Horror Industry News — Sunday, August 16, 2026

Tubi acquires all three seasons of Scream: The TV Series and flips them live immediately, giving the MTV/VH1 spinoff its first streaming home. The move puts a dormant horror franchise title back into circulation on a fast-growing AVOD platform.

Christine Vachon says The Wicker Man is the kind of low-cost pagan-horror package A24 and Neon would chase today; the panel frames classics as financeable when they can be cut lean and sold on shock value.

Brainstorm Media sets a Sept. 4, 2026 day-and-date rollout for Daniel Byers' creature feature, with select theaters and on-demand debuting simultaneously; a secret in-person premiere is also on the board.

Fede Alvarez is out for Alien: Romulus 2, sending 20th Century's sequel back into director-search mode before cameras roll. The Alien franchise stays active, but the follow-up loses its filmmaker attachment at a key development stage.

Ranveer Singh’s end-of-the-world thriller Pralay has rolled cameras in Mumbai; Jai Mehta directs for Birla Studios, True Story Films and Maa Kasam Films, with Kalyani Priyadarshan in a key role.

Netflix locks a worldwide Aug. 21 rollout for Facing El Chapo, a 91-minute Mexican true-crime thriller from Chava Cartas based on Héctor de Mauleón’s journalistic chronicles. Alfonso Herrera, Noé Hernández and Héctor Kotsifakis star as a routine traffic stop turns into a cartel survival trap.

$67M third weekend pushes Spider-Man: Brand New Day to $782.8M domestic; The Odyssey jumps past $504.4M as the frame logs the strongest post-COVID 33rd weekend.

Michael Johnston is in early talks for Universal’s Mummy sequel after Obsession’s breakout; Radio Silence is steering the 2027 sequel with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah back, while Focus paid $15M for the sleeper hit.

Peacock says All Her Fault is its most-watched original at 46 million hours in three weeks; Megan Gallagher says the Andrea Mara adaptation is already leading to another project and was retooled for Chicago and Melbourne.

Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King frame Lanterns as a grounded DCU play, with dark murders in Nebraska and early season-two chatter hanging over the Max launch.

Brett and Jason Butler's dark celebrity satire gets its world premiere at FrightFest 2026 in London, putting the project into the genre-festival pipeline ahead of any sales chatter.

Netflix gives Charlie Vs. The Chocolate Factory a 47-day theatrical window from Nov. 5 to Dec. 22, 2027 before streaming; the long run signals a more aggressive test of theatrical-first optics. Cast roll call expands with Nicola Coughlan, Charithra Chandran, Samson Kayo, Christopher Chung, Kate Winslet, and Helena Bonham Carter.

Locarno’s Leopards of Tomorrow gave Marco Cavazzin best director for lagoon-set short Mutrion; Etimo produced, Cattive Produzioni distributes, and the Veneto Film Commission backed the shoot.

AI is becoming a horror-production fault line as Eli Roth’s $5M Ice Cream Man lands under his new Horror Section banner; the piece frames the tool as a cost-saving temptation that could reshape indie genre filmmaking.

Disney Jr. renews Spidey and His Amazing Friends for Season 7 and teases Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 2 plus the Halloween Team-Up special; Este Haim and Patrick Stump voice new villains Hallows Eve and Jack O’Lantern.

Creed Bratton’s green-painted guest stint on Smiling Friends spilled straight into A24’s Primetime, where he shot a role in the Robert Pattinson crime thriller about Chris Hansen.

Disney announced two Avengers Campus rides, Stark Flight Lab and Avengers Infinity Defense, opening in 2028 with Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Mackie, Brie Larson, Iman Vellani, Jeremy Renner and Chris Hemsworth; Walt Disney World will add Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent with Harrison Ford modeled as an animatronic.

Shudder sets a premiere date and drops first-look assets on Goody Goody, a claustrophobic horror-thriller about a prolonged home birth gone wrong; streamer keeps the title in its genre lane.