ScreamWire Daily

Paramount+ wins development rights to Cop Land for TV, with James Mangold and Robert Levine writing and Mangold directing. The move extends Miramax’s library-to-series push inside the newly reorganized Paramount TV Studios pipeline.

Backrooms is headed for an $85M-$88M domestic launch and about $118M worldwide, giving A24 its biggest opening ever and another proof point that internet-born horror IP can play like event theatrical fare.

Focus Features’ Obsession is nearing $175 million worldwide after a $750K production and a $15 million acquisition; art director Sally Choi says she was paid $300 a day, reigniting the conversation around low-budget horror labor economics.

First-look photos confirm Scarlett Johansson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sasha Calle, Diane Lane and Jacobi Jupe on Mike Flanagan's Exorcist reboot; the March 12, 2027 release is still on the board and cameras are rolling on location.

Backrooms crossed $100M domestic on a $10M budget, while Obsession cleared $100M on $750K; Peter Chernin is using the breakout to argue Hollywood should stop chasing creator-bandwagon deals and keep hunting fresh IP.

Kino Lorber lands U.S. rights to Black Zombie after its SXSW premiere; theatrical bows this fall before digital, educational, and home-video rollout. The doc traces zombie mythology from Haiti to Hollywood and counts Slash and Tom Savini among its voices.

Paramount's Scary Movie 6 is tracking to open at $51.5M domestically through June 7, a would-be franchise record above Scary Movie 3's $49.7M launch; Marlon and Shawn Wayans return with Michael Tiddes directing, while Miramax financed the sequel and the original cast is back in play.

Tribeca books the first full-length AI-generated feature; Dreams of Violets becomes a festival test case for synthetic filmmaking.

Robert the Doll is back in production as a rebooted feature from Shepka Productions, IMP Studios, and 4Digital Media. The cult killer-doll property is being reimagined for the indie horror market with a new franchise play.

In-production kaiju feature stacks Godzilla and Gamera alumni in the cast, signaling a franchise-heritage monster package for the giant-creature play.

Dave Annable and Jennifer Holland board Brine, a supernatural Civil War horror film about Confederate deserters who uncover something ancient in a Georgia marsh. B.J. Golnick directs from a script he co-wrote with producer Jeremy Miller; Jonah Wharton, Sissy Sheridan and Grayson Lay also star.

Apple TV is adapting Cape Fear into a new 10-hour psychological thriller miniseries.

Apple TV’s Pluribus is midway through breaking Season 2, with the writers targeting a shoot start by late this year or early next. The cast confirmed the hive-mind sci-fi drama is still actively being built out, not parked in turnaround.

Olivia Rose Keegan boards Scary Movie 6 alongside a wave of new cast additions; Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans return as the franchise reverts to the Wayans’ control.

A$20.4M in production and development funding backs 91 narrative projects, including a Cody Fern-directed Australian/Canadian co-production with Naomi Watts, Sarah Paulson and Dianne Wiest, plus crime thriller Fortitude Valley and the first short films under Screen Australia's new production program.

Prem Gill exits Creative BC June 26 after a decade; the agency says B.C.'s motion picture sector now generates roughly $3B in annual production volume and more than $7B in GDP, with an interim CEO to be named by month-end.

Netflix is locking in 88 made-for-TV movies this year and keeping theatrical largely off the table, with Dan Lin saying the service will only make cinema plays for select prestige titles like Greta Gerwig’s Narnia and David Fincher’s Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood sequel.

Capcom has set the Code: Veronica remake for 2027 and is reworking the 2000 survival-horror classic for new players; the reveal landed at Summer Game Fest with a first trailer. The project keeps the Resident Evil franchise hot as a transmedia IP with long-tail remake value.

Laura Lightbown steps in as interim CEO at Creative BC June 1 as Prem Gill exits June 26; the board is kicking off a national search while keeping B.C.'s film and TV tax-credit engine stable through the transition.

Haifaa Al Mansour’s Saudi thriller Unidentified lands at Tribeca 2026, keeping the project in front of festival buyers and genre programmers.

Focus’s $15M TIFF pickup of Obsession is looking like a steal: Curry Barker’s $750K horror debut has surged past $68M domestic and is tracking as one of the most profitable genre releases of the year. The Blumhouse-Atomic Monster/Universal play is posting a 39.4% second-weekend jump, with Gen Z audiences driving a box-office anomaly.

House of the Dragon season 3 is leaning into a massive Battle of the Gullet set piece, with 23 stunt performers ignited in one take and three million liters of water deployed across multiple tanks and ship builds. Ryan Condal says the show spent the budget to stage the sequence on-screen rather than narrate it.

Killer Shorts opens submissions for its annual horror writing competition, now adding a feature screenplay category. The program remains a pipeline for genre talent into managers, producers and executives.

Lionsgate opens John Carney’s Power Ballad on 1,200 screens after festival plays at SXSW, Dublin and St. Andrews, trying to build counterprogramming momentum in a crowded summer frame. The piece frames the film as a word-of-mouth play rather than a breakout genre title.

Sundance’s AI conversation is turning into an indie-financing story, with Ghost in the Machine built almost entirely on grants and private money after traditional backers balked at the tech-critical pitch. The piece also spotlights how big-tech cooperation is shaping AI docs and the wider Hollywood pipeline.

Henry Cavill boards McG’s untitled Netflix spy-comedy opposite Kevin Hart; the mismatched-fathers road pic adds another star-driven comedy play to the streamer’s slate.

Paramount+ surprise-drops all ten episodes of Among Us after the Summer Game Fest rollout, turning the reveal into an immediate binge window. CBS Studios and Innersloth are using the hit game’s brand power to launch a streaming-first animated series with a stacked voice cast.

Partner with Australia (UK) sends a London delegation June 16-18 with BFI, Film London and Pact to court co-development and co-production partners; up to 20 production companies and 10 writer-creators can tap A$10,000 travel grants.

Found-footage horror No Witnesses is headed into production in July, with Berkeley Slightom leading the cast and Joshua Brucker back behind the camera for Horror Dadz Productions. Gray Sky Pictures and Echo Cell Productions are co-producing the indie feature.

Kane Parsons is circling a Portal adaptation after Backrooms' breakout; Valve's long-gestating J.J. Abrams movie remains in development limbo. The filmmaker says a few childhood-era IP targets are already moving.