Netflix & Toronto International Film Festival

Lightstorm Vision has acquired AI-driven 3D post shop Outsyders, adding an end-to-end conversion and native 3D pipeline to James Cameron’s tech stack. The buy follows Lightstorm’s earlier Stereotec acquisition and targets library-content and VR monetization.

The Coven boards French cannibal horror Sunnyside; principal photography is underway in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, with ESC Films set for French theatrical and The Coven handling worldwide sales.

True-crime remains the doc market’s hottest lane even as commissions slide under 2,000 in H1 2026 globally; Europe logged 651 series orders and streamers kept crime at 35% of doc buys.

$125 billion in added production spend and 143,500 jobs are the upside if a federal filming incentive lands; the MPA-backed study says the U.S. share of global film spend could nearly double by 2030. The model centers on a 20% transferable tax credit with uplifts and a $1 million minimum spend threshold.

Wendy N. Wagner steps down from Nightmare Magazine and Lightspeed to focus on her own writing; John Joseph Adams retakes Nightmare in January 2027. Del Rey, Tor, Saga Press, Blackstone, Harper Canada and others close multiple fantasy, horror, thriller and dark-SF book deals.

Brooklyn Horror’s 2026 lineup leans into vampires, body horror and siege horror across opening, centerpiece and closing-night slots; badges are on sale as the fest runs Oct. 15-22 at Nitehawk Cinema Williamsburg. MUBI and Arrow Video are among the presenting banners, keeping distribution and platform brands plugged into the genre pipeline.

Screen Gems has locked distribution on Obey as KJ Apa and Nadia Parkes board the horror feature; Sophie Kargman directs from Ryan Farhoudi’s script for Waypoint Entertainment and Spooky Pictures.

Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Atomic Monster are closing a TIFF-level sale on Joshua Giuliano’s slasher River; the pact could top $10 million and ranks among the festival’s biggest horror deals.

Completed production and rolled its first trailer at GenreBlast; Jeff Frumess' black-and-white horror-comedy pairs Michael St. Michael with a resurrected rabbit monster and leans into cult-homage splatter.

Sean S. Cunningham boards Jeremy Weiss’ The Night Driver as producer; the road-stalker thriller shot in New Mexico and wrapped in September 2025, with Screamfest giving it the 2026 opener slot. No distributor is attached yet, keeping the film in completed-seeking-distribution mode.

Ireland-Australia co-production gets a Sept. 18 world premiere at Fantastic Fest; Screen Ireland, Screen Queensland, Coimisiún na Meán, Parc Entertainment Capital and Chop Shop Post back Fergal Costello’s supernatural feature.

Netflix and BIFF return Creative Asia to Busan with first-time writer workshops, buyer-focused greenlight sessions, and an AI-in-filmmaking panel featuring Weta FX, Netflix APAC production leadership and MPA partners.

Distributors and E&O underwriters now want provenance proof on every asset; AI-assisted scenes, voice clones and source data are moving into standard delivery vetting.

Nelonen and Warner Bros International Television Production Finland are launching The Dark Side, a 10-part true-crime series built around fully generative AI dramatisations; the project is being sold as one of the first professionally produced TV programs to lean entirely on gen-AI scenes.

Netflix has commissioned The New Stanford Prison Experiment, a six-episode unscripted series built around a modern recreation of the infamous 1971 study. The format runs six 45-minute episodes and centers 30 participants split into guards and prisoners inside a real prison set-up.

Piece of Magic is forecasting up to 20% year-over-year growth after logging almost $46.2 million in 2025 box office; the distributor is widening beyond event cinema with creator-led titles and Japanese genre fare. Toho’s Godzilla Minus Zero bows in 46 markets in November, while the firm’s multi-year National Theatre deal cements it across much of Europe.

Lebanese supernatural thriller In This Darkness I See You is the sole Arab film selected for Beyond Fest in the United States.

Prime Video is launching the first five-service US streaming bundle at US$29.99 a month, packaging AMC+, BritBox, MGM+, PBS Masterpiece and Starz into one add-on. Amazon is using aggregation to deepen its channels strategy as rivals chase the same model.

Paolo Strippoli’s latest horror feature, ‘The Spiral,’ bows as a Faustian family thriller led by Jasmine Trinca and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi; the Venice competition title earned a 9-minute ovation and is crossing over to TIFF Midnight Madness buzz.

About 30 seconds of generative AI made the cut in Ink as a VFX-budget workaround; Danny Boyle’s TIFF Q&A ended after the crowd pressed him on the film’s AI use.

AE’s I Survived a Serial Killer lands at Netflix, giving the true-crime docuseries a much larger SVOD runway. The move pushes the serial-killer survival format into Netflix’s true-crime lane.

Flanagan is writing The Mist now for Warner Bros.; no cast is set yet, but the Stephen King adaptation remains active with Red Room Pictures and Spyglass producing.

BOOM! Studios adds two new Hellraiser comic series to its Clive Barker franchise push; the publishing rollout extends the property beyond the earlier reprint and one-shot plan.

Netflix sets a Dec. 10 premiere for The Murder Of JonBenét Ramsey, with Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen leading the limited series and Emily Mitchell playing JonBenét. Garrett Hedlund, Alison Pill, Shea Whigham, Owen Teague and Margo Martindale round out the cast.

Black Sheeps bows at Sitges before a Nov. 12 New Zealand theatrical release; Jonathan King reunites with Wētā Workshop on the sequel while WTFilms keeps selling U.S. rights.

Wrapped in British Columbia, Vested centers on a full-moon curse in a decaying mountain town; Nick Nolte and Milo Gibson lead the indie horror from Michael Bafaro, with IndustryWorks Studios and Price Productions on EP duty.

Lionsgate’s feature-length Ghosts follow-up cuts a first trailer; the BBC sitcom’s finale drew 7.2 million viewers, with the core creators back on camera.

Bleiberg Entertainment backs Gregg Bishop’s Halloween-set home-invasion horror The Heretiks, a Be Afraid launch title heading to Fantastic Fest’s Horror Competition after financing and production wrapped.

I Have Proof premieres at Fantastic Fest; James Cullen Bressack’s VHS-soaked found-footage horror leans killer-POV and psychological dread ahead of the festival launch.