ScreamWire Daily

Lionsgate has picked up Tortures of the Damned, pairing Terrifier filmmaker Damien Leone with Sam Raimi and Ghost House on Leone’s first original project outside the franchise. Leone is set to write, direct, and produce, while Terrifier 4 remains in pre-production.

Obsession’s $100M-plus run and Backrooms’ record-setting launch are pushing Blumhouse-Atomic Monster deeper into creator-led low-budget horror, with Jason Blum citing Sam Zimmerman’s mandate and online-native filmmakers as the new pipeline. Blum also keeps floating a five-year “Disney of horror” target and says a Blair Witch reboot is moving with creator Dylan Clark.

Backrooms opened to $118 million worldwide, including an $81.4 million domestic launch, making Kane Parsons the youngest filmmaker ever to top the box office and giving A24 its biggest opening by a wide margin; Obsession kept climbing to $148 million worldwide, extending the case for low-budget horror as theatrical gold.

Crossed $50 million worldwide on a $4 million budget after a Jan. 30 theatrical bow; produced, written, directed and starring Markiplier, reached audiences with virtually no marketing spend driven by his social channels; adaptation of David Szymanski’s indie game; physical release window TBD.

Universal International Studios and Heyday Television are shopping a present-day The Birds limited series with Sarah Snook set to star and Tom Spezialy writing; the remake has cycled through feature and TV iterations for nearly two decades and is back in buyer mode.

Turkish body-horror feature Mutter: The Diary of a Mother has unveiled its official teaser ahead of a Tribeca premiere, positioning the film as a pregnancy-themed horror entry in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby and It’s Alive.

Netflix has taken worldwide rights to Bad Bridgets, a 19th-century Irish period thriller from Kneecap director Rich Peppiatt and LuckyChap; Emilia Jones stars with Alison Oliver, and production is slated to roll later in 2026.

20th Century Studios moves the long-developing Choose Your Own Adventure feature forward with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett in talks to direct; Tom Bissell’s script is already in place. The Radio Silence duo are also in pre-production on The Mummy reboot, keeping their horror pipeline active.

Neon CEO Tom Quinn is publicly pushing back on industry consolidation as the company explores a possible stake change involving Department M. He says Neon has a hard cap on size, calls lack of competition bad for the business, and continues to back auteur-driven acquisitions out of Cannes and beyond.

Chattanooga Film Festival is teeing up its 2026 edition with a branding tease; no lineup, market, or deal news is attached yet.

118 features and 86 shorts fill Tribeca’s 25th edition from June 3-14; the lineup sets a record 103 world premieres and spotlights Dana Nachman, Teyana Taylor, Asante Blackk and Spike Lee-adjacent programming.

Netflix premieres I Will Find You on June 18, its first American Harlan Coben adaptation; the thriller follows David Burroughs, jailed for murdering his 3-year-old son Matthew, after sister-in-law Rachel spots a photo 5 years later suggesting the boy is alive.

YouTube keeps feeding horror’s indie-to-studio pipeline, with Lights Out, Talk to Me, Skinamarink, Shelby Oaks and Backrooms proving the route works; the piece argues the platform still skews male and reinforces industry gatekeeping.

Evil Dead Wrath has wrapped principal photography in New Zealand and is set for a theatrical April 7, 2028 bow; the standalone Evil Dead run keeps expanding behind Francis Galluppi’s sequel.

Six first- and second-feature projects land in Locarno Open Doors’ Africa-focused 2026 slate; the co-production platform adds prizes including an EAVE scholarship worth €4,000 plus new producer and director cohorts.

Marvel Comics is launching Midnight, a horror imprint that retools X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man through vampire mythology; the Midnight X-Men cover nods to Fright Night as the line kicks off in August.

Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter wins the 2026 Locus horror novel prize; Nnedi Okorafor, Joe Hill and Silvia Moreno-Garcia also land across the SF/fantasy slate at the genre lit awards.