Blumhouse Productions has won the screen rights to “She Stalked Her Daughter’s Killers Across Mexico, One by One,” aNew York Timesarticle from December 13. The story, written by theNYT’s Mexican bureau chief Azam Ahmed, is about the lateMiriam Rodríguez Martínez, a grieving mother in Mexico who tracked down her daughter’s murderers one at a time andturned them over to the police.
The production has yet to officially begin, but whatever ends up being made from the story will be produced by theNew YorkTimes’Caitlin Roper, as well asAhmed and Blumhouse’s founder/namesake Jason Blum. The rights to the story went up for auction on December 15, which reportedly provoked a heated bidding war among a total of 16 interested parties.
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Martinez’s daughter Karen was kidnapped at the age of 20 in 2012, as one of many ransom-for-profit schemes that are endemic in crime-ridden parts of Mexico. Karen’s captors demanded multiple payments from Martinez, but even after she gave them the money, they didn’t return her daughter. When Karen’s remains were discovered in 2014, Martinez received little help from her local authorities andembarked on an investigation by herself.
Over the course of the next three years, she tracked the crew that had kidnapped her daughter. Her methods included stalking them online, befriending their families, and adopting disguises, doing whatever she could to find out details about the men she was after. Martinez eventually found 10 of the men who’d kidnapped Karen andhad them all arrested, holding one at gunpoint for over an hour until the police arrived.
Unfortunately, this also meant Martinez was deliberately going after men with ties to organized crime, which resulted in her being shot dead outside her home in May of 2017, when Mexico celebrates Mother’s Day. She was subsequently honored with a bronze plaque in the central plaza of San Fernando in Mexico, and her son Luis took over a group she’d started for families who’d lost loved ones in similar ransom schemes.
While Blumhouse isprimarily known for its low-budget horror films, such asHappy Death Day, The Invisible Man,and theParanormal Activityfranchise, it does occasionally produce work in other genres, such as the 2017 Christian dramaThe Resurrection of Gavin Stoneand Spike Lee’s 2018crime biographyBlacKkKlansman.As such, while it’s reasonable if cynical to assume Blumhouse is looking to make a ripped-from-the-headlines grindhouse revenge movie, the studio’s overall track record indicates that’s not necessarily going to be the case.
