Greg McLean, WME Independent & Netflix

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

$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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.