ScreamWire Daily

Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) has greenlit The Girl Who Was Plugged In with Sophie Thatcher in dual lead roles; Goodfellas is launching international sales at Cannes with CAA Media Finance and Range Select co-repping U.S. rights, the script is adapted from James Tiptree Jr.’s 1973 novella and principal photography is set to start mid-November 2026 in Australia.

New venture RoseBerry Media launches with library deals from A+E Global, All3Media International, Banijay Rights, Cineflix Rights and Fremantle to repurpose scripted, true-crime and documentary catalogs into AI-driven vertical video and a DTC app planned for summer; the company positions its proprietary ‘library verticalization’ tech as a scalable monetization route for distributors historically reluctant to enter microdrama.

Crave’s genre-leaning series Yaga—reimagining Baba Yaga as a contemporary mystery-thriller from Kat Sandler—secured multiple international buyers including HBO Max Europe, Foxtel and Sky New Zealand after AMC Global took U.S. rights; Sphere Abacus is selling both a 4x1hr and 8x30min configuration with David Frazee and Rachel Talalay directing and a cast that includes Noah Reid, Carrie-Anne Moss, Katharine Isabelle and Katharine Isabelle.

Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions cut three development staffers and will operate with a four-person development team as Peele shifts to more hands-on oversight; the move follows a scaled-back Universal first-look renewal and limited recent output beyond Nope and Candyman-era projects.

Greg McLean’s supernatural thriller The First Exorcist launches sales at Cannes with Upgrade handling; Josh Heuston and Ryan Corr lead, McLean wrote and will produce with Mark Fennessy, and producers plan a Q4 shoot in Victoria/South Australia as buyers eye international pre-sales.

Fantasia Fest rolled out its first-wave lineup spotlighting genre-heavy fare including an AI noir and a teen Nazi-hunters entry, headlined by Noomi Rapace and Lulu Wilson and reaffirming Fantasia's role as a launchpad for international and boundary-pushing horror and sci-fi projects.

Neon acquired U.S. rights to Jeff Nichols’ Southern Gothic horror King Snake; FilmNation financed the picture, which stars Margaret Qualley, Michael Shannon and Drew Starkey, is produced by Tri-State Pictures with Range Media Partners, and began principal photography in Arkansas this month.

Greg McLean returns to horror with THE FIRST EXORCIST, a biblical-horror feature reuniting cast members from DANGEROUS ANIMALS and WOLF CREEK; project details include director attachment and likely indie-to-studio financing trajectory that could revive McLean as a festival-to-distribution funnel contender.

Paramount+’s 10-episode espionage series The Agency: Central Intelligence — starring Michael Fassbender and remade from France’s The Bureau — is designed for binge viewing and has been renewed for a second season with new cast additions filming since May 2025.

Charlie Kaufman’s Later the War is back in motion after a shutdown, with Channing Tatum replacing Eddie Redmayne and production now scheduled to shoot in Cyprus in 2027; the project adapts Iddo Geffen’s short story and retains Tessa Thompson and Patsy Ferran.

Piranha: Pacific Nightmare revives development nine years after its initial announcement and repositions the killer-fish sequel in a Japan-set landscape, signaling a franchise rebooting effort to broaden international scope.

FCC Commissioner is demanding scrutiny of foreign investors in Paramount’s planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, flagging that disclosed foreign ownership could reach 49.5% and urging coordination with national security agencies and public disclosure ahead of the FCC’s comment deadlines.

Paramount is lobbying UK authorities to approve its $110B mega-merger with Warner Bros. Discovery while pressing ministers to lower the UK high-end TV tax credit threshold from £1M to £500k to repatriate tens of millions in production spend; the dual push intertwines regulatory clearance and tax-policy reform that would materially affect UK-based drama production economics.

Alex Walton is departing WME Independent to launch a new film financing, production and international sales venture timed to roll after Cannes and ahead of AFM; WME is discontinuing its in-house international sales operation with Deb McIntosh becoming sole head of the domestic sales label and potential project carryovers and staff moves expected between the two outfits.

Mediawan CEO Pierre-Antoine Capton details Mediawan’s M&A-driven growth, including acquiring North Road and stakes in Plan B and See-Saw, building roughly $2.3B annual revenue and $1B box office in the prior year while aiming to consolidate European production and compete with U.S. entertainment giants.

Disney posts fiscal Q2 revenue of $25.2B and unveils a three-pillar strategy prioritizing IP investment, expanding Disney+ as a central engagement platform, and deploying advanced technologies including AI; the company raised its $8B share-buyback target and flagged continued exploration of OpenAI partnerships while reorganizing creative under Dana Walden.

Mira Anta Media Capital Fund I launches targeting €80M to invest in Spanish and Spanish-speaking audiovisual SMEs, offering equity stakes and production financing with a focus on virtual production, XR, AI-enabled tools and immersive services and aiming for 12%–14% net annual returns over a 6–8 year horizon.

Tubi hired former TikTok and CBC executive Gave Lindo as its first General Manager for Canada to lead the streamer’s Toronto office and local expansion; the ad-supported platform reports 30% YoY MAU growth in Canada and has partnered with Bell Media for exclusive Canadian ad sales.

$94M gross on ~ $40M budget for Sam Raimi’s Send Help; film now #1 on Google Store DVOD, bumping Sydney Sweeney’s The Housemaid to #2; Raimi’s horror-comedy (written by Mark Swift & Damian Shannon) is registering strong critical (93% RT) and audience returns, signaling renewed franchise-grade box-office viability for Raimi-led horror.

Greek government greenlights a €750 million five-year ‘Greece On Screen’ strategy to expand production incentives, skills training, and international competitiveness; program is a sizable draw for international genre shoots and could materially shift Mediterranean production flows and incentive-driven budgets.

Apex climbed to 40.2 million views in its second week on Netflix, up from 38.2 million in week one; the Baltasar Kormákur-directed survival thriller stars Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton and is produced by Chernin Entertainment, with the film’s soundtrack generating TikTok and streaming buzz.

AFM brands its November market under the unified theme 'The New Global Screen Economy' to focus on changing financing, production and distribution models; 90 exhibitors are already confirmed, including XYZ Films and StudioCanal, and panels will address AI, piracy and new business frameworks.

Nagoshi Studio facing a reported $44M funding gap after NetEase pulls back; Gang of Dragon’s development stalled with studio briefly removing promotional assets while searching for new investors, making a cancellation or acquisition the likeliest outcomes unless a major publisher intervenes.

Leading California governor candidates backed an uncapped film tax credit on the debate stage; Katie Porter, Antonio Villaraigosa and others signaled support for expanding the current $750M cap and some proposed federal incentives, marking the first debate-level focus on production policy with clear upside for onshore film and TV—and indie horror—returns.

$100,000 budget; Russell K. Reed's independent action thriller Hierarchy is a streaming breakout on Tubi and Pluto TV and now climbing STARZ charts, signaling strong low‑budget lifecycle potential for indie genre/thriller titles on ad‑supported and premium platforms.

Five major publishers and author Scott Turow filed a class-action suit accusing Meta of using copyrighted books to train its Llama AI and stripping copyright notices; the complaint escalates legal pressure on AI-training practices and could affect rights, licensing, and studio sourcing of written IP.

$1.03B Q1 revenue at AMC, up from $862.5M a year earlier; adjusted EBITDA turned positive $38.3M, net loss narrowed to $117M and CEO Adam Aron says studios' 45-day theatrical exclusivity and a stronger box office slate are driving continued revenue gains.

New Blood Interactive and Hyperstrange will release the Scavengers DLC for eldritch shooter Blood West on June 3, adding an endless roguelite mode that expands the game's survival loop.

Grove Street Games unveils BeastLink, a third-person PvP kaiju game launching to Early Access on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series; title channels War of the Monsters-style mayhem and could interest horror-adjacent IP partners seeking monster-focused game tie-ins.

James Cameron is considering a 3D conversion of Aliens, citing improved depth-map tools and the title's evergreen audience, which signals continued archival monetization strategies for legacy sci-fi IP.

Streaming viewership for horror remains soft versus other genres; analyst flags weaker catalog performance, fewer breakout originals, and an attribution problem for SVOD platforms trying to build long-tail horror audiences.

Film schools from USC to NYU are embedding corporate AI tools and grants into curricula while the Academy now requires 'human-authored' screenplays, creating a tension between training pipelines and guild-led restrictions; this indicates a near-term battleground where AI literacy adoption in education could shape writer/tool selection and hiring practices across genre production.

Ferine unveiled exclusive stills and a logline ahead of its summer Fantasia slot; Carolyn Bracken stars in this Italian-shot horror-thriller that pits rationality against the animalistic impulses of its protagonist.

Sydney Film Festival adds horror-leaning titles to its competition lineup—Sundance breakout Leviticus and Natalie Erika James' Victorian-shot body-horror Saccharine—alongside Jane Schoenbrun’s psychosexual horror Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

Cannes Classics unveiled a 21-feature slate including a Bruce Dern documentary by Mike Mendez and restored prints of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth alongside classics from Orson Welles, Roger Corman and Akira Kurosawa; Park Chan-wook presides over the main jury.

Fantasia International Film Festival announces its first wave for the 30th edition running July 16–August 2, 2026; program includes world premieres, workshops, and multiple genre screenings that will shape summer festival market buzz.

Texas Frightmare Weekend marks its 20th anniversary with a packed film lineup and convention programming; the milestone boosts the festival's standing as a recurring market for genre premieres, talent panels, and fan-driven marketing cycles.

Pan’s Labyrinth and Ken Russell’s The Devils receive 4K restorations and will screen in the 2026 Cannes Classics lineup with Guillermo del Toro attending; del Toro supervised Pan’s new restoration which raises the profile for genre restorations on the festival circuit.

Netflix will give Greta Gerwig's Narnia: The Magician's Nephew a global theatrical release on Feb 12, 2027 and a Netflix bow on April 2, 2027; the wide IMAX/theatrical roll signals a continued platform pivot toward hybrid release windows and major tentpole spending.

Action vet Scott Adkins directs and stars in Brawler, an in-production UK-shot action-thriller co-starring Lewis Tan with a script by Matt Venne; Capture is launching sales at Cannes Market with producers Ben Jacques and Craig Baumgarten and Signature Films exec-producing.

New report from the Comics Cultural Impact Collective finds UK comics creators face low pay, precarious freelancing, and limited career pathways; implications for IP pipeline as creator attrition could shrink midlist talent feeding adaptations for film, TV, and games.

Netflix releases the official trailer for The Boroughs, an eight-episode supernatural-horror series executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer and created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, positioning the Duffer brand to expand from teen sci-fi into elder-centered monster storytelling with a stacked cast.

Brian Welsh is directing The Return of Stanley Atwell, a seductive psychological thriller starring Nicholas Galitzine and Ella Purnell with Damian Lewis joining the cast; produced by Hera Pictures and John Gore Studios, Steven Soderbergh executive produces and Protagonist Pictures handles international sales while WME Independent co-reps U.S. rights.

First trailer drops for Alan Ritchson’s new revenge thriller that blends Reacher-style stoicism with John Wick–level action; Ritchson leans into near-silent, single-minded protagonist beats and heightened action choreography, signaling streamer/theatrical positioning for male-led action-thrillers.

Paramount Pictures and Miramax roll out a poster for the new Scary Movie, which returns to theaters June 5 with legacy cast members plus newcomers and leans into parody of modern masked-killer tropes.

Homebody is a lo-fi ghost story shot on MiniDV then transferred to VHS by Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti, continuing their found-footage/microniche distribution approach and signaling appetite for retro-format horror aesthetics among collectors and genre festivals.

Market signal: Amazon MGM/Prime Video’s Mexican action tentpole Vengeance, produced by Pablo Cruz and directed by Rodrigo Valdés in his feature debut, secured a theatrical window before streaming and became a global hit across diverse territories, validating local‑first, genre‑scale production while exposing opaque platform performance reporting.

KVIFF Talents selected six projects for its industry pitching program including K-Dream (K-pop series), Burning Witches (17th-century period series with witchcraft/period conflict), and Inhalatorium (feature animation about a missing friend at a sanatorium), positioning the festival as a development conduit for Central/Eastern European genre and music-driven projects.

Insiders claim Greta Gerwig’s Narnia may become Netflix’s most expensive production to date, potentially eclipsing the Russo brothers’ reported $320M Electric State benchmark and signaling Netflix doubling down on tentpole theatrical play; no official budget disclosed.

Sony Pictures Television has pre-sold Jon Hamm-led psychological thriller series American Hostage across MGM+’s international footprint and to platforms including HBO Max (France, CEE, Poland), Movistar Plus+ (Spain) and Stan (Australia); SPT will present additional rights at L.A. Screenings May 17.

Netflix will give Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew a global theatrical bow on February 12, 2027 with an IMAX run before platform debut April 2, 2027; the move signals a strategic theatrical-first experiment for Netflix on big-IP family fantasy, featuring high-profile cast members though no financial terms were disclosed.

Jane Spencer’s genre-leaning road movie The Road to Nevermore, which blends UFO hoax, cult elements and a time-looping eerie town, has cast William Baldwin and Leo Gregory and will begin production in August 2026 with Ward 9, Dreambird and Mark Forstater producing.

Neon has acquired North American/UK/Australia rights and MUBI snapped key European and Latin American territories for Na Hong-jin’s sci-fi action thriller Hope; Cannes Competition world premiere set for 2026 and South Korea theatrical planned for summer, with Michael Fassbender fronting alongside Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell, Hoyeon and Hwang Jung-min.

Resident Evil lore superfan who compiled a 2,700-page canon document urges patience over Zach Cregger's reboot timeline choices; the film prioritizes recreating the game's feel rather than strict continuity and opens September 18.

Lee Hyo-je gained 20kg for a new Netflix horror role; the physical transformation signals a committed performance-driven production from the Korean market but no budget, title, or release window was disclosed.

Georgia currently hosts 26 active productions including Scooby-Doo: Origins (Netflix), the Superman sequel, horror feature Inground with John Cho, and supernatural home-invasion The Heretiks; the steady slate signals ongoing incentives and regional production capacity for genre shoots.

Affection, Joseph Cross-directed debut by BT Meza, blends sci-fi and body-horror with Jessica Rothe leading a twisty, unsettling central performance; positive critical reception could boost festival momentum and specialty distributor interest.

Season two of Daredevil: Born Again closes with Matt Murdock choosing mercy over execution as Wilson Fisk survives courtroom fallout, producing a finale that leans into MCU status-quo preservation and undermines the season’s retributive tensions; the episode mixes potent set-pieces with narrative choices that leave thematic questions unresolved.

Psycho Killer review; 20th Century Studios’ film written by Andrew Kevin Walker and starring Georgina Campbell is criticized as a tonal misfire that underutilizes its lead despite competent technical work; digital release available April 7, 2026.

Spider‑Noir will debut May 25 in dual formats—color and black‑and‑white—offering viewers two distinct presentations of the MGM+/Prime Video series starring Nicolas Cage; the show was shot so footage could be processed into both looks, making neither format purely a post‑conversion.

New clip from Obsession spotlights Inde Navarrette as the unsettling 'Freaky Nikki' opposite Michael Johnston; writer-director Curry Barker’s film opens in theaters May 15 via Focus Features.

Karl Urban confirms he’s exiting The Boys as his career shifts into major franchise action (including Mortal Kombat II); exit signals talent migration from prestige streaming series back to large-scale IP tentpoles and franchise features.

THE BOYS series finale receives a one-night 4DX theater event on May 19 ahead of its Prime Video release; experiential screening aims to drive fan engagement and premium out-of-home viewing for streamer-originated genre finales.

Disney+ logged over 33 billion U.S. minutes of Star Wars viewing in the last year with prequels—particularly The Phantom Menace—outpacing the Disney sequel trilogy in 2025, signaling a fan‑led reappraisal of George Lucas’ prequel era and continued streaming dominance for legacy titles.

4K restoration planned for cult folk-horror X: The Unknown; Hammer Films is preparing a remaster release to capitalize on retro-horror home-video demand and catalog monetization.