ScreamWire Daily

$57M paid to Warner Bros.; Village Roadshow now holds zero stake in The Matrix Resurrections after a reconfigured settlement tied to long-running litigation and appeals over co-financing obligations.

A24 and Peacock's Crystal Lake series confirms all eight episodes are picture-locked and teases a major announcement; Brad Caleb Kane promises a paranoid '70s-tinged Friday the 13th origin with Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees and explicit slasher DNA, signaling a high-profile franchise expansion for streaming.

Nikias Chryssos’ English-language horror Bloody Tennis boards sales at Cannes Market with Playmaker; elite-boarding-school-set folk/contained horror starring Sandra Guldberg Kampp and Helena Zengel, produced by Augenschein, positions as festival-driven genre title ahead of sales push.

Magenta Light Studios; bought North American theatrical rights to Jonathan Bensimon’s horror‑thriller Lice with a Q1 2027 release; stars Emile Hirsch, Justin Long and Kevin Connolly and was sold internationally by Highland Film Group out of Cannes.

Radiant International is selling Will Wernick’s prison-set thriller Time of Death at Cannes while Vertical closed U.S. theatrical day‑and‑date PVOD rights for a June 12 release; cast includes Michael Kelly, Kevin Pollak, Mena Suvari and Dennis Haysbert.

Damien Leone confirms TERRIFIER 4 relocates its carnage to New Year’s Eve, positioning the installment as a holiday-set finale for Art the Clown and signalling franchise momentum toward a major theatrical event.

Passage Pictures (Uri Singer) acquires Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers’ In the Blue; a dark, claustrophobic thriller set on a family yacht with producer Uri Singer attached and Napier & Powers repped by UTA, positioning as a festival-friendly indie with producer pedigree from White Noise links.

Pinocchio Unstrung — a Jagged Edge Productions twisted fairy-tale slasher — lands a July 24 theatrical from Viva Pictures and stacks horror name value with Robert Englund and Richard Brake attached; film leans into viral marketing and public-domain horror momentum following Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.

Image Comics will publish Hammerfist by Rick Remender and Steve Epting on August 26, 2026; the series blends hardboiled crime with splatter horror in an Evil Dead/Raimi-inspired vein and is positioned as cinematic, high-R gore with multiple retailer variants and an extensive cover lineup.

Terrifier 4 will take place on New Year’s Eve, shifting the franchise’s holiday-set pattern and indicating continued seasonal branding for Art the Clown entries after Halloween and Christmas locales; confirms creative continuity and franchise planning ahead of production.

Telefilm Canada launched two new industry programs designed to boost production and industry capacity; initiatives target Canadian producers and are likely to affect indie and genre financing and development timelines in Canadian territories.

Magic: The Gathering posts record 2025 revenue ($1.7B) and expands into entertainment with a Netflix animated series and a Legendary live-action film; Passage from tabletop to screen is accelerating and pro tour prize pools and conventions like MagicCon are aiding IP monetization.

A high-profile Apple TV+ sci‑fi survival drama has cleared strong critical acclaim to gain streaming traction; its reception reinforces Apple’s investment strategy in prestige genre series amid crowded SVOD competition.

Fox Village Theater to resume limited public programming this summer ahead of a 2027 relaunch under American Cinematheque after Jason Reitman-led ownership buy; signals revival of L.A. heritage exhibition and potential venue for future premieres and genre screenings.

Summer 2027 release window set for Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish; game director Piotr Latocha outlines dark-New-York tabletop-inspired RPG systems, five companion characters with relationship/romance mechanics, and player-choice combat styles across PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC Steam.

Upfront Week returns with eight major presentations across Manhattan including NBCUniversal, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, offering advertisers a compact three-day schedule amid consolidation, AI and macroeconomic headwinds.

Strauss Zelnick says he is “deeply disappointed” at the delay of BioShock 4; development remains stalled and exec-level frustration signals potential internal pressure on Take-Two's studio roadmaps for AAA narrative IP.

Terrifier 2 returns to fully functional VHS via Witter Entertainment in three variants including a $30 clamshell edition and a book-box Art Crispies edition; signals continued demand for physical-format horror collector editions.

Under Your Feet releases an international trailer and key art ahead of its Cannes market screening; world premiered at Tallinn Black Nights 2025, picks up awards at Fantasporto and targets international sales via Filmsharks and producer Guido Rud.

We Bury the Dead, a horror thriller starring Daisy Ridley, has premiered on Hulu; Ridley headlines a new streaming horror title adding star power to platform slates and continuing Hollywood’s trend of theatrical-to-streaming windows for genre fare.

Dark Sky Films releases the official trailer and a June watch window for Camp, Avalon Fast's witchcraft thriller about grief and female friendship; the title played Fantastic Fest 2025 and other genre fests, positioning it for indie horror platforming and specialty distribution.

Vertical acquired U.S. rights to Mark Heyman’s Pendulum; Darren Aronofsky produced through Protozoa with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Phoebe Dynevor leading a psychological-paranormal thriller and a January 1, 2027 theatrical release planned.

Evil Dead: Burn trailers emphasize a grief-driven logline and a Kandarian-Necronomicon resurrection plotline; new footage centers on a fatal car crash, a funeral for George Pullar’s Will, a cabin setting, murderous hillbillies and Deadite mayhem while continuing the franchise’s post-Ash tonal reinventions.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's untitled Universal sci‑fi action comedy carries a reported $150M budget and may center on five teenagers; Ryan Gosling exited, Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt were approached and declined, and the film is set for Nov. 19, 2027.

Apple TV+ horror-comedy Widow’s Bay boards Hiro Murai to direct episodes; creator Katie Dippold courted Murai for his ability to ground absurd genre beats, with Matthew Rhys starring as the island mayor.

Miami narcotics officers filed a federal defamation suit May 7 against Artists Equity and Falco Pictures over Netflix’s The Rip, alleging the film appropriated details from a 2016 $21.97M cash seizure and falsely portrayed the officers as corrupt; the complaint names Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as co-producers.

Producer Timur Bekmambetov defends the Ice Cube-led War of the Worlds adaptation, saying he values Prime Video chart-topping performance over critics while acknowledging the film’s poor reviews and Razzie haul; Ice Cube has cited pandemic-era, 15-day shooting constraints during production.

Limited-release indie horror-thriller Affection; Jessica Rothe headlines a 90-minute body-horror-leaning film from writer-director BT Meza with practical effects by Lia Parks and production design by Nicholas Faiella and Kevin Cabello; modest festival run and small distributor release position it as a potential breakout for Rothe and Meza within indie horror circulation.

Will Forte and Tiffany Haddish board Eric André’s near-future apocalyptic feature Synergy Systems; Toby Harvard makes feature directorial debut from his own script and André leads as a terminally indecisive data analyst, positioning the film as punk-tinged genre fare.

Sean Gordon Murphy launches The Last Driver, a creator-owned cyberpunk/vehicular action series at Image Comics debuting Aug. 19; landscape format, dystopian John Carpenter vibes, protagonist is a Native American outlaw who rebels against automated transport and authoritarian control.

Affection—BT Meza's directorial debut starring Jessica Rothe—opens in select theaters via Brainstorm Media; video interviews highlight the film's memory-loop sci-fi premise, practical effects by Dan Rebert, and festival-to-theatrical rollout but no distribution deal news beyond Brainstorm's release.

HBO issued a new episode update to its Yogurt Shop Murders true-crime series; the installment revisits case developments and renews attention on archival evidence and ongoing legal/contextual threads.

Tony Leung and director Ildikó Enyedi discuss Silent Friend, a tender, mystical mind-bender in which Leung plays a neuroscientist studying electromagnetic activity in a ginkgo tree; the interview emphasizes the film's poetic intentions rather than commercial rollout.