends and folklore depicted within it to the public.[a]
It was followed by two sequels: Urban Legends: Final Cut, which was released theatrically in 2000, and the direct-to-video film Urban Legends: Bloody Mary in 2005. In February 2020, a reboot of the film was announced to be in development, but it was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the studio losing interest.
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