It’s been a big week for professional wrestling. After seven years, CM Punk stepped inside the squared circle at All Elite Wrestling’s All Out pay-per-view event, and, surprisingly, so too did former WWE Superstars Daniel Bryan (now under his real name Bryan Danielson) and Adam Cole. It was reminiscent of the WCW/WWF Monday night wars of the ‘90s when WWF mainstays Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Hulk Hogan made the jump from Vince McMahon to Ted Turner.
Now, the world waits for Earth’s dominant wrestling promotion to respond to losing all these heavyweights. How will WWE one-up the upstarts at AEW? Obviously by announcing an interactive haunted house movie for Netflix starring The Undertaker.
Escape The Undertaker will see Big E, Xavier Woods, and Kofi Kingston, known collectively as the tag team The New Day, spending a night in the Deadman’s haunted mansion. We can only assume that Kofi’s kayfabe uncle died and bequeathed the mansion to the wrestler with one stipulation: they must survive the night! That’ll show CM Punk who the worldwide leader in sports entertainment really is.
Things only get bleaker when you read the synopsis:
The Undertaker has set a trap for the decorated tag team The New Day at his mansion. What they don’t know: The Undertaker’s mansion is an extreme Haunted House, packed to the brim with supernatural challenges. It’s up to viewers to decide the fate of these three poor souls trying to survive the wrath of The Undertaker.
We’re assuming that the “interactive” part of all this is like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, finally giving fans the opportunity to choose whether or not Big E opens the Undertaker’s urn. Sounds great—like a 90-minute wrestling promo where fans can decide to keep watching WWE or not.
WWE has been making movies for almost two decades at this point. In 2002, WWE Studios launched, giving wrestlers like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, John Cena, and Kane their own starring vehicles. They also released an Ed Harris movie and a Leprechaun reboot no one asked for. Additionally, WWE Studios released The Big Show Show, a sitcom starring Superstar Paul Wight, who signed with AEW less than six months after the final episode aired. Fun fact: Jaleel White appeared on The Big Show Show as a character named Terence Malik—not to be confused with acclaimed filmmaker Terrence Malick. All that’s really beside the point because what’s clear is that the wrestling wars are back, and Escape The Undertaker will be enough to declare WWE the winners.
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Escape The Undertaker hits Netflix on October 5. AEW, consider your days numbered.
[via Bloody Disgusting]