Horror Industry News — Tuesday, April 7, 2026

SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will resume contract talks on April 27 under a media blackout, with the union pushing for stronger health/insurance terms, streamer residuals and AI guardrails ahead of the current agreement’s June 30 expiry — DGA talks follow in May.

Netflix will remove Jaws, Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D on May 1, 2026; the piece reiterates franchise box-office tallies (original Jaws ~$490M global, Jaws 2 ~$187M, Jaws 3-D ~$88M) and notes Spielberg declined the sequel.

Coverage clarifies that Brendan Fraser is not in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (out April 17) and flags audience confusion between Cronin’s Warner release and a separate Brendan Fraser Mummy project — Blumhouse has posted repeated denials on X to reduce misattribution.

Vietnam’s Mockingbird Pictures is taking worldwide distribution rights to the folklore-rooted dark comedy-drama A “Good” Best Luck (Lên Hương), starring Hồng Đào and led by directors Khương Ngọc and Tấn Hoàng Thông; the film is in final production and aims for a Vietnam release in Q4 2026 with festival and streaming buyer outreach underway.

Marvel Zombies Season 2 is now in production—Marvel streaming chief Brad Winderbaum confirmed he’d seen the first animatic and teased a major MCU-connected beat alongside the series’ zombie premise; Season 1 aired on Disney+.

TAW Entertainment’s Ed Gein: The House of Horrors has wrapped/finished production (reporting indicates the film is done and positioned to move toward distribution), marking another true‑crime/horror biopic entering the market.

IFF Panama (April 9–12) expands with a new international non-fiction competition, opens with Tribeca-winner Runa Simi, closes with Leticia Tonos’ Milly, Queen of Merengue, and includes genre fare such as Thai horror-comedy A Useful Ghost plus a post‑pandemic record seven Panamanian films in competition.

Grimmfest confirmed dates for Oct 8–11, 2026 in Manchester, revealed new festival artwork by Ilan Sheady and announced early slate highlights: the western-horror short THE BONES EXIST and the UK premiere of Damien Fannon’s debut feature IVAN, which explores AI paranoia in a Cronenberg-esque vein.

Caleb Phillips’s feature debut Imposters premiered in SXSW’s Midnighter strand; the psychological thriller starring Charlie Barnett and Jessica Rothe examines parental grief and identity and is framed as a festival launch for distribution.

James Cullen Bressack returns to horror with I Have Proof, a psychologically driven feature to be shot entirely on VHS‑C in Los Angeles starting later this month, produced via his Sandaled Kid banner with David Josh Lawrence and featuring Larsen Deane and Lilly Van Der Meer.

Tumor, a Los Angeles-shot psychological thriller that wrapped production, stars Sam Rockwell and Maisy Stella and adds Chris Messina, Michael Peña, Esai Morales and Gigi Zumbado; the story follows an LA PI losing his grip while hunting a missing girl.

Marcus Theatres named Jeffry F. Tomachek president after a national search; the chain operates 985 screens and is reporting early‑year box office gains tied to recent tentpoles and holiday weekends.

Adam McKay says his long‑gestating serial‑killer lobbyist satire remains under consideration while his climate drama, now titled 2C, has moved forward; McKay also referenced other projects on his backlog and noted continued creative development with Netflix collaborators.

DIY genre filmmakers the Adams Family announced The Glorious Dead, an apocalyptic monster film starring Toby Poser as a small-town sheriff confronting a world upended; the family will produce and star alongside their usual collaborators.

Luke Jaden’s folk-horror Animals of the Land will world premiere at Fantaspoa 22; the prehistoric, nature-revenge story stars Andrea Tivadar and Jord Knotter and lists several producers including Phil Wurtzel and Corrina Roshea.

Eli Craig's holiday horror White Elephant — starring Nick Jonas and Kathryn Newton — has added KJ Apa, Alexandra Shipp, Justice Smith, Madeleine Arthur, Josh Brener and Ashley Park to its cast, per Deadline.

Screamfest highlights roundup flags festival attractions including a Frankenstein’s Monster statue and screenings of titles such as The Caretaker and Entity, showcasing ongoing programming and publicity activity around the Los Angeles horror showcase.

Absolute Superman #17 delivers a brutal, body-horror-heavy Lex Luthor origin orchestrated by Brainiac, with Jason Aaron's issue escalating the comic line's horror tones established alongside Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta's Absolute Batman run.

Astrolatry is an upcoming indie horror that centers on a severed penis that becomes a psychosexual, sentient killer after an accidental castration, blending body horror with dark comedy.

Steven Spielberg names Dune: Part Two among his favorite films and singles out Zach Cregger’s Weapons as a genuinely horrifying experience, offering high‑profile praise for a contemporary genre director.

Invincible Season 4, Episode 4 features Bruce Campbell as Satan (full form) with Clancy Brown as Damien in a hell-set episode that mixes horror imagery and pop-culture references while advancing the animated series’ apocalyptic stakes.

Image Comics will collect the five-issue Spawn-adjacent miniseries Bloodletter in a trade paperback on May 6; the supernatural/espionage story is written by Joseph P. Illidge and Tim Seeley with art by Christian Rosado and expands the Spawn universe around a driven antihero, Tasha Thornwall.

John Davies (writer on Hobo with a Shotgun) released his debut novella MAN VS BEAR—a grindhouse‑toned, literary‑leaning short about a guitarist mauled by a grizzly—now available in print and Kindle on Amazon.

Julia Ducournau discusses Alpha (Cannes 2025), describing its body-focused, erotically charged pandemic allegory and the film’s coming-of-age center that channels the history and trauma of the AIDS crisis.

Steven Soderbergh says a Contagion sequel is unlikely and that he recently re-edited a longer cut of the original film only to reject it, confirming substantial unused material exists from the 2011 assembly.

A found‑footage cult favorite is being programmed for a nationwide run at Alamo Drafthouse locations via a Rue Morgue-presented booking — special screenings/engagements rather than a wide studio re-release.

Fangoria marks the 75th anniversary of The Thing From Another World, arguing the 1951 sci-fi-horror classic’s Cold War and space-age themes resonate strongly with contemporary crises.

The Marché du Film’s Cannes Investors Circle will pitch eight auteur projects (budgets €1M–€12M+) to private VIP investors May 16–17, with an emphasized presence of elevated genre-driven works and follow-up activity planned beyond Cannes to help projects secure private financing.

Bloody Disgusting and Storm King Productions are partnering with John Carpenter to launch two original scripted horror podcasts under the 'John Carpenter Presents' banner, with the first series already released.

Exclusive: Olivia Holt is in talks to reprise her role for Heart Eyes 2 alongside Mason Gooding under writer-director Josh Ruben, with production possibly beginning as early as this summer after the original grossed $33M worldwide.

Report reiterates Jenna Ortega is in talks for Gremlins 3 as production is eyed to start summer before its Nov. 19, 2027 release; studio emphasizes practical puppetry and returns Spielberg as EP with Chris Columbus directing/co-writing.

The Indian Film Festival of L.A. announced Industry Days programming April 24–25 with participation from Netflix, HBO, Universal and other studios, plus pitch competitions (one $10,000 development grant) and panels on animation, gaming and indie distribution to connect South Asian creators with Hollywood partners.

Paramount+ UK/Ireland ordered an eight-episode British heist thriller The Day — currently in production — starring Minnie Driver as a hostage negotiator, with Luca Pasqualino and Louisa Harland; Dynamic Television co-produces and will handle global distribution outside the U.K./Ireland.

Joe Eszterhas says Emerald Fennell has been tapped and negotiations are underway for her to direct his Basic Instinct reboot for Amazon — though Fennell’s reps deny involvement — and Eszterhas is confirmed as writer on the project which Amazon reportedly locked last summer; early coverage frames the reboot as provocative and has drawn controversy language like “anti‑woke.”

Netflix's nine-episode adaptation of Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole novels (adapting The Devil's Star) is a streaming hit: author Jo Nesbø wrote all nine episodes, the series is in Netflix Top 10, and it's earning strong Rotten Tomatoes scores (cited ~93%).

Analysis argues that Mike Flanagan’s multi-year move from Netflix to Amazon MGM (Prime Video) — which includes a Carrie series and a Mist adaptation plus rights access to The Dark Tower material — hands Prime a major foothold in prestige horror TV while diminishing Netflix’s dominance in the space.

Lionsgate briefly fired director Mary Harron during American Psycho pre‑production after she insisted on Christian Bale over the studio's preferred Leonardo DiCaprio (Ellis claims DiCaprio was eyed for a reported $20M), Oliver Stone was attached during the interim, and Harron was rehired once DiCaprio left for The Beach.

Ben Shapiro dismissed an IATSE strike against The Daily Wire/Bonfire Legend’s untitled Jonathan Majors film as politically motivated, while producers downplayed an on-set accident (actors fell through a loose pane); IATSE confirmed picketing for improved healthcare and safety standards.

Veteran screenwriter and UCLA instructor Corey Mandell argues most writers fail because their work is 'good enough' but not industry-ready, and recommends hiring industry readers, producing a three-script body of work, and developing room skills and resilience.

Organizer Ben Steinberg is pausing the Save the Cinerama Dome campaign after police shut down a projector protest and legal threats from the Forman family/Decurion; industry insiders warn the landmark Dome needs a costly retrofit (including 70mm projector alignment) to reopen, with no timetable from Decurion.

Tanner Zurkoski's hybrid live-action/animated documentary Illustrated Legacies: Graveyard of the Pacific will have its world premiere at Vancouver's DOXA Documentary Film Festival as part of the festival's lineup.

Thinestra is a body-horror feature about a woman whose weight-loss drug causes her shed fat to manifest as a ravenous doppelgänger; penned by Avra Fox-Lerner, directed by Nathan Hertz, starring Michelle Macedo and Melissa Macedo, and will stream April 14 via Breaking Glass Pictures.

Buffet Infinity is a Canadian horror-comedy told as faux TV commercials; it opens in select theaters April 24 and arrives VOD May 8 via Yellow Veil Pictures, leaning into retro screenlife format and SCTV-style comedy-horror.

Apple TV+ released a trailer for MAXIMUM PLEASURE GUARANTEED, a dark-comedy thriller starring Tatiana Maslany as a woman whose day spirals into chaos.