ScreamWire Daily

Curry Barker will write, direct and produce his third feature, an original idea set up with Blumhouse Atomic Monster and Universal Film Group alongside Roy Lee and Steven Schneider’s Spooky Pictures and Divide/Conquer; Barker’s second film Anything but Ghosts is currently in post for Blumhouse/Focus.

Universal and Amblin tap Scott Beck and Bryan Woods to direct a top-secret sci-fi feature with Steven Spielberg producing. The A Quiet Place duo land another high-concept studio assignment.

Peacock gives Dungeon Crawler Carl a straight-to-series order, adapting Matt Dinniman’s sci-fi LitRPG books with Chris Yost writing and Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door producing. The streamer is betting on a monster-filled apocalypse series after keeping the project in development and following up another pickup this month.

Neon sets Alex Ullom’s feature debut It Ends for theaters Aug. 21, keeping the Gen Z road horror on the big screen this summer.

Glenn Danzig will direct Hellmask, adapting his Verotik comic set in a brutal medieval world of dark magic, armored warriors and bloody battle scenes; James Cullen Bressack is producing, with casting underway and a planned August start.

Terror Films Releasing and Small Town Monsters are rolling 20 folklore docs onto digital platforms in a July-long Bigfoot slate; the first five titles are going wide on Vudu, Amazon and Tubi for the first time.

Brian Duffield is linked to a new Alien feature at 20th Century Studios; his Whalefall adaptation lands in October, with directorial duties not yet locked.

Atlas Distribution sets a July 10, 2026 theatrical launch for supernatural horror thriller The Town That Takes after dropping the first trailer; Britt Bankhead leads the indie genre release.

Netflix lands a multi-year overall TV pact with Proximity Media after the company’s Disney agreement expired; the deal keeps Ryan Coogler’s television arm aligned with Netflix as its next slate moves into development.

Domestic box office is back above $4.2B year-to-date, but execs at Deadline x Regal’s Future of Storytelling panel are taking a wait-and-see stance on the Paramount-WBD merger as consolidation looms. Panelists said Gen Z and Gen Alpha are returning through campaign pivots, meme marketing and premium-format screens.

Dentsu is rolling Fandom Intelligence out of Japan and into the U.S., U.K., India and Greater China, pitching brand partners on a dataset that says top IP converts fans into buyers 30% above the entertainment average. The platform now tracks 400+ IPs and 100-plus brand collaborations a year from its Tokyo hub.

Molly Windsor has signed with Anonymous Content off the back of Unchosen, the Netflix psychological-thriller limited series that opened at No. 1 globally and logged 10.4 million first-week views.

NIFFF is lining up 129 films from 33 countries, with Hanna Bergholm’s Nightborn opening the 25th edition. The 14-film international competition leans into a folk-horror resurgence, with 11 world or international premieres on deck.

O.T. Fagbenle boards Bertie Ellwood’s mystery thriller Eleven Missing Days as Agatha Christie’s publisher Allen Lane; filming is already underway in the UK with Vincent Cassel and Felicity Jones set. The film pivots on Christie’s real-life disappearance, positioning it as a true-crime-leaning thriller.

Pearl River Film, Black Body Interactive and Meng Guo Ji Media have launched a Guo Ni studio built around eight YA and sci-fi franchise adaptations, with Baidu AI Cloud in as production-tech partner. Dreamship leads the slate; Angel Street No. 23 is already in preliminary live-action series talks.

Vietnam’s Cinema Department is tightening content rules as horror saturates the local box office; imported genre titles may need cuts or face distribution barriers, while Ma Xó leads with nearly 135 billion VND.

Season 2 has started filming in Toronto; Netflix adds Saweetie to the cast as the manga-based thriller returns with Simon Barry back in the driver’s seat after season 1 topped 10 million views.

Sony’s Klara and the Sun rolls out first-look art ahead of its Oct. 23 theatrical release; Taika Waititi says the Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation began principal photography in New Zealand in early 2024 and was pushed into a deliberately stripped-back dystopian sci-fi mode.

Scatena Rosner Films sets a July 14 North American VOD and digital rollout for Nick Leisure’s holiday horror thriller New Year’s Absolution, positioning it as Christmas-in-July counterprogramming.

Ari Aster has three features queued up and plans to shoot his next film in November. The update keeps one of horror’s most closely watched filmmakers on a firm production timetable.

Pat Tremblay is using an AI-built proof-of-concept trailer to shop They Lurk Beneath Eyelids as a possible feature or web series, turning a supernatural horror script into a testbed for larger financing.

Werwulf is already in production in the UK and headed for a December 25, 2026 release; Focus Features says Robert Eggers' werewolf film aims for scares and an intimate portrait of the curse, with Ralph Ineson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp and Willem Dafoe aboard.

Chernin Entertainment boards Palm Grove, an original erotic thriller with Ana de Armas, Kate Hudson and Kornél Mundruczó attached. James Morosini wrote the script and the package is out to buyers.

Prime Video adds Emily Mortimer, Manny Jacinto and Thomasin McKenzie to Fallout Season 3 as production kicks off in Los Angeles this month.

Jeff Daniels boards Brendan Fraser’s cosmic sci-fi thriller Starman, adding another name to the stranded-in-space package.