ScreamWire Daily

Blumhouse Atomic Monster and Platinum Dunes have locked Paul Feig to direct horror-thriller Detention from Daniel Gold’s spec; Universal is positioned as the likely first crack on the package. Feig and Laura Fischer produce via Pretty Dangerous, with Michael Bay, Jason Blum and Brad Fuller among the producers.

63-day theatrical-to-Peacock window on Curry Barker's Obsession; Focus Features pre-bought the TIFF Midnight title for $15M+ and the Blumhouse/Capstone-financed microbudget has surged to $249.5M domestic and roughly $400M global. Peacock gets the horror breakout July 17 as Focus eyes awards-season upside.

Paramount Animation has set Dan Trachtenberg's untitled Freddy the 13th animated horror-comedy for Oct. 13, 2028; the PG family horror feature adapts Yehudi Mercado's indie comic and pairs Trachtenberg with co-director Mercado. The release-date lock lands four months after Trachtenberg's three-year first-look producing/directing pact with Paramount Pictures.

Backrooms is now over $350M worldwide on a $10M budget, and A24 has locked a July 14 digital release while keeping a theatrical lane alive with the 15-minute bonus-footage edition now in play.

Curry Barker’s Obsession has crossed $405 million worldwide on a $750,000 budget, making it the highest-grossing sub-$1M film on record and vaulting Focus Features into a new low-budget benchmark. The horror hit has now lapped Enter the Dragon’s long-standing mark after eight weeks in theaters.

Scary Movie has passed $224.5 million worldwide, pushing the franchise past $1 billion in theaters. The new installment lands on Blu-ray in September as the theatrical-to-home-video window continues to monetize the run.

Evil Dead Wrath is already in post-production and due in 2028, signaling the franchise is being mapped as a multi-picture pipeline rather than a one-off revival. The piece also frames the series’ continuity strategy around the Necronomicon and Bruce Campbell-era canon.

Nikias Chryssos’ first English-language feature Bloody Tennis is heading to Locarno with Helena Zengel and Sandra Guldberg Kampp in the cast. The German horror feature adds an international package to Chryssos’ move into English-language production.

CAA presses Meta to flip Muse's default from opt-out to opt-in for public-profile data, arguing creators need explicit consent before AI tools can use their likeness or work. The agency is widening its AI-rights push after testing YouTube's deepfake detection and opting clients out of OpenAI's Sora.

Popcorn Frights books Mitch McLeod's Marrow for a world premiere on Aug. 15; the 12th annual fest runs Aug. 6-16 and rolls out 14 feature premieres in its first wave.

BIFAN’s 30th edition hands Best of Bucheon to Leviticus, with Curry Barker’s Obsession, Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, and Paul Urkijo Alijo’s The Night (Gaua) among the other big feature winners. Distribution prizes went to Company Sports Day, Smile Charles, Savon, and Psyche, reinforcing Bucheon’s role as a launchpad for genre sales and festival heat.

Folk-horror Banshee bows at Galway as feature-film talks begin, turning the festival premiere into a possible expansion path for the Derry-Donegal title. The project moves from local genre buzz toward a bigger feature play off the festival launch.

Neuchatel’s penultimate-day lineup leans hard into genre; Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s medieval thriller The Samurai and the Prisoner, Joko Anwar’s supernatural prison comedy Ghost in the Cell, Alex Goyette’s Breeder and Basque folk horror Gaua anchor the day.

Jodie Whittaker boards Ella Grace Kennedy's dystopian thriller short The Country as star and EP; the role-reversal commune story centers on male bodily autonomy under an extremist religious regime. Anna Popplewell and Jake Kenny-Byrne join the cast while Kennedy is developing horror feature Home at Anton.

Toho dropped a new trailer for Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, which opens in theaters Nov. 6 via GKids, including Imax; it’s the first Japanese film shot for Imax and is set in 1949, two years after Godzilla Minus One. Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe return, with Min Tanaka joining as biologist Kanji Murakami; Hidetaka Yoshioka, Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Sakura Ando and Miou Tanaka also reprise roles.

Iron Lung opened to roughly $17 million domestic on a sub-$3 million self-financed budget, turning Markiplier’s fanbase into a theatrical distribution engine. The game adaptation rolled out on about 2,500 screens without a traditional studio marketing push.

Digital rental and purchase lands Aug. 11 via WG Pictures and Radial Entertainment after a March theatrical rollout; Oscar Boyson’s directorial debut opened to a $33,138 per-theater average on one screen before expanding nationwide, after a Tribeca premiere that drew Audience Award runner-up status.

Gina Prince-Bythewood and Thuso Mbedu will open the 24th Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival on Aug. 7 with exclusive footage from Paramount’s Children of Blood and Bone, followed by a Color of Conversation panel. The Tomi Adeyemi adaptation is set for a nationwide theatrical and IMAX release Jan. 15, 2027.

125 features and 200+ shorts fill Fantasia's 30th edition in Montreal July 16-Aug. 2; Nicolas Winding Refn lands the Cheval Noir career award, Takashi Shimizu gets the other, with Her Private Hell opening and Freaks Part II closing.

Maya Da Costa joins Chase Yi and Sonia Mena in Paramount and Blumhouse Atomic Monster's next Paranormal Activity; Ian Tuason directs the May 21, 2027 release, with Oren Peli, James Wan and Jason Blum producing.

Chase Yi lands the lead in Paramount and Blumhouse Atomic Monster's next Paranormal Activity; Ian Tuason directs and Paramount keeps worldwide release rights for the May 21, 2027 launch.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy hits HBO Max globally on July 3 after a theatrical run that brought in about $90.4 million on a $22 million budget; Warner Bros. keeps the R-rated folk-horror title in window with James Wan, Jason Blum and John Keville producing.

Abnormal Studios has grabbed Malaysia and Brunei theatrical rights to Mimpi Kita: Castle in the Air and will sell the sci-fi-fantasy feature internationally ahead of its Busan ACFM launch; Kotodama Lab's audience-engagement tech is being folded into the rollout.

First wuxia feature made with virtual production lands in Locarno’s main competition; Nelson Yeo’s The House On The Moon world-premieres with Momo Film Co, Aview Images and co-pro support from Germany, Canada and Indonesia.

FX’s Alien: Earth has begun season 2 production in London and added Tracey Ullman, Sam Spruell and Jerome Flynn to the cast; they join returning stars Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant and new addition Peter Dinklage.

Horror, Inc. is expanding Jason Voorhees across film, TV, gaming and merch with the 13-minute “Sweet Revenge,” Peacock’s October “Crystal Lake” series starring Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, and last month’s “Dead by Daylight” crossover. Barsamian says 2026 projects are just “the tip of the iceberg.

Unearthed Films releases a Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Bullet Man on July 14, 2026, priced at $39.95. The 71-minute disc includes a Bossick/Tom Mes commentary, the Multi Material Version, gallery, trailers, and 5.1 DTS-HD MA in English and Japanese.

Hulu has released the trailer for Season 2 of A Shop for Killers, which returns July 22 with a two-episode premiere on Disney+ and Hulu. Lee Dongwook and Kim Hyejun reprise their roles, with Hyunri and Masaki Okada joining as new Japanese stars.

Netflix dates The Last House for Aug. 7; Greta Lee and Wagner Moura star in Louis Leterrier’s sci-fi horror survival thriller, shot on 35mm with practical effects.

Disney Entertainment Television is bringing SDCC activations starting Thursday, July 23, for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, FX’s 13th American Horror Story, and Hulu’s Animayhem, with Futurama and King of the Hill environments and specialty cold brews. Panels include Percy Jackson, King of the Hill, Bob’s Burgers, Futurama, American Dad!, Family Guy and The Rookie.