Wimmer’s “Children of the Corn” was among the many productions that were getting things underway as the pandemic was first starting. According to a report from The Herald Tribune, rather than delay the shoot, they just went right on ahead with the Australian production. Safety protocols were implemented up until filming was completed in May 2020, with no one falling ill.
Now here’s where things get strange.
Seeing as most theaters were understandably closed, in October 2020, “Children of the Corn” producer Lucas Foster decided to release it in only two locations in Sarasota County, Florida. “We’re kind of trying it out on a regional basis on a number of screens, and seeing if we can convince people that we can make it safe,” Foster said. It was, indeed, not safe. I’m actually kind of surprised the film wasn’t even considered for a drive-in release, where independent labels were thriving at the time.
I presume the rollout plan didn’t go as anticipated, given that the film was later pushed back to an undisclosed fall 2022 release date, which also ended up not happening. But it looks like the folks at RLJE and Shudder have rescued it from obscurity. “Children of the Corn” will mark the third film in the series to get a theatrical release, after they started going direct-to-video starting with “Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest.” This won’t even mark the series’ first remake, as there was already one that premiered on SyFy back in 2009, which also goes by “Children of the Corn.”