ScreamWire Daily

Dylan O’Brien, Lewis Pullman and Kaia Gerber have signed on to star in James Morosini’s erotic thriller Bulls; QC Entertainment is financing with Roth/Kirschenbaum producing, Manifest Pictures handling international rights and CAA Media Finance/WME Independent/ QC co-repping domestic sales, with production slated to begin before year-end.

The Academy adopted new 2027 eligibility rules: actors can receive multiple nominations in the same category if they rank in the top five; roles must be credited performances by consenting humans; screenplays must be human‑authored and the Academy can probe AI usage; and international film eligibility expands via wins at six designated festivals.

Ketchup Entertainment acquired North American rights to Roland Joffé’s JFK-era crime thriller November 1963 with a planned 1,000-theater Q4 release; John Travolta leads a cast including Mandy Patinkin and Robert Carlyle and Paradigm brokered the deal.

Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey and Stephen Lang signed on for Kriv Stenders’ NSW‑set crime thriller Eyes Along the Valley; Bracey co‑wrote the script, Architect launched worldwide sales ahead of Cannes, production will shoot on location and positions the film as a tense, constructed serial‑killer thriller.

Three Paramount+ subscribers filed a California federal suit seeking to block Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery and to unwind aspects of Skydance’s 2024 deal; plaintiffs claim the consolidation will reduce theatrical output and genre variety, and the WGA and Teamsters have publicly expressed skepticism while the company calls the suit without merit.

Private plaintiffs filed a California federal antitrust suit aiming to block the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. combination, alleging the $110 billion-plus merger would reduce competition, raise streaming prices and shrink theatrical output; Paramount Skydance defends the deal as necessary to compete with tech giants.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has moved to exclude AI-generated performers from eligibility for Oscars; decision represents a regulatory shift affecting casting, VFX workflows and performance credits across all genres including horror.

Neon’s folk-horror-leaning Hokum expands to 1,850 screens as part of a specialty slate that includes remastered and award-winning docs and indie genre fare; Hokum is Neon’s first release under a new Spooky Pictures co-production partnership and continues Neon’s strategy of scaled theatrical rollouts for high-end horror.

Academy's updated rules for the 99th Oscars formalize anti-AI authorship, permit multiple acting nominations per category, and set 2026 theatrical qualifying windows, creating new submission and campaign calendars for distributors and awards teams.

Academy rule change; winners of six named international festival top prizes (Cannes Palme d’Or, Venice Golden Lion, Berlin Golden Bear, Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize, Busan Best Film, Toronto Platform Award) will qualify for the International Feature Oscar beginning this season; nominees will be credited to the film and director rather than the submitting country and new AI/human-authorship and casting/voting procedural rules tighten eligibility and campaigning requirements.

Official Academy rule packet finalizes anti-AI language for performance and writing eligibility, expands festival-based routes into International Feature, and tweaks voting/shortlist mechanics across categories, prompting distribution and awards strategists to reassess festival campaigns and compliance checks.

The Academy tightened Oscars eligibility by banning AI-generated work from acting and writing categories and requiring demonstrable human authorship and consent for performances; the International Feature Film rules were overhauled to allow festival winners to qualify and to vest the statuette in the film/director rather than the submitting country, while actors can now receive multiple nominations in the same category.

International Feature qualifiers now include specific festival prize winners, enabling festival-awarded films to bypass national selection processes; change could shift festival award strategies and politicize prize decisions at Berlinale, Cannes, Venice, TIFF, Sundance and Busan.

Saw: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book, a 12-page novelty engineered by David Hawcock with illustrations by Vance Kelly and text by Britt Hayes, translates iconic Jigsaw traps into mechanical paper pop-ups aimed at collectors and franchise fans.

Shudder debuts the trailer for Smothered, an Indonesian folk‑horror adaptation of the Malin Kundang tale directed by Kevin Rahardjo and Rafki Hidayat; the film centers on a man with fractured memories who grows suspicious of a mysterious elderly woman, positioning Shudder to expand its Southeast Asian horror slate.

Arrow Video has rolled out a 4K restoration trailer for Ted Kotcheff's 1971 Outback thriller Wake in Fright, reviving festival and catalog interest in the Kenneth Cook adaptation and positioning the title for specialty home-vid and arthouse rediscovery in the U.S. market.

Prime Video canceled Gen V after two seasons due to business-level viewership vs. cost calculations; showrunner Eric Kripke says he fought to keep the series and confirms Amazon is open to absorbing some Gen V characters into other elements of The Boys universe while internal ideas for future uses are being brainstormed.

Production has wrapped and the first image for teen supernatural horror Dangerous Games to Play has been released; film stars Lucas Dutra, Sara Sedran, Danija Areande and Shaun O'Callaghan and follows teens who find a book of games that contacts the other side.

Hokum, written and directed by Damian McCarthy and starring Adam Scott, opens in theaters May 1, 2026 after festival play at Overlook; McCarthy discusses haunted-hotel conceit, thematic arcs, and production design choices that should position the film for indie genre theatrical runs and VOD after box office.

Damian McCarthy’s Irish folk-horror Hokum delivers an unexpected happy ending; Adam Scott leads as novelist Ohm Bauman opposite Florence Ordesh, with David Wilmot, Michael Patric, Peter Coonan, and Brendan Conroy rounding out a morality-tale haunted-hotel mystery released via Neon.

Apple TV+'s horror-comedy Widow's Bay debuted strongly, holding a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score early and ranking in the streamer's top 5; created and written by Katie Dippold with Hiro Murai directing and a cast led by Matthew Rhys, the 10-episode series is weekly appointment viewing and could seed franchise potential if Apple greenlights more seasons.

Acclaim, Inc. released a Steam demo for Ground Zero Hero, an over-the-top post-apocalyptic action-roguelite with mutation mechanics and cross-platform release planned this summer; demo progress carries over to the full game.

Renny Harlin’s Deep Water is a plane-crash-and-shark-attack spectacle built for visceral set pieces; Aaron Eckhart headlines a crowd of survivors in a violent, schlock-forward disaster thriller that prioritizes carnage over character.