Horror Industry News — Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Lionsgate taps David F. Sandberg to direct psychological horror pic Mommy’s Home from James Morosini; Anonymous Content, Craig Flores, Dawn Olmstead and Sandberg’s Mångata are producing, with Nathan Kahane on EP duties.

Paramount has locked Wes Craven’s original Nightmare on Elm Street screenplay and launched new genre banner Paramount Primal; Jane Schoenbrun is pushing for a meeting to direct the reboot. J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules are producing as the Craven estate licenses the rights through Iya Labunka and Jonathan Craven.

HBO Max renews Welcome to Derry for season 2 after a breakout first season; the new chapter shifts to 1935 and keeps expanding Stephen King’s IT universe. Brad Caleb Kane stays on as sole showrunner while Andy and Barbara Muschietti, Roy Lee and Dan Lin remain EPs.

Higgsfield AI opens up the prompts behind its Cannes-launching AI feature ‘Hell Grind’ through a free Academy to funnel creators into Cinema Studio; the company says it’s already at a $500 million annual run rate and has 26 million users worldwide.

Judge sides with MGM on Return of the Living Dead chain of title; the ruling undercuts Living Dead Media’s franchise claim and tightens control over a key horror IP.

Legendary’s Faces of Death redux turns the 1978 shock-doc into a narrative feature with Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery and Charli xcx. Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei frame it as a commentary on viral violence rather than a straight remake.

Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma has surpassed $1 million nationwide after opening August 7 in five theaters and expanding to 54 in its second weekend; Mubi plans a broader rollout.

Netflix picks up Sam Raimi’s WWII-set thriller, adding a horror-leaning genre play from one of the market’s most bankable genre auteurs to its pipeline.

Netflix adds all 10 episodes of Syfy's supernatural horror series Revival on Aug. 24, giving the unrenewed Image Comics adaptation a broader platform and a possible renewal bump.

$40 rush and digital lottery seats go on sale for the Broadway run; previews begin Aug. 14 and the 20-week limited engagement opens Aug. 25 at the August Wilson Theatre. Jason Blum, Paramount Pictures and a theater producer stack back the stage adaptation, which is a new story set inside the Paranormal Activity universe.

Searchlight shifts suspense horror Monitor up to April 16, 2027; Disney also locks Ryan Gosling's Ghost Rider for July 28, 2028 and maps out 2028-29 tentpoles across Marvel, Pixar, and Disney Animation.

Ron Perlman returns to Glass Eye Pix’s Tales from Beyond the Pale, extending the indie horror audio anthology’s run. The booking keeps Perlman tied to one of the genre banner’s signature projects.

Cineverse locks domestic rights to Eugene the Marine for a late-year U.S. release; Scott Glenn, Jim Gaffigan, Annette O'Toole and Shioli Kutsuna star in the giallo-leaning serial-killer thriller.

Mia-kate Russell’s Ozploitation horror debut Penny Lane Is Dead lands on Shudder Aug. 28, extending the streamer’s genre slate with an ’80s throwback.

Ash Williams is done; Bruce Campbell confirms he will not return in live action or voice form, and the planned animated Ash spinoff is dead in the water.

David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly stars Jeff Goldblum as scientist Seth Brundle and Geena Davis as reporter Veronica Quaife; the film reworks the 1958 Vincent Price original into a deeper body-horror drama.

Whitney Peak boards Universal’s Miami Vice reboot alongside Michael B. Jordan, Austin Butler and Alden Ehrenreich; Joseph Kosinski is eyeing a November start with an IMAX shoot in New York and Miami. Universal has the film dated for May 19, 2028.

Worldwide pre-buys stack up for All3Media International’s six-part thriller Maya; ARD Degeto, Movistar Plus, Canal+, TV2, TV4, NPO, Foxtel, Sky and others board the Channel 4/Starz series ahead of launch.

Principal photography has wrapped on Igor Breakenback’s eight-episode vertical series Love Mace, with post now being funded by a live Kickstarter targeting $49,000 for VFX, sound and music. Breakenback Films and Frankendipity’s True Take are positioning it as the launchpad for a wider franchise.

John Carpenter says he would return for Miramax’s developing 50th-anniversary Halloween project, though he has not been approached; the franchise’s next feature is rumored to be a Miramax-Paramount collaboration, with details unconfirmed.

Universal Kids Digital Studio launched Universal Monster Tots, a short-form animated series reimagining the Universal Classic Monsters as toddlers; its first two episodes are streaming on YouTube, teaching values including sharing and caring.

Maya Annik Bedward’s Black Zombie opens theatrically Sept. 11 in New York and Los Angeles, giving the Haitian zombie-origin doc a limited big-city rollout.

20th Century Studios helped set Chris Carter’s director’s cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe on Hulu and Disney+ outside the U.S.; Carter says he’s also finished Vancouver-shot horror film Queens For a Day and is shopping theatrical distribution.

Zach Cregger’s Weapons grossed roughly $270 million worldwide on a $38 million budget; the Barbarian director’s next film, Resident Evil, is set for September 18, as he aims to refresh the 30-year-old franchise.

Linda Cardellini, who saw Freddy vs. Jason in a packed Universal CityWalk theater in 2003, plays Pamela Voorhees in Peacock/A24’s Crystal Lake, describing practical gore and “blood everywhere”; all eight episodes debut October 15, 2026.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma casts Jane Schoenbrun’s next feature as a bloody, queer slasher about a filmmaker resurrecting a dormant franchise. Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson front the meta-horror setup.

Roadside Attractions and Saban Films lock CRAWLERS for an Oct. 16, 2026 theatrical bow; the red-band trailer confirms Ángel Gómez Hernández's spider-infestation horror pic for Halloween corridor play.

Bhargav Saikia’s folk-horror Bokshi is set for an Oct. 9 India theatrical release after a festival run that hit Rotterdam, Sitges, Neuchâtel and SXSW Sydney; Sethumadhavan Napan is handling Indian distribution.

Dark Horse is bringing Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden and Bridgit Connell’s occult series back this December with Lady Baltimore: The Constant Death of Dr. Rose. The new chapter extends the publisher’s horror IP pipeline without a studio deal attached.