Wednesday, August 5, 2026

$5.5 million self-financed horror feature bankrolled via foreign pre-sales and Canadian tax credits; Roth is launching The Horror Section to keep budgets lean, own the IP, and roll out two to four theatrical horror titles a year on roughly 45-day windows. Ice Cream Man opens Aug. 7, with Stiletto next and a Snoop Dogg team-up heading into production.

Abnormal Studios has boarded worldwide sales on Malaysian cannibal comedy-horror Ali & Ben’s Spicy Meats and will launch it at Busan’s ACFM. The Feisal and Iskander Azizuddin feature pushes explicit horror-comedy into a rare local taboo lane, with Amir Nafis leading the cast.

Kevin J. O’Connor, Oded Fehr and Numan Acar board Radio Silence’s fourth The Mummy movie alongside returning franchise leads Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah. The sequel is targeted for Oct. 15, 2027 with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett directing from David Coggeshall’s script.

World premiere lands Sept. 26 at NYFF’s Spotlight Gala; Takashi Yamazaki returns with GKIDS’ Godzilla follow-up, extending the postwar kaiju franchise after Godzilla Minus One’s Oscar run.

Paramount+ greenlights Ascent, a character-driven thriller starring Viola Davis as a corporate fixer protecting billion-dollar clients while her estranged daughter is in danger. John Logan creates and showruns for Paramount Television Studios; production is slated to begin in Los Angeles in 2027.

Six weeks out, Sony’s Resident Evil reboot is pacing as the hottest title on The Quorum board at 51% awareness and 52% interest; the survey says Zach Cregger is the draw, with the film leading every competitor on the summer chart.

NZ On Air has put NZ$8m into four scripted projects, with Wellington Paranormal landing up to NZ$1.85m for season 5 and Ms X scoring up to NZ$3.75m for season 2. The money locks in another run for the Taika Waititi/Jemaine Clement supernatural comedy offshoot.

Full Moon takes Head of the Family 2: Sirens of Seduction to camera in Los Angeles on Aug. 25, reviving Myron Stackpool with practical FX from Tom Devlin’s 1313FX. The sequel leans into lurid supernatural body-horror and keeps Michael Citriniti back in the monster chair.

BFI and Warner Bros. Clockwork set the definitive 4K The Devils for UK and Ireland cinemas on Oct. 30, with a one-week U.S. engagement starting Oct. 16. The restoration first bowed at Cannes Classics and leads into a major Ken Russell retrospective in 2027.

Temple Hill is officially producing a CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD sequel, extending Adam Cesare’s slasher IP after the first film’s breakout. Frendo’s comeback gives the franchise an early second-life signal without any announced cast or financing terms.

Bendita Film Sales has picked up worldwide rights to Neto Villalobos’ dystopian thriller Love Is the Monster ahead of its TIFF Centrepiece premiere. The Costa Rica-led co-production enters the market with a broad festival-sales runway and Paulina Garcia in the lead.

Douglas Forrester’s supernatural Satanic Panic thriller Carry the Darkness hits Bloodstream on Aug. 14, then rolls out across additional platforms in September. The Horror Collective is behind the release push.

Netflix's three-part Idaho Murders doc opened with 18.2 million views in five days; Ransom Canyon season 2 logged 5.5 million as true crime kept driving the weekly TV and film charts.

Prime Video has Kill Jackie in multiple territories while AMC+ takes the U.S.; the eight-part revenge thriller stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and is based on Nick Harkaway’s novel The Price You Pay. Fremantle and Steel Springs Pictures produce, with Ron Perlman and a stacked ensemble aboard.

Warners puts Ken Russell’s long-unavailable cult title back into circulation with an extensive re-release, timed to play TIFF after nearly five decades in the wild.

Submissions close Aug. 9 for South African Horrorfest's 22nd annual edition; the continent's dedicated horror and genre event is expanding in hybrid form for 2026. The fest remains the key programming and discovery hub for South African genre fare.

God Bless You, Mr Kopu and Future Tense both land TIFF Centrepiece world premieres; the former traces to a 2022 MGM/Black List open script deal, while Future Tense extends Causeway Films' near-future genre lane.

Brittany Snow boards The Housemaid's Secret as Marybeth; Paul Feig returns to direct, with Sydney Sweeney, Michele Morrone and Kirsten Dunst already set for Lionsgate's 2027 sequel.

Image Comics revives Creepshow as a new anthology series this fall; the horror IP gets a fresh publishing run, with no screen deal attached.

Locarno’s Open Doors 2026 is leaning into African genre-driven development, with supernatural feature Life On the Other Side of the Sun and blood-money crime thriller Diya among the standouts. The program is also pushing new investment and co-production models as African producers look beyond scarce domestic financing.

Uncork’d Entertainment has dropped Louis Mandylor’s action-horror PARALYSIS onto digital and on-demand; the revenge thriller follows a nurse hunting the gang behind a family massacre using the drug that gave the film its title. Niko Foster and Sophia Louisa wrote the script.

Netflix is giving La Bola Negra a 47-day theatrical exclusive, its widest cinema window yet; the Cannes acquisition now opens Oct. 16 before a Dec. 2 streaming bow and adds Canadian rights to the streamer’s hold on the title.

Paramount+'s 6-part Fear Not centers Margy Palm, the final woman kidnapped by serial killer Stephen Morin in 1981; Anne Hathaway boards as the lead, with Julie Miller’s Vanity Fair feature as the source material and the adaptation framing the survivor over the killer.

A Quiet Place: Day One, Michael Sarnoski’s 2024 prequel, is surging up Netflix’s charts two years after its theatrical release. The film shifts the alien invasion to New York City after John Krasinski directed the first two entries.

Cult-manipulation horror centers on a five-year coma that drops Madison into a town rebuilt around a secret church; Robert Hollocks and Amy Rhinehart Bailey are already developing a Jonah/Athaliah prequel.

War Machine posts 139.9 million views in 91 days and 3.53 billion Nielsen minutes, vaulting Alan Ritchson's Netflix sci-fi thriller to No. 10 on the platform's all-time movie list and No. 2 across streaming for H1 2026.

Banjong Pisanthanakun’s Inherit premieres at TIFF’s Centrepiece as a Thai horror feature adapting Tayard Asoon for the first time; Barunson E&A is handling non-Asia sales while GDH559 covers Asia. Davika Hoorne leads the cast as the film pushes into the international market.

U.K. regulators barred London Underground and outdoor poster creative for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy after ruling the image could read as a dead child; Warner Bros.’ TV and Prime Video spots were cleared. The U.K. release grossed $2.9 million, underscoring the campaign’s reach even as the poster rollout is pulled.

Lionsgate’s Beware Boiúna teases a giant-snake survival horror set in Brazil, with Mike P. Nelson directing Jessica Rothe and Kiana Madeira from Tony Giglio and Alan B. McElroy’s script. The R-rated creature feature heads to theaters Oct. 2 with Constantin Film and JB Pictures producing.