Horror Industry News — Wednesday, March 25, 2026

OpenAI shut down its viral Sora video app as it refocuses ahead of an IPO, killing a potential $1B Disney investment and ending a contested experiment that would have allowed user-generated videos featuring studio IP — a significant signal in studio-AI relations and IP protection strategy.

A24 is adapting the viral Backrooms IP into a feature titled Backrooms (release date May 29, 2026) directed by Kane Parsons (Kane Pixels) with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Mark Duplass attached — the studio is expanding the internet-born liminal-horror mythos into a major theatrical release.

Netflix has begun production in Budapest on Yeti, a horror‑thriller directed by Michael Chaves starring Chris Pine, Sofia Boutella, Ray Winstone and newcomer Iona Bell; PictureStart is producing with Pine and Hans Ritter as EPs and a logline about a father/daughter hunted by a primeval predator uncovered in glacial ice.

Samara Weaving’s Ready or Not (Certified Fresh 89%) surged to No. 2 on Hulu after the release of Ready or Not 2, with the original having grossed $57.6M on a $6M budget and renewed interest across Hulu and Disney+ markets.

AI filmmaking tools company Flawless promoted longtime board adviser Amit Kapur to co-CEO alongside co-founder Scott Mann as the firm scales partnerships (Avid, Deluxe, Pixelogic) and touts SAG-AFTRA endorsements for its assistive AI localization and post tools; article references Kapur’s prior role at Gravity which sold to AOL for $100M.

WME signed genre filmmaker JT Mollner (Strange Darling), expanding agency representation for a director with multiple Stephen King adaptations and high‑profile attachments (Lionsgate's The Long Walk, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Brie Larson's Skeletons), signaling agency play for rising horror auteurs.

Netflix’s Apex trailer reframes the Charlize Theron/Taron Egerton action‑thriller as a hunt‑for‑sport premise that reads like a survival horror: Theron survives the Australian wilderness while Egerton’s character hunts—positioning the film closer to horror than pure action in marketing tone.

Stephen King publicly praised Hulu's sci‑fi thriller Paradise—calling Season 2 superior to Season 1—bringing high‑profile endorsement as the show prepares to begin Season 3 production on April 7.

The SXSW‑bound horror film The Toll will instead hold limited screenings after an SXSW cancellation, signaling a festival pivot to smaller showings rather than wide festival play.

Behaviour Interactive has acquired The Fun Pimps (developers of 7 Days to Die), expanding Behaviour’s horror-gaming footprint and promising added resources to continue development on the survival-horror title.

R.T. Thorne's post-apocalyptic thriller 40 Acres led film nominations at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards with 10 nominations, followed by Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Follies and Honey Bunch.

European Film Market acquisitions: Premiere (sales/distributor) picked up the thrillers Centigrade and R.I.A. for EFM market representation—market pickups intended for festival/market sales exposure ahead of distribution.

Crunchyroll's spring slate includes dark-fantasy and supernatural titles (Daemons of the Shadow Realm, Witch Hat Atelier), returning genre hits (Dorohedoro S2, Re:ZERO S4) and a broad dub rollout across many languages starting late March–April.

The official manga adaptation of Silent Hill F — the 2025 horror game — is announced and will include a brand-new ending not present in the game, extending the IP into manga format.

Critical stream-it-or-skip-it reviews land for Sam Raimi’s Send Help as it reaches VOD, praising Rachel McAdams’ ferocious performance and Raimi’s return to gonzo horror-comedy while interrogating the film’s moral ambiguity.

Netflix’s South Korean sci‑fi disaster film The Great Flood finished its 91‑day debut window with 86.6M views (157.3M hours), ranking #5 among non‑English Netflix movies and showing particularly strong legs across Vietnam, Morocco and multiple Asian and Latin American markets.

SXSW review: Bagworm is an odd 16mm body‑horror dramedy from director Oliver Bernsen and writer Henry Bernsen starring Peter Falls that leans into fever‑dream tone and physical infection imagery but frustrates with uneven payoff and a thin thematic payoff.

Pixel-based survival horror game The Bagman from Bad Tasty has released a playable demo (Act 0), positioning itself as a throwback point-and-click title in the Clock Tower/retro horror vein.

Editor Kristi Shimek describes reshaping Rebecca Thomas’s techno‑thriller Wardriver in the edit—reordering structure, adding a new ending, and creating a ‘screen language’ (GIFs, emojis, on‑screen text) to convey hacking and a chat‑only character amid a cast led by Dane DeHaan, Sasha Calle and Mamoudou Athie.

James Wan and Leigh Whannell reflect on originating Saw and its legacy in a retrospective interview that underscores the franchise’s creative origins and long-running influence on modern horror.

Vincent D'Onofrio says he hopes Marvel and Sony resolve rights issues so Kingpin can face Spider‑Man on screen, highlighting ongoing studio/IP fragmentation between Marvel and Sony.

Disney+ EMEA head Angela Jain says the streamer will increase local commissioning and spend across Europe, unveiling new local originals at Series Mania including an Italian Hulu mystery Murder on Lake Garda and a Turkish vampire comedy The Strange Story of Gustav Maier—signaling a deliberate ramp-up of genre and unscripted slate investment.

Sundance Midnight breakout: Leviticus — Adrian Chiarella’s queer folk‑horror debut starring Joe Bird and Mia Wasikowska — is generating strong festival buzz and has secured distribution with Neon for a planned theatrical release later this year.

BBC Studios confirmed a second German season of the format Ghosts — the ensemble supernatural sitcom — with ARD/WDR producing next summer; the format continues international expansion (including a U.K. feature currently in production) and BBC Studios is sharing format expertise across territories.

Disney+ greenlit a big‑budget Korean adaptation of The Americans titled The Koreans, starring Lee Byung‑hun and Han Ji‑min, written by Park Eun‑kyo and directed by Ahn Gil‑ho; it's Disney+'s first local‑language adaptation of its own scripted IP and will use the single‑writer/director model common in Korean production.

Amazon MGM Studios is developing an adult animated series adaptation of the Image Comics fantasy series Monstress with Steven Maeda as writer/co-showrunner and Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda attached as EPs, signaling a high-profile comics-to-animation push at the streamer.

Indian digital platform Kuku is launching into theatrical with its first big‑screen film Indian Institute of Zombies, a Hindi campus horror-comedy due May 8 that was developed in-house and integrates AI into story development, production logistics and creative testing as part of a planned theatrical slate.

Sony acquired consolidated screen rights to Don Pendleton’s Executioner series and picked up a creative package with Shane Black (writing, eye to direct) and producer Joel Silver attached; producers Don Murphy and Susan Montford join, clearing historically fragmented rights and creating a clearer runway for a franchise adaptation.

Paramount+ has renewed supernatural drama School Spirits for Season 4; Season 3 (starring Peyton List) ran Jan 28–Mar 4, and the streamer confirmed continued production.

Icelandic company Act4 has secured screen rights to Hildur Knútsdóttir’s dark psychological thriller Dead Weight and will develop it as a feature with Kari Skogland attached to direct and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson producing through Act4/Skogland Films.

IDW Dark announced Sleepy Hollow: The Witches of the Western Wood, a five-issue comic limited series that serves as a prequel to Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow continuity following last year’s Return to Sleepy Hollow.

Drew Goddard outlines seven screenwriting lessons—emphasizing protecting creative 'writing caves', treating early brainstorming as writing, and crafting first drafts to secure greenlights—using examples from Project Hail Mary and Cabin in the Woods to illustrate how to package original genre material for production.

Sheridan Smith will lead ITV-Stan mystery thriller Two Birds opposite Stephen Peacocke and Judy Davis; written by Helen FitzGerald and directed by James Griffiths, production begins this spring in Western Australia with Screenwest incentives supporting the shoot.

Leonine Studios extended CEO Fred Kogel’s contract through 2028 as parent Mediawan Group doubles down on the studio’s international ambitions; Quirin Berg and Jochen Köstler receive expanded management roles effective April 1, 2026 to strengthen fiction and non-fiction divisions.

Indigenous Māori writer-director Taratoa Stappard’s Gothic horror feature Mārama will open April 17 at NYC’s IFC Center and LA’s Laemmle Monica via Dark Sky Films and Watermelon Pictures, marking a theatrical rollout for the debut.

ComingSoon debuted the exclusive trailer for horror-comedy Sorority Shark Attack — Robert Carradine’s final film — confirming the project will debut later this year and highlighting its tongue-in-cheek premise and Carradine’s final screen turn.