ScreamWire Daily

Shudder has acquired multi-territory rights (North America, UK/Ireland, Australia/NZ) to Hallowarrior—Ben Sottak’s Halloween-set post-apocalyptic thriller and feature debut starring Milly Shapiro—with a Tribeca world premiere June 10 and a fall streaming debut on Shudder.

Rebellion and Two Brothers Pictures are developing a TV adaptation of BAFTA‑winning videogame Atomfall with Harry and Jack Williams writing and Rebellion’s founders Jason and Chris Kingsley exec producing; the mood is British post‑apocalypse with folk‑horror beats and the series is being positioned as a prestige TV co‑production.

September 18, 2026 theatrical; Zach Cregger boards as director/co-writer with Shay Hatten and casts Austin Abrams as lead in a grounded, character-driven reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise that prioritizes survival horror over global-conspiracy spectacle.

New Zealand production Mother Knows Best completed in Auckland with Frankie Adams starring; the folklore-rooted psychological horror from director Kiel McNaughton is financed by the New Zealand Film Commission with Essential Film Group handling international sales ahead of Cannes.

Apple TV+ launched the 10‑episode horror‑comedy Widow’s Bay with a global debut April 29 (first three eps) and weekly roll; Matthew Rhys EP/stars, Katie Dippold created/showruns, Hiro Murai directing five episodes and exec producing, with Ti West among directors—high‑profile creative team positions the series as a prestige horror offering for Apple.

CJ ENM and Google Cloud validated a production pipeline that generated all backgrounds/VFX with AI while shooting actors in‑studio for K‑occult thriller The House, completing principal photography in four days and positioning AI to sharply cut location and VFX costs while scaling genre work.

CJ ENM positions its AI‑live action hybrid Apartment as a K‑AI paradigm, revealing a production method that films actors on greenscreen while AI generates entire backgrounds via Google models to improve efficiency and expand large‑scale genre production possibilities.

Zach Cregger bypassed the previous Resident Evil films to root his reboot directly in the games’ survival-horror ethos; creative choice signals franchise reset and a game-forward fidelity aimed at core fans.

Steven Spielberg is executive producing a darker live-action Casper series that Disney+ won in a five-way bidding tussle; Rob Letterman and Hilary Winston are writing (Letterman set to direct) and the project is in premium development at Universal Studio Group, signaling studios’ appetite for grimdark reboots of legacy kids’ IP.

AMC Global Media, Sony Pictures Television and BBC Studios are lined up to co-finance a three-series Doctor Who reboot with production slated for 2027 and a global premiere set for 2028, per a leaked draft press release that also promises a refreshed cast, new showrunner and franchise expansion plans.

AMC+ secures U.S. streaming rights to Crave original Yaga, an eight‑episode, half‑hour folk/ mystery thriller reimagining Baba Yaga with Hudson Williams, Carrie‑Ann Moss and Noah Reid; series shot as 8x30-minute episodes and will also be marketed internationally as four 1‑hour episodes.

Evie Templeton boards Victorian Psycho alongside Maika Monroe, Jason Isaacs, Ruth Wilson and Thomasin McKenzie for the psychological horror thriller slated to premiere at Cannes; casting stacks genre and prestige TV talent ahead of festival launch.

Production Weekly issue lists 174 current projects including multiple high-profile and genre entries: Final Destination 7, A Quiet Place Part III, Untitled Blumhouse Project, The Mummy 4, The Woods, Possession/Posessed-adjacent titles and several TV slates—strong production pipeline signal for horror/thriller franchises and Blumhouse activity.

Hoyts has agreed to add 10 more IMAX locations across Australia and New Zealand—nearly doubling IMAX’s Australian footprint—with at least three opening this year and additional sites scheduled through 2028; the format posted a record AU$18.7M box office in 2025 in the territory.

Telefilm allocates $1.6M across 23 Canadian film festivals to boost exhibition and industry programming; funding preserves marketplace access for indie genre titles seeking buyers and festival premieres.

Netflix launched 'Clips,' a new personalized vertical-video feed on mobile designed to drive discovery and engagement across its catalog and funnel viewers to full-length viewing on TV, positioning itself alongside TikTok-style formats and following Disney+ and Peacock moves into vertical content.

WGA West rejected the Writers Guild Staff Union’s counterproposal on layoff, no‑strike and longevity provisions, escalating a 71‑day impasse that includes accusations of intimidation and calls for mediation; staff union is planning next steps amid stalled talks.

Former LevelK/Memento exec Derek Lui launched Sydney-based sales agency Surprise H, debuting a three-film slate to buyers at Cannes led by Brazil’s I Am Going To Miss You and including supernatural-tinged Levitating and Korean-language Larirang, positioning the boutique shop for international festival and market play.

Jane Schoenbrun’s Camp‑set horror satire Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma will close SXSW London after premiering in Cannes Un Certain Regard and ahead of an August release on Mubi in the US/UK/IE; the Plan B/Mubi co‑production reunites Schoenbrun with horror‑adjacent themes and a cast led by Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

Panic Fest programming showcased Grind as a four-segment horror anthology targeting modern labor anxieties—segments tackle MLM, delivery drivers, content moderation and unionizing baristas—with strong genre casting (Barbara Crampton, Christopher Marquette) and local festival praise that should aid its market momentum.

Playtime has taken international sales rights to Geraldine Nakache’s psychological thriller Think Good, a Cannes Premiere title described as a piercing portrait of coercive control starring Monia Chokri and Niels Schneider and co-written by Nakache and David Lambert.

Demonetize world premiere at Panic Fest; Alexander Boyd Watson co-wrote and directed a horror-comedy about YouTubers surviving a haunted house for $100,000 with Sean Carrigan, Matty Cardarople, Janine Hogan, Doug Jones and Kimia Behpoornia attached; film closes credits with an explicit anti-AI pledge.

Panic Fest’s 2026 shorts program surfaced 100+ micro-works as a creative proving ground; standout titles include Blood Moon, Closing Shift, Halfway Haunted, Rough Cut (Kimberly J. Brown), Seance For The ‘Gram and Total Party Kill — festival shorts likely to seed features, series, or talent discovery.

Dystopian sci‑fi thriller Woken, starring Erin Kellyman, hits UK digital platforms May 25; plot centers on a woman who wakes pregnant on a remote island with amnesia, positioning it for VOD genre audiences.

Hanover Square Press releases Frances White’s dark fantasy-horror novel The Bone Door on May 12; the book’s labyrinth-set premise marks it as potential IP for genre adaptation interest.

Image launches Odin, a mythic-horror series from James Tynion IV with Marguerite Bennett and Letizia Cadonici; first issue on May 6 with multiple variants and a $5.99 blank-sketch option, underscoring Tynion’s IP pipeline as multiple properties move toward TV adaptation.

Invincible VS launches today on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC; three-on-three fighter built by Quarter Up (Skybound Entertainment subsidiary) with an 18-character roster and bespoke movement kits to capture the comics’ verticality and faction-based play.

Zach Cregger’s teaser reframes Resident Evil as claustrophobic, survival-first horror rather than franchise spectacle; footage emphasizes new creatures, bleak tone and an isolated protagonist headed to theaters Sept. 18.

The long-anticipated Resident Evil teaser is out — Cregger’s R-rated reboot promises visceral scares and new characters rather than returning game leads; studio positions film as a fresh franchise entry for Sept. 18 theatrical launch.

Zach Cregger frames his Resident Evil as a survival-horror, game-adjacent courier story that preserves resource-management pacing from the games; he confirms an original protagonist and game-inspired mechanics as central to the film's tone.

Na Hong-jin’s Hope is a Palme d’Or competition entry and a supernaturally inflected cosmic-mystery set in an isolated DMZ-adjacent village; an international ensemble (Hwang Jung‑min, Zo In‑sung, Hoyeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell) anchors a film rumored to be the first of a two‑part saga.

Teaser trailer for Zach Cregger's Resident Evil debuts; Austin Abrams is attached and the footage returns the franchise to Raccoon City, signalling the start of the film's marketing push ahead of its theatrical rollout.

Constantin Film promotes Kacie Fagan to director of development in LA; she will source and shepherd IP for film/TV and remains tied to the slate that includes Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot (Sony release in September) and in-development supernatural projects from Josh Boone and Peter Segal.

Neon has released the Irish horror film Hokum starring Adam Scott; distributor is rolling the title into its genre slate as an atmospheric, hotel-bound chiller from director Damian McCarthy.

Neon’s Irish hotel-set horror Hokum (Damian McCarthy) lands with Adam Scott in the lead; film delivers effective scares but reviews flag an overreliance on jump scares and a patchy screenplay that undercuts the payoff.

Netflix will remove James Wan– and Jason Blum-produced horror Night Swim from its streaming library on May 7; the supernatural pool terror starring Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon opened theatrically in 2024 and has polarized critics and audiences.

Quiver Distribution secured U.S. rights for Kristian McKay’s road‑trip horror KillTrip and will release it digitally on July 17, 2026; cast includes Samaire Armstrong, Corin Nemec and Stelio Savante — a targeted SVOD/EST play for mid-tier genre fare.

Six-part lunar thriller First Woman is in production in Belfast with Andrea Riseborough leading; Alex Hassell and Jennifer Ehle board key roles; production uses Studio Ulster virtual production and is financed/co-produced by ITV Studios’ Mammoth Screen, Alcon Television and ZDF.

FilmNation picks up worldwide (ex Germany/Poland) rights and will co‑finance Magnus von Horn’s English‑language escape thriller The Passenger starring Jeremy Strong, an adaptation of Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz’s 1938 novel tracking a businessman fleeing Kristallnacht.