ScreamWire Daily

Paramount has won Garth Davis’ Florence Pugh vehicle The Midnight Library for $36M, the biggest Cannes-market package in the frame. StudioCanal keeps key international territories as the Matt Haig adaptation heads toward fall pre-production and an early-2027 shoot.

A24’s Backrooms is pulling in $9M in previews on a sub-$10M budget, putting Kane Parsons’ feature on track to blow past a $40M-$45M opening forecast. The atomic-monster/blumhouse-backed digital-IP play is already shaping up as a fast-monetized breakout.

Na Hong-Jin’s sci-fi monster movie has set an all-time Korean sales record, with pre-sales in 200 territories and nearly half its production budget recouped before release. Neon took North America, the U.K. and Australia; Mubi, Focus Features and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions also moved on territory rights out of Cannes.

A24 and HBO are developing Angel Heart as a series with Zac Efron set to star and executive produce. Zach Baylin is writing and Jonathan van Tulleken is directing the cult horror rework.

$68M in North America on a $750K budget makes Obsession a breakout, and Focus's $15M Toronto buy after outbidding A24 and Neon is paying off with a record second-weekend surge.

Behind the Mask II closed its crowdfunding run at roughly $400K after blowing past a $20K Kickstarter goal in 10 minutes; the indie sequel now has real runway to move toward production.

Acorn TV renews You’re Killing Me for a six-episode Season 2 after the murder-mystery series became the platform’s top launch for subscriber acquisition and viewership. Production is slated for later this year, with AMC Studios and Dynamic Television retaining worldwide rights outside Canada.

A24’s ‘Scapegoat’ is now eyeing a November 2026 Atlanta shoot, with Ari Aster reuniting with Darius Khondji on cinematography; the Scarlett Johansson-led feature still has its plot under wraps but now has a clearer runway to 2027 delivery.

The Space Between has wrapped production, adding another liminal-horror title to the post-Exit 8/Backrooms wave; Damian Maffei stars in the indie feature set inside a Midwestern mall.

Semi Chellas sets murder-mystery thriller The Long Now at Netflix; the hook gives a man seven hours to solve his own murder with help from his estranged ex. Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan executive produce via Aggregate Films.

Netflix widens the cast of its Liz Moore adaptation The God of the Woods with Maya Hawke, Nell Fisher and Benjamin Walker; the limited series keeps building out a thriller package around a summer-camp disappearance.

Godzilla Minus Zero is filling out its returning cast as Takashi Yamazaki brings back multiple Minus One players, with one unnamed Hollywood actor also circling a role. Toho is steering the sequel toward a November 6, 2026 North American release after Minus One grossed $113 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.

September theatrical date set for Adam Wingard’s action-horror Onslaught; the first trailer is already running in front of Backrooms playdates, giving the pic a trailer-first launch push.

S.J. Creazzo (Dark Reckoning) tapped to direct; set inside an isolated historic carriage house estate that centers on fame and trauma.

The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark sequel is stalled in copyright limbo, with underlying ownership still unresolved. Until the chain of title clears, the follow-up stays dead in development.

Low-budget horror Obsession has pulled ahead of Disney’s The Mandalorian and Grogu in domestic box office rankings and is now sitting on $73.5M domestic off roughly a $1M budget. The film’s strong legs and near-90s audience scores make it one of the year’s sharpest genre breakouts.

Easterseals and Film Independent relaunch the Media Access Awards as The DARCYS, adding a competitive nominations process, accessibility requirements and an Oct. 10 ceremony with live YouTube and PBS SoCal coverage.

€250M annual incentive pool unlocked for Germany’s DFFF and GMPF, up from €133M; the cabinet-approved media bill also forces streamers and VoD services to invest at least 8% of net turnover in German and European productions.

Canal+ chief Maxime Saada is denying blacklist claims while warning project teams that their treatment of the company will now factor into financing decisions. The row follows Canal+’s UGC stake, growing pressure over Bolloré influence and a very public split with the French film establishment.

South Korea has launched a public-private committee to hash out a six-month theatrical window, with lawmakers pushing a holdback bill and officials targeting an August agreement. The debate lands as Korean exhibitors, streamers and studios fight over revenue split amid a market rebound led partly by horror and supernatural hits.

585-screen A24 rollout gives Backrooms the widest theatrical launch in the UK and Ireland this weekend, with Kane Parsons’ psychological horror opening against Lionsgate UK’s Power Ballad. The frame also tracks against Obsession’s £1.3m debut, giving the horror title an early box-office comp.

Cannes’ Marche du Film elevated Japan as Country of Honor and turned the Japan IP Market into an active rights-brokerage hub, with roughly 80 overseas meetings and Sony’s Sanford Panitch pitching Japanese IP as a global adaptation engine.

SXSW London is leaning hard into AI, robotics and technofeudalism across its conference slate, with programming chief Katy Arnander framing the event as a discovery platform for creative-tech crossover. The inaugural edition drew 20,000-plus visitors from 80 countries, and this year’s agenda again centers on how AI is reshaping production and workplace workflows.

Lindsay Calleran’s feature debut lands a world premiere in Tribeca’s U.S. Narrative Competition; Curious Gremlin is handling international and U.S. sales as the haunted-house coming-of-age drama heads into June public screenings.

Fantasia books the world premiere of Jenn Wexler’s The Last Temptation of Becky, an 89-minute horror-thriller starring Lulu Wilson, Kate Siegel and Neil Patrick Harris. Quiver Distribution is attached.

Grindhouse Releasing is booking nationwide theatrical dates for a newly restored Cannibal Holocaust ahead of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray rollout; the uncensored 16mm-aspect restoration already premiered at Beyond Fest and is expanding to Alamo Drafthouse dates.

Prime Video locks June 12 for Ali Fazal-led Hindi thriller 'Raakh,' a global launch for the Prosit Roy series about an investigator chasing two missing teenagers. Endemol Shine India backs the project with Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket as creators/writers.

Cinema Epoch pushes Human Hibachi 2 and Human Hibachi 3: The Last Supper onto Tubi as free AVOD plays; the microbudget found-footage cannibal franchise is trending on the service and keeps extending its cult footprint beyond the original release cycle.

Lionsgate's library hits Movies Anywhere in June with 225 titles in the launch wave and about 100 more added monthly through 2027; participating retailers include Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home and YouTube. The rollout lifts the locker near 10,000 titles and gives Lionsgate a broader transactional window for catalog monetization.

DirecTV extends its Tribeca Festival partnership with a renewed FAST-channel and Hub deal; the platform says the Tribeca slate has already generated 3 million viewing hours and nearly 1 million viewers.

Artlist lands its first full-length feature, Terrarium, a hybrid horror project financed and produced with Steven Schneider. Secret Level is also on board, marking a notable AI-native feature push into genre filmmaking.

Paul Schrader used Amazon’s AI on the Lot stage to argue that synthetic leads are coming fast, while SAG-AFTRA’s current contract language already bars studios from swapping humans for AI performers without significant added value.

Gareth Edwards is betting on generative AI as a pre-viz and iteration tool, saying it can help filmmakers test concepts and generate trailer-proof ideas faster. He’s experimenting with diffusion models now and views the tech as a major production-side shift, though not a substitute for story or taste.

Christopher Young, Greg Punchatz, J.P. Manoux, Kenneth Miller and Zack Merrick board Daniel Ruczko’s horror-comedy mockumentary; production starts July 14 in Albuquerque and a Kickstarter launches June 1. Black Corridor Pictures is producing.

Naver Webtoon is launching ‘Maengjong,’ a prequel spin-off to occult hit ‘Exhuma,’ on May 30, extending the franchise into vertical-scroll form with Jang Jae-hyun involved in early concept review. The webtoon leans on the film’s supernatural mythology after ‘Exhuma’ drew 11.9 million admissions and $83.1 million in Korea.

Five more series regulars board Netflix’s The God of the Woods, Sony Pictures Television’s adaptation of Liz Moore’s bestseller; Liz Hannah and Moore co-showrun, with Neal H. Moritz and Pavun Shetty EPing for Original Film.

Paul Sparks and Ava Threat board Apple’s sci-fi thriller Liminal, expanding a cast that already includes Vanessa Kirby, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Pelphrey, Franka Potente and Tracy Letts. Louis Leterrier directs the AWA Studios adaptation of J. Michael Straczynski’s Telepaths graphic novel.