ScreamWire Daily

AV Club reports Amazon has locked Mike Flanagan into a multi‑year, exclusive TV deal to develop series (including his Carrie adaptation) for Amazon MGM, a move that further centralizes major Stephen King adaptations with one streamer and secures a high‑profile horror showrunner.

UK/Ireland weekend box office: Disney’s Hoppers opened at No.1 with £4.7M (~$6.3M); Paramount’s Scream 7 fell to No.2 in its second weekend adding $1.5M for a £8.2M cumulative in the market; figures reported via Comscore.

SXSW 2026’s horror slate includes high-profile premieres and sequels — Hokum (from Damien McCarthy starring Adam Scott), Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (Radio Silence; Samara Weaving returns with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kathryn Newton, Elijah Wood), Pretty Lethal (Uma Thurman; Vicky Jewson) plus buzzy indies like Drag, Sender (featuring Jamie Lee Curtis) and queer horror Leviticus — positioning SXSW as a major launch platform for this year’s genre titles.

A24’s Undertone — a podcast-centered horror from writer-director Ian Tuason starring Nina Kiri and Adam DiMarco — premiered at Fantasia and is earning strong critical response (88% on Rotten Tomatoes after ~40 reviews) ahead of its U.S. release.

Austin-based producers Jon Wroblewski and Christian Sosa formally launched Roosevelt Film Lab at SXSW with a genre-forward slate that includes Kevin Bacon’s directorial debut Family Home (meta on-set slasher starring the Bacon family) and John Valley’s American Dollhouse (a Christmas-themed psychosexual/horror), with CAA/Range/Neon handling sales on Family Home and Roosevelt handling American Dollhouse.

Paramount’s Smile franchise has grossed over $350 million total and a third Smile is in development, but reports indicate creator/director Parker Finn is unlikely to return as he’s tied to multiple larger projects.

Cinecittà is adding four new soundstages (bringing total to 25) funded in part by €232m from Italy’s PNRR, expanding stage space to 21,000m² and increasing capacity by ~60%; studios say clarity on Italy’s 40% tax credit is driving a busy booking slate including international productions and a currently unnamed series occupying eight stages.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride earned just $13.5M globally against an $80M production budget, marking it as a major 2026 box-office failure and prompting debate over how theatrical flops should influence risk-taking on ambitious, original genre-adjacent films.

A Steam update for RoboCop: Rogue City appears to have accidentally leaked a previously unannounced World of Darkness game — an adaptation of Hunter: The Reckoning — signaling an upcoming licensed title tied to the tabletop/White Wolf IP.

Fantastic Fest is running a satellite program at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn this month, bringing a curated selection of festival favorites to NYC audiences — a regional exhibition push that expands Fantastic Fest’s brand and gives genre indie titles extra theatrical play.

MUBI announced the DVD, Blu-ray and UHD home-video release (April 20, 2026) for Lynne Ramsay’s psychological thriller Die My Love, which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson and has earned festival awards/nominations and strong critical notices for its unsettling portrait of love and madness.

MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center revealed the 55th New Directors/New Films lineup (April 8–19), highlighting 24 features including Adrian Chiarella’s horror-leaning 'Leviticus' and other boundary-pushing debuts that spotlight emerging filmmakers.

Hot Docs’ first wave includes 13 films such as The Ballad Of Judas Priest and the Canadian premiere of Black Zombie, a documentary that traces zombies from Haitian culture to Hollywood horror — the festival runs April 23–May 3 and will announce the full lineup March 24.

Catalyst Studios and Seismic Releasing set a U.S. nationwide theatrical release for Joanne Mitchell’s psychological horror drama Broken Bird on April 24, 2026, starring Rebecca Calder and James Fleet.

Zach Cregger’s 2025 psychological horror Weapons (Évanouis) — produced by New Line Cinema and exec-produced by Roy Lee — will air on Canal+ on March 14, 2026 after a VOD window, spotlighting a slow-burn community mystery about a mass disappearance starring Josh Brolin, Julia Garner and Alden Ehrenreich.

Found-footage sequel Looky-loo: Part II from director Jason Zink and writer Nolan Mihail will world premiere at Unnamed Footage Festival in San Francisco later this month, continuing the killer's escalation established in the first film.

Anthony Cousins' sequel Children of Frogman, titled Frogman Returns, will premiere at next month's Panic Fest; Cousins and Rotting Press plan to expand the Frogman universe with additional cryptid entries, with Cousins producing alongside listed collaborators.

Saturn Awards roundup: genre-heavy winners included James Cameron (multiple wins for Avatar: Fire and Ash), Tom Cruise, Guillermo del Toro; Netflix’s Frankenstein won Best Horror Film and Jacob Elordi took Best Supporting Actor — the ceremony reinforced genre prestige and marketplace visibility for horror and sci-fi titles.

Sony's International Women's Day web feature may have inadvertently revealed the protagonist identity for Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, spawning spoil speculation ahead of the game's marketing rollout.

Versant Digital (spun out from Comcast) aims to shift revenue toward non-linear sources and is rebranding acquired Indy Cinema Group to Fandango1; Versant reported $826 million in non-linear revenue last year and Will McIntosh outlines plans to expand Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes’ role in discovery and ad-supported streaming.

Paramount executive Jeff Shell is being sued by R.J. Cipriani for $150M over alleged unpaid crisis‑PR services and an oral deal to develop an English‑language version of a Roku show; the suit includes claims Shell shared confidential company views.

Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot is in active post-production with editing underway for a September 18 theatrical release; producer Roy Lee indicates the film will likely have a presence at CinemaCon 2026, offering fans an early look ahead of the wide debut.

London Book Fair delegates report a growing divergence between publishing (dominated by romantasy/BookTok hits) and TV/film buyers who currently favor muscular domestic thrillers and procedurals, though buyers are hunting backlist material—A24’s high-profile acquisition of We Are the Dead was flagged as a notable bridge between the markets.

Stallone’s executive-producer credit on Lionsgate’s John Rambo — an origin-set prequel directed by Jalmari Helander and written by Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani — is being framed as a legacy-boosting move as production continues in Thailand with a young Rambo played by Noah Centineo.

Ian Tuason is attached to a new Paranormal Activity entry and says his approach was the only way to reboot the franchise, signaling a director-led creative reset for the legacy horror IP now in development.

In-production psychological-thriller adaptation directed by Tomas Alfredson stars Rachel Weisz, Matthew Macfadyen and Joe Alwyn from a Jack Thorne script; Film4 and Fremantle financed, FilmNation handling international sales while UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance cover domestic rights under Astral Projection/Element Pictures production.

British psychosexual thriller Asphyxia is moving into production March 2026 at a Georgian estate setting; Martin Law directs and produces, Genevieve Chenneour, Ola Rapace, Lewis Jamison, Kathryn Lincoln and Anna Wilson-Jones lead, and international rights are currently available.

Filming wrapped on Netflix’s In the Valley of Shadows, a Colombian-shot adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Country of the Blind directed by Sebastián Cordero and starring Gael García Bernal and Natalia Reyes; the film will receive a local theatrical release in Colombia before streaming globally on Netflix.

Josh Malerman short-story adaptation A Ben Evans Film is in production in Detroit and features a cameo by Joel 'deadmau5' Zimmerman and a reunion of Greasy Strangler alumni — signaling indie-crossover casting and genre talent recycling on a literary horror adaptation.

Independent horror streamer Screamify is launching Micro Horrors™, vertical-format mobile-first series starting with Autonomous — a 20-episode driverless-car horror produced by Big Squid Productions and slated exclusively on Screamify later this year.

GKIDS will show exclusive sneak footage of Toho’s Godzilla Minus Zero at CinemaCon with director Takashi Yamazaki attending; the film — a direct sequel to Godzilla Minus One — is set for Japan on Nov. 3, 2026 and a US release Nov. 6 via GKIDS, and Godzilla Minus One previously grossed $116M worldwide.

From Season 4 will premiere April 19 at 9pm ET/PT on MGM+ with Harold Perrineau returning; creators include John Griffin with Jeff Pinkner as showrunner and Jack directing episodes, marking the series' next horror-heavy chapter.

He Bled Neon, a Las Vegas-set action-thriller starring Joe Cole, is headed to SXSW as director Drew Kirsch makes his feature debut after a background in music videos.

Justin M. Seaman's Halloween-set slasher The Barn Part III will screen at Panic Fest and aims to conclude the indie franchise; casting includes genre stalwarts Courtney Gains, Kelli Maroney, Kansas Bowling, Ari Lehman, Felissa Rose and others, positioning the film as a festival highlight and potential franchise finale.

Bloody Disgusting/Screambox will release Lovecraftian indie The Daemon on Screambox beginning March 24, with the site exclusively debuting the film's official trailer ahead of the platform release.

Trailer for Our Hero, Balthazar positions Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield in a dark, provocative thriller about an influencer chasing an online troll with a possible school-shooting plotline — marking Oscar Boyson’s debut feature tone as edgy and controversial.

Michael Fassbender is an executive producer on LifeHack, a screenlife-format cyber-heist thriller produced by Timur Bekmambetov; the film opens theatrically May 15 via Triple Media Film in partnership with Iconic Events Releasing.