ScreamWire Daily

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos pushed back on claims of a regulatory obstacle to Netflix’s near-purchase of Warner Bros., saying Paramount manufactured a narrative around a non‑existent regulatory challenge; article confirms Paramount paid $31/share for WBD (totaling $111B) and notes Netflix’s prior $27.75/share offer and its $13B European content investment.

Malaysia’s FINAS secured a RM300M (~$76.5M) cash-rebate allocation over five years to boost inbound and domestic production, expands eligibility to TV, animation and AI-generated content, and introduced worker protections — a strategic incentive push to position Malaysia as an Asia-Pacific production hub.

Editor Sonny Atkins breaks down how the low‑budget Canadian horror undertone used sound-first storytelling, tight rhythmic editing, Premiere Pro workflows, and speech-to-text to build suspense and polish a small-scale feature.

Ireland's screen sector is booming: 2024 production spend hit a record €544M and Screen Ireland invested over €120M between 2021–2024; incentives include a Section 481 tax credit up to 32% and a new 40% VFX relief for qualifying spend — draws include high‑profile co-productions and Irish filmmakers like Lee Cronin (now developing The Mummy at Warner Bros.) and the Irish-shot horror film Hokum.

An SEC filing reveals Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav stands to receive payments and benefits valued well over $700M (and up to ~$886.8M in some calculations) tied to Paramount Skydance’s $31-per-share cash acquisition of WBD, laying out severance, equity and a large tax reimbursement figure.

A24 director Ian Tuason says Undertone — a breakout A24 horror — has a planned trilogy and that he and A24 are 'working on' two sequels after the original grossed nearly $10M on a reported $500K budget.

At Hong Kong Filmart the surge in Chinese animation is spotlighted—Ne Zha 2’s $2.2B global haul and a record $3.57B China animation box office in 2025 are driving IP-driven co-investment, AI discussions, and expanded merchandising/licensing strategies.

Panos Cosmatos’s 1980s‑set vampire feature Flesh of the Gods has added Elizabeth Olsen to a cast led by Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac, with Andrew Kevin Walker credited as screenwriter—moving this high‑profile genre project further toward production.

Netflix is lobbying U.S. policymakers to replace proposed foreign-film tariffs with targeted tax incentives as the Trump administration considers a foreign-movie levy — a policy push that, if adopted, would change cost structures for international productions and streaming acquisitions.

Blumhouse’s M3GAN franchise faces uncertainty after M3GAN 2.0 underperformed (reported $39M worldwide vs. the original’s $181.8M) and the SOULM8TE spin-off was pulled from Universal’s schedule; Allison Williams says there’s no substantive sequel talks right now but leaves the door open for the property.

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick’s horror-comedy Family Movie premiered at SXSW; it's an indie-financed dark comedy about a family making a low-budget horror film, features John Carroll Lynch, Jackie Earle Haley and Scoot McNairy, and is currently seeking distribution after positive early audience response.

Netflix has acquired Ben Affleck’s AI startup InterPositive to integrate post-production AI tools into its internal content workflow, keeping most tech in-house while selectively sharing with creative partners to boost editing, VFX and production efficiency.

FilMart marks its 30th edition as a global industry hub, expanding beyond distribution to IP collaboration, AI programming and Producers Connect to facilitate cross-border co-productions and support emerging Asian markets with an online IP catalog and expanded pavilion participation.

Sam Raimi’s survival horror Send Help (final global haul $93M) will be available digitally March 24 on platforms including Prime Video and Apple TV, with 4K/physical releases set for April 21.

Thai producers Benetone Films and Fearfolks have cast Pae Arak and Weir Sukollawat in Cher, a pre-production Thai supernatural/folk horror written by Patrick Graham and directed by Songsak Mongkolthong targeting a 2028 release; the project was highlighted at Filmart.

South Korean anthology App The Horror, produced by Heart People Pictures and sold by Autumn Sun, has grossed ~ $650,000 from 100,000 admissions domestically and secured regional theatrical deals in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Taiwan with talks underway across Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Russia/CIS and Indonesia; North American sales pending.

Paramount+ will stream Johannes Roberts' killer-chimp horror Primate on March 25; Roberts directed and co-wrote with Ernest Riera and the film joins Paramount+'s genre slate for immediate streaming availability.

Netflix closed the 2026 awards season with 10 Oscars (tied for its best haul since 2021), led by Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein which won six Oscars and multiple BAFTAs following its Nov. 2025 Netflix debut.

Belgian dystopian drama The Best Immigrant (5 episodes) from Caviar — starring Jennifer Heylen and Farouk Ben Ali — is generating Series Mania buzz and Sony Pictures Television has boarded for international sales after a mid-December launch on Streamz.

A congressional spotlight hearing in Burbank led by Rep. Adam Schiff will probe Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery and the push for a federal film production tax incentive, with witnesses including Noah Wyle and IATSE president Matthew Loeb testifying on potential job impacts and competition concerns.

Seann William Scott discusses Dolly, Rod Blackhurst’s splatter‑heavy backwoods horror (shot on a small budget, heavy practical effects) — the film is being released by Shudder and leans into extreme, visceral filmmaking.

Patrick Dempsey stars in Fox's Memory of a Killer as a contract killer with early‑onset Alzheimer’s, a TV adaptation inspired by the Belgian film De zaak Alzheimer; Dempsey — also an EP — says the network gave the series room to experiment visually and the first season runs on a three‑month timeline with a finale airing April 9.

Director/writer Brandon Christensen discusses his VFX-driven, low-cost production approach and his 10-year relationship with Shudder while promoting his found-footage police horror Bodycam, now streaming on Shudder.

Gaumont reported stable revenue (~€150M) for 2025 but a steep loss increase to €19.5M amid declines in streamer sales and animation commissions, while still pre-selling several high‑budget director-driven films for 2026.

Vietnamese supernatural folkoric chiller Phi Phong: The Blood Demon (Bluebells Studios), directed by Do Quoc Trung and featuring a Vietnam–Thailand cast, will receive a North American theatrical release this summer via Mockingbird Pictures as part of a push to elevate Vietnamese horror internationally.

At SXSW, Lili Reinhart stars in Forbidden Fruits, a Diablo Cody-produced black horror-comedy satirizing mall and retail culture; early reviews liken its tone to Heathers and position it as a cult-minded festival favorite.

The UK Redundancy Payments Service has begun repaying some crew owed after indie feature Angels in the Asylum collapsed mid‑shoot (Feb 2025), leaving roughly £600,000 (~$800k) unpaid to workers and around £3.8M (~$5M) owed to creditors as AITA Films entered administration while talks with a prospective rescue investor continue.

SXSW panelists and industry pros advised indie filmmakers to use AI as a toolkit—solve micro problems (audio cleanup, VFX fill, localization), automate chores, and preserve craft-driven decision-making rather than cede creative control to generative models.

Paramount Skydance president Jeff Shell denies allegations that he leaked confidential company information and has filed a cross-complaint accusing R.J. Cipriani of extortion after Cipriani sued seeking $150 million over an alleged crisis-PR arrangement.

Rue Morgue announces the inaugural SoCo Women in Horror Festival for March 2026, establishing a new regional festival spotlighting women creators in genre — a platform-building signal for female-driven horror talent development and programming.

Daniela De Francesco’s sleep‑disorder thriller Dreamcatchers has begun principal photography across Italy with leads Filippo Scotti, Saul Nanni and Angeliki Papoulia; the Italy‑Belgium‑Argentina co‑production was developed via Biennale Cinema College and MFI Script2Film and is backed by Creative Europe, regional funds and tax rebates.

Paul Feig’s salacious thriller The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, will begin streaming on Starz April 1 after grossing nearly $400 million worldwide.

Arte president Bruno Patino warned at CPH:SUMMIT that AI accelerates content saturation and fragmentation, urging a shift to a ‘relationship economy’ and industry coalitions to preserve diversity and public broadcasting’s role as AI reshapes production and consumption.

Veteran international publicist Charles McDonald has joined UK boutique Team PR to bolster their festival and theatrical publicity offerings, bringing experience from International Rescue and ongoing festival relationships.

Malaysian Skop Productions and Hong Kong’s One Cool have teamed on action thriller Black Ops (dir. Syafiq Yusof) — a Malay‑language cross‑territory production with cast from Malaysia and Hong Kong, co‑directing credit to Chui Tze Yiu, and a scheduled November release; sales are being launched.

Daily Mirror reports Nicolas Cage’s sci‑fi thriller Knowing is scheduled to leave Netflix on April 14, prompting a temporary removal that could drive a short-term catalog bump for the apocalyptic film.

Golden Scene is adding three Hong Kong International Film Festival premieres to its Filmart slate, including Herman Yau’s fully financed LGBTQ+ thriller We’re Nothing At All and other regional titles positioned for Asian buyer attention.

Indie horror-comedy Amityvillenado—an Amityville/Sharknado mashup—is available now on Plex and Fawesome and will roll out to Prime Video, Tubi and others on March 24 via ITN Distribution.

Amy Madigan won the 2026 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her small-but-terrifying turn in Zach Cregger’s horror film Weapons, a high-profile awards signal that prestige bodies are increasingly recognizing horror performances and may draw more established actors to the genre.

Paramount+ added Wes Craven’s 2005 horror‑comedy Cursed to its streaming library on March 1; the film was a notorious box‑office failure ($29.6M gross vs. reported $38M budget) but is now available alongside a broader horror catalogue on the platform.

Alex Prager’s feature debut DreamQuil is a science‑fiction drama starring Elizabeth Banks that explores AI/automation’s emotional cost—the piece frames the film as a cautionary, character-driven speculative story rather than a genre spectacle.

Line of Duty will return for Season 7 with Robert Carlyle joining the cast as DC Shaun Massie; core leads Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston and Vicky McClure are expected back, with the season still in early development.

Invincible Season 4 (animated) continues the show's mature, violent superhero drama as it reaches the Viltrumite War arc — reviewer praises the season's scale, voice cast and action while noting pacing/episode-length constraints across eight-episode seasons.

Grant Morrison compared visual and narrative similarities between Alan Moore's Crossed+100 and the new 28 Years Later sequel (The Bone Temple), highlighting shared motifs—bone temples and 'civilized' infected—and sparking debate over inspiration versus parallel ideas between comics and the film sequel.

Christopher Golden’s supernatural road‑trip horror Carry Me to My Grave arrives July 21; the novel blends grisly monster work with family drama and is being positioned as a summer horror read likely to attract franchise/prequel interest.

Monster Party, an immersive surrealist queer horror theatre piece by Matt Dorado, runs April 16–25 at Rita House, inviting audiences into an interactive supernatural cocktail‑party experience.

ByteDance has reportedly paused the global rollout of Seedance 2.0 after controversy over outputs that reuse celebrity likenesses and franchise IP, a potential early industry win in pushback against unchecked generative-video models and a signal of mounting legal and resource pressures on large video-AI deployments.

Scottish broadcaster/producer STV reported a difficult 2025 with operating profits down 70% and an overall loss of £4M; the company is implementing an £8M savings programme, has cut ~60 roles over time (about 10%), and holds a forward order book of £33M for production.

CIRCLE (Europe) has launched a free Digital Empowerment Programme — an eight‑session online pilot aimed at women and gender‑expansive filmmakers focused on interactive, immersive and synthetic media, led by Katerina Cizek with speakers from Power to the Pixel, VR/AR artists and archival collectives; open to CIRCLE alumni and partner orgs starting April 9.

Bloomberg analysis finds Oscar-winning studios can post booming sales while recording little profit, highlighting the business pressures and accounting realities affecting prestige divisions across the industry.

Sarah Michelle Gellar says Hulu has cancelled the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale pilot and blames a Hulu executive who ‘was not a fan of the original’; the pilot—directed by Chloé Zhao and written by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman and intended to pair Gellar with Ryan Kiera Armstrong—was reportedly delivered before the streamer passed.

John Krasinski confirmed A Quiet Place: Part III for July 30, 2027 release; Krasinski will write/direct and the core cast—Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe—return, with Jack O’Connell, Jason Clarke and Katy O’Brian joining and production slated to start this spring; the franchise has grossed $900M to date.

Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed series (filming in Italy) added Noomi Rapace, Ramzy Bedia, Sean Harris and Corrado Invernizzi in recurring roles; Roberto Patino is showrunner and leads include Toby Wallace and Lola Petticrew.

Radio Silence (Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli‑Olpin) are directing Universal's The Mummy 4 and say they plan to lean on practical effects over CGI as they revive the franchise.

Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo (produced by Recorded Picture Company/Pressman Film/NTV/OLM) unveiled its first poster and confirms NEON will release the film in the U.S. later this year; the cast includes Shun Oguri, Lily James and WWE’s Liv Morgan, and the project reboots the Bad Lieutenant concept with Miike directing from a Daisuke Tengan script.

The Ink Factory’s Chinese-language adaptation of The Night Manager expanded its cast ahead of Filmart — adding Michael Dao, Frederick Lee, George Au and others — and is shooting across Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand for a late-2026 Youku premiere with Fifth Season handling global sales outside China.

A new teaser for Scary Movie 6 (Miramax/Paramount) highlights parody beats aimed at recent horror hits — including a Sinners sequence — with Anna Faris and Regina Hall returning and the Wayans family credited on the screenplay; the film is slated for June 5, 2026.

James Tynion IV’s comic universe Something Is Killing the Children is expanding with its first full-length novel, due in October — signals IP extension from comics to prose, broadening franchise potential and cross-media exploitation opportunities.

The Council of Europe is preparing to unveil its Convention on the Coproduction of Audiovisual Works in the Form of Series, the first pan-European legislation targeting co-production rules and explicitly including documentary works, which could reshape cross-border financing and crediting for series co-productions.

Indie slasher The Slasher Nurse — starring Diana Prince, Felissa Rose, Beverly Randolph and Brian Bremer — will stream exclusively on The B Stream beginning March 27, with a wider digital release scheduled for July.

Chada Entertainment debuted a teaser for The De4d Echoes, a Thailand–Malaysia cross-border horror anthology of four stories (two per country) tied by karma/retribution; the company is showing the title and other Thai/Taiwanese genre projects at Filmart.

Indie dev Zatun released a teaser and Steam wishlist page for SCP: Project Pneuma, a survival-horror game set in the SCP Foundation universe with a planned 2026 PC release.

Total Chaos received a free New Game+ update on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series that adds expanded story content, an alternate ending, new death animations and a persistent stalker called The Hunter.

Rue Morgue shares trailer and poster details for thriller/horror-titled I Know Exactly How You Die, confirming a release window and marketing push but no disclosed distribution deal or budget in the excerpt.