ScreamWire Daily

A24 acquired microbudget occult-podcast horror Undertone (made for a reported $500,000 after premieres at Fantasia and Sundance’s Midnight) and projects a roughly $7M opening weekend — a high ROI signal for microbudget horror; the story also covers box office context for Hoppers and Universal’s Reminders of Him.

Producer J. Miles Dale has built a long-standing production hub in Toronto with Guillermo del Toro—shooting multiple projects there including Frankenstein—and the article credits Dale for elevating Canadian artisans who make up much of Frankenstein’s Oscar-nominated technical teams.

Kevin Williamson confirmed he will not direct the next Scream installment (Scream 8), saying he wants to step back from the director’s chair while remaining part of the franchise as others — potentially with a sharper comedic edge — take the reins.

Box-office forecast: JoBlo projects Scream 7 will drop to about $7M this weekend (passing $100M cumulative), while family entry Hoppers leads with ~$25–30M and other genre titles (Ready or Not 2 launch mentioned as coming) are noted in upcoming windows; several specific weekend projections are disclosed.

Deadhouse Films is moving into production on Crashout, a Gen Z satirical found‑footage thriller written/directed by Nick Annas starring Joe Bird, Catherine Laga’aia and Evelyn Sims; production begins later this month with Helen Tuck and Enzo Tedeschi producing and new Atypical Originals exec producers attached.

Shudder has ended The Last Drive-In as a regular series but commissioned four Joe Bob Briggs specials for 2026; Briggs is now free to pursue other TV deals and is developing a horror production company while continuing live appearances and writing projects.

Yellow Veil Pictures has boarded North American sales on Grind, a workplace-satire horror anthology from Brea Grant, Ed Dougherty and Chelsea Stardust that world premieres in SXSW’s Midnight section and features an ensemble including Barbara Crampton and Rob Huebel.

Saber Interactive released an "Origins" developer diary for Hellraiser: Revival revealing Doug Bradley returns to voice Pinhead and confirming the puzzle-box-driven single-player game is slated for 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Michael Sarnoski is being eyed to direct a sequel to Alien: Romulus with Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues credited on the script and Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson expected to return, though plot details and official confirmation are pending.

Warner Bros. will release the gory horror-action-comedy They Will Kill You on March 27; new poster and teaser position Zazie Beetz in a battle-against-a-demonic-cult logline, indicating a theatrical push for a genre tentpole.

Wu‑Tang founder RZA launched theatrical distribution label 36 Cinema Distribution with the U.S. release of his revenge thriller RZA’s One Spoon of Chocolate (Tribeca premiere) on May 1, 2026 via Variance Films; Quentin Tarantino will present the film and select 35mm engagements are planned as the new label lines up additional classic and event theatrical titles.

Marketing push for Mortal Kombat II continues with a meta in‑universe poster for Johnny Cage’s faux movie Uncaged Fury and a new trailer promoting the May 8 release; Simon McQuoid returns to direct from a Jeremy Slater script with Karl Urban headlining a large ensemble.

Julia Ducournau’s Alpha (screening in festivals) shifts from the body-horror shock of Titane to a quieter, emotional story about a coastal town gripped by a blood-borne epidemic; Ducournau emphasizes using more dialogue and exploring stigma, grief and generational trauma.

UCLA's Hollywood Diversity Report finds films with 41–50% BIPOC casts outperform many metrics and that horror delivered the highest median return on investment in 2025, while also showing BIPOC audiences are major ticket buyers—findings that signal studios should prioritize representative casting to sustain box office.

New artwork unveils Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death, a meta remake hitting theaters April 10 via Independent Film Company and Shudder, with festival screenings planned at Beyond Fest Chicago and Overlook Film Festival.

A review of Sam Raimi’s Send Help positions the film as a return to Raimi’s brand of heightened horror-comedy set on a desert island, assessing tone and effectiveness for genre audiences.

Universal is reversing its pandemic-era short-window strategy and will guarantee a minimum five-week exclusive theatrical window in 2026 and seven weeks starting in 2027, a move NBCUniversal chair Donna Langley says is meant to shore up the theatrical ecosystem and help exhibitors.

WGA bargaining team is pushing for residuals/payment when studios use writers' scripts to train or license AI models, framing it as consistent with existing reuse principles and warning they're prepared to strike again if studios resist.

Netflix has cut 20+ roles from its global Creative Studio — the in-house marketing/creative agency — as part of a wider reorg, with some staff let go and others repositioned, while international localization efforts continue.

Next Narrative Africa Fund (NNAF) revealed nine inaugural grantees drawn from 2,000 submissions — backed by a $40M commercial fund plus $10M nonprofit Venture Studio — supporting projects including Trevor Noah’s Beyond Day Zero, Rapman’s Sierra Leone political thriller, Mohamed Kordofani’s About Love & September Laws, Ghanaian spy thriller United States of Africa, Nigerian sci‑fi romance Bako, and Ghanaian comedy‑horror The Return; the slate represents over $60M in production spend across Africa.

Christopher Landon is set to write and direct supernatural horror Final Boarding for Sony’s Screen Gems, adapting a short story by Clarence Hammond and working from a prior draft by Javier; Deadline first reported the attachment.

Additional outlets report James Wan will helm the English-language adaptation of The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil with Ma Dong‑seok attached and production producers including Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions involved.

Hulu has ordered a comedy pilot titled Lex from Sean Clements and EP Paul Simms at 20th Television; logline centers on a disgraced reality star who accidentally films a murder and gets pulled into a global conspiracy.

Scarpetta — an Amazon series adapted from Patricia Cornwell by Liz Sarnoff — casts Nicole Kidman as the medical examiner investigating murders separated by 28 years, framing the show as a grim, procedural true-crime thriller.

Netflix's French eight-part drama Cash Queens (Les Lionnes), based on the real 'Gang des Amazones,' is positioned as a binge-friendly true-crime/crime-comedy sleeper hit on the service and follows five desperate women who escalate from a single bank robbery into deeper crimes.

RTL Group reported Fremantle’s full-year 2025 revenue fell ~9.4% to €2.03B ($2.36B) and disclosed significant impairments and a strategic content review that will stop fully financing films and re-evaluate advances and first-look agreements (noted at €95M), with program cost reductions planned.

Netflix launched a 32,000 sq ft Eyeline Studios VFX hub in Hyderabad (its fifth Eyeline location) to scale advanced VFX, virtual production and next-gen production tech for global productions after folding Scanline into Eyeline in 2025.

NEON will release HOKUM, a supernatural horror set in an aging Irish inn starring Adam Scott, with a theatrical release set for May 1; new trailer has dropped and the film is produced by Weapons (producers attached).

Blumhouse released the trailer for Obsession, written and directed by Curry Barker: the teen-targeted horror follows a young man whose wish-to-love toy (One Wish Willow) triggers a violent, obsessive romance; the film premiered at TIFF and is set for a May 15 theatrical release, with Jason Blum executive-producing.

Tommy Wirkola's shark survival thriller Thrash will stream on Netflix and its trailer pitches a Category 5 hurricane driving hungry sharks into a coastal disaster zone starring Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak and Djimon Hounsou.

MGM+ released the Season 4 trailer for horror series FROM, which returns April 19 and arrives off becoming MGM+'s most‑watched show — the new season promises deeper answers for leads Boyd, Tabitha and Jade.

Imposters, a sci‑fi thriller from writer‑director Caleb Phillips starring Jessica Rothe and Charlie Barnett, will world premiere in SXSW's Midnighter program on March 15 as the filmmaker's feature debut.

Todd Wiseman Jr.'s festival favorite The School Duel — pitched as an indie Hunger Games–meets–The Purge dystopia — will open in theaters this April via distributor Altered Innocence following festival play.

Indie team BRAINSHELL released a demo for their psychological horror game about becoming an intercontinental ballistic missile, pitching heavy immersion and 'audiovisual torment.'