Horror Industry News — Saturday, July 4, 2026

Paramount and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster lock a May 21, 2027 theatrical relaunch for Paranormal Activity, with Ian Tuason directing and Sonia Mena and Chase Yi leading the cast. James Wan boards the franchise for the first time as producer alongside Oren Peli and Jason Blum, reviving a series that has grossed more than $900 million worldwide.

OTX.LAB is positioning Apocalypse Tape 1990 as the first 95-minute horror feature generated entirely through AI. Paolo Del Fiol writes and directs the extreme-splatter project, with OTX.LAB framing AI as a parallel pipeline for transgressive genre filmmaking.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale are set to star in Michael Mann’s Heat 2, with cameras targeted for November and Amazon MGM Studios backing the sequel after Warner Bros. passed on the $200 million version. The production is now closer to $170 million and is pulling nearly $40 million from the California tax incentive.

Paramount is still circling Warner Bros. Discovery as Comcast weighs a NBCUniversal breakup; the same roundup flags A24’s AI pact with Google DeepMind and AMC’s premium-adults strategy around Walking Dead. The issue also folds in microdrama production, Academy shakeup fallout, and broader Hollywood M&A chatter.

Hulu lines up a July 8 launch for ABC News Studios’ follow-up to its Emmy-nominated Fox Hollow docuseries; the original was Hulu’s most-watched docuseries of 2025 by hours streamed.

$21M to $30M opening range for Warner Bros.' Evil Dead Burn; Disney's live-action Moana is tracking $70M to $89M, with the horror sequel positioned to match or beat Evil Dead Rise if it hits the high end.

Neon picks up Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial after Amazon MGM’s exit, with the package said to cost more than $20M against a $50M budget. The film reportedly ran into reshoots and overages before Neon stepped in on a discounted acquisition.

Netflix locks a July 29 window on Sony Pictures' A Private Life, extending the French thriller into an 18-month SVOD stint after Cannes, TIFF and Deauville play. Jodie Foster fronts Rebecca Zlotowski's whodunit as the platform keeps mining prestige festival genre fare.

Fantasia lands a 4K restoration of Season’s Greetings, the 1996 short that introduced Sam before Trick ’r Treat; Michael Dougherty is teasing more Halloween-season screenings and events. Warner Bros.-era legacy title gets a fresh festival run as spooky-season programming starts to line up.

BIFAN’s 30th anniversary underscores NAFF as the festival’s key genre incubator; the program has helped complete 110-plus films while the festival weighs streaming and AI pressure on cinema.

Vesperia Films’ debut feature Tight Lettuce gets a Fantasia world premiere and a Quebec theatrical rollout later this summer through Vital Distribution. Dakota Daulby stars opposite Emmanuel Bilodeau in the addiction-centered dark comedy.

David Pérez Sañudo boards the Spanish crime-thriller series Iruña 97, an original from Natxo López set against Navarre’s San Fermín festivities. Clara Galle and Álvaro Cervantes star.

Casting grid pins the Daniels' Universal sci-fi tentpole to the working title Thasnagar; Matt Damon, Sandra Oh, Charles Melton, Michael Gandolfini and four young leads are aboard for a Nov. 19, 2027 theatrical launch.

Salamander Pictures and Nippon Animation’s original short 20001: An Earth Odyssey lands in Fantasia’s Anime No Bento 2026 lineup for a July 18 world premiere. Taiki Sakurai is set for an on-site poster signing after the screening.

Anime Expo is teeing up Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 with its main English voice cast ahead of Thursday's premiere, extending the cyberpunk anime franchise into a second season.

Feb. 4, 2028 is the new target for the Murder, She Wrote reboot, down from Dec. 22, 2027; Jason Moore says Jamie Lee Curtis is built for Jessica Fletcher.

HBO Max sets a July 10 streaming bow for The Long Walk after Lionsgate’s theatrical run; the Stephen King adaptation grossed about $62.9 million worldwide on a reported $20 million budget.

Crunchyroll and Aniplex have the theatrical anime film "Solo Leveling: Beyond the System" in production at A-1 Pictures. The feature extends the hit web novel and webtoon IP from Season 2, with a Season 3 release still targeted for late 2026.

Season 2 of Netflix’s Black Doves adds Ambika Mod, Babou Ceesay, Sam Riley, Neve Campbell, Sylvia Hoeks, Goran Kostic and Samuel Barnett; Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire return, with the spy thriller due back in 2026.

Blast hit Netflix’s top 10 in 20+ countries after a short theatrical run; the Tamil action thriller shot Aug. 2025-Feb. 2026 and is showing durable global streaming pull.

Celiana Cárdenas breaks down the lens and aspect-ratio changes used to stage the Bowden family’s acid-trip sequence, signaling a craft-heavy push on the thriller’s visual language.

Michael Dinner says Season 3 leans into paranoia and political-conspiracy thriller DNA, with Apple TV’s dystopian sci-fi series drawing on Sydney Pollack and Francis Ford Coppola as tonal references.