Netflix, Kickstarter & Luke Sparke

Sony locked worldwide rights to Skeletons at the European Film Market; the Phillip Fracassi short-story adaptation now counts John Goodman, Brie Larson, Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald among its cast.

Focus Features sets David Lowery to direct The Fisherman, adapting John Langan’s Bram Stoker Award-winning horror novel. The move puts another prestige horror literary IP into active feature development.

20th Century Studios lands Nue, an original sci-fi feature from Takashi Yamazaki, with Ridley Scott’s Scott Free producing. The package keeps the project in development with Yamazaki, Scott, and Michael Pruss attached and plot details sealed.

Lionsgate retitles Titan to Beware Boiúna and sets the R-rated survival horror pic for theaters Oct. 2, 2026; Mike P. Nelson directs the Brazil-set creature feature starring Kiana Madeira and Jessica Rothe, with Constantin Film and JB Pictures producing.

Well Go USA has North American rights to Joko Anwar’s haunted-prison horror Ghost in the Cell; the film premiered at Berlin and already sold into 86 territories, with a U.S. release still pending.

Maboroshi Artworks opens a closed playtest for SOMBRAS: negative frames ahead of its later-2026 release, using player feedback to fine-tune the psychological horror title. The first-person narrative adventure is now in adjustment mode before launch.

Midsummer Scream expands its Hall of Shadows for 2026 with a bigger haunt lineup and a Scream anniversary weekend in Long Beach.

MOTELX’s 20th edition rolls out its first four titles, including TIFF-premiered Fuck My Son!, Geoff Barrow’s Game, Yusuke Iwasaki’s JHorror, and Marion Le Corroller’s French body-horror debut Species (Sanguine). The Lisbon horror fest is signaling another year of heavy genre programming, with trailers already live and more titles to follow.

BIFAN’s NAFF Project Market closes with 32 genre projects from 29 countries and 676 business meetings, then hands out cash, post-production, and in-kind support to a slate led by AGAPE, Strange Root, Whistler, My Missing Half, Dawn Chorus, and SLAUGHTERGROUND. Sitges FanPitch, Ventana Sur Fantastic!, and TCCF awards extend the market’s international reach as the selected projects move toward financing and production.

David Chase has Project: MKUltra in development at HBO under his Riverain Pictures first-look; he has optioned John Lisle’s book and is writing the adaptation as both a limited series and a feature, with the film still seeking a distributor.

A strong slate of franchise releases, creator-driven horror hits, and unusually durable holdovers helped North American theaters reach $1.07 billion in June, signaling a major rebound for the summer box office.

Netflix Brazil sets July 22 for Elize: Shadows of a Woman, a scripted true-crime feature about the Elize Matsunaga case starring Lorena Comparato. Raphael Montes and Mariana Torres wrote the screenplay; Felipe Vellas directs for Boutique Filmes.

Aura Entertainment puts Black Box on VOD today; the supernatural-flight thriller leans into inhuman terror as the launch clip tees up the digital drop.

Jon Erwin leans into AI through his Innovative Dreams company, framing the tech as a jobs-preserving collaboration tool as he mounts House of David and a new Moses series. The interview positions AI adoption as a workflow issue, not a creative threat.

Lee Amir-Cohen’s contemporary S. Ansky adaptation has wrapped in Los Angeles; Steve Guttenberg, Beth Grant and Craig Bierko star alongside writer-producer Ashley Bua.

Running for a limited time from July 9 through August 30, 2026, this hyper-immersive Resident Evil takeover is completely included with General Admission tickets. The experience drops guests directly into the center of a biological disaster. It forces them to navigate six heavily themed, story-driven zones in a desperate bid to contain the T-Virus outbreak.

So Ji-sub’s webtoon-based revenge thriller ‘Agent Kim Reactivated’ hits No. 1 on Netflix’s weekly non-English chart with 10.5 million views, leading in 11 countries and reaching the top 10 in 68. The chart pop keeps Korean genre series central to Netflix’s international performance story.

Luke Sparke has mapped multiple ‘Primitive War’ sequel scripts and says the franchise can branch beyond a straight trilogy; the first film was made for under $10M, keeping the sequel plan flexible. The next chapter is being developed alongside ‘Dinosaurs of the Wild West.’

A $350,000 Kickstarter is being used to fund the first two episodes of ‘Dinosaurs of the Wild West’; Luke Sparke already has season one and follow-on seasons mapped, with a full pitch bible built around a dinosaur western universe. The campaign is designed to bypass the traditional network and streamer pitch cycle.

2026 FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards Best Director nominees are in, putting the horror awards race in motion ahead of the ceremony.

Universal pulls Soulm8te from the theatrical calendar and lines up an August 1 straight-to-digital release via Universal Pictures Home Entertainment; Kate Dolan’s erotic AI-thriller keeps the M3GAN franchise in play with James Wan and Jason Blum producing.

Dread has released a new trailer for Tory Jones’ 90s-set slasher The Boy From Below. The film follows Halloween revelers hunted by a masked killer from the town’s dark past, leaving a horror-savvy video clerk as their best shot at survival.