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Monday, March 16, 2026

Chloé Zhao “not surprised” Hulu passed on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale

About seven years ago,  it was announced that a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was in development with Monica Owusu-Breen, co-creator of the TV show Midnight, Texas, writing, executive producing, and serving as showrunner. It was said that the new show would be “contemporary, building on the mythology of the original.” That project never made it into production – and last year, it was revealed that we were going to be getting a Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival instead, with Sarah Michelle Gellar returning to the role of Buffy Summers and Chloé Zhao (NomadlandEternals) directing the first episode. The new show was to be called Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale and the pilot episode was filmed months ago. 

The project was set up at the Hulu streaming service… and a couple of days ago, fans were shocked to see the news that Hulu had decided to pass on it. Moving ahead with a Buffy revival seemed like a no-brainer. But while speaking to Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh and CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister on the Oscars red carpet last night, Zhao said she was “not surprised” by Hulu’s decision.

Cast and Creative Team

Teenage actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong (Firestarter) was cast as a new slayer, an introverted high school student named Nova. Also in the pilot cast are Faly Rakotohavana (Unprisoned), Ava Jean (Law & Order: SVU), Sarah Bock (Severance), Daniel Di Tomasso (CSI: Vegas) and Jack Cutmore-Scott (Frasier), taking on the series regular roles of Hugo, a privileged, likable high-school student who is a geek; Larkin, another student described as a “chronic do-gooder”; Gracie, the ringleader for a group of church-going students; Abe, Nova’s single father who is a photojournalist; and Mr. Burke, a popular high school teacher.

Kingston Vernes (The Survivor) was cast as Nova’s crush, Carson, who was envisioned as being a major recurring character if the project went to series. He’s “a Junior Olympian and popular student at New Sunnydale Academy who is the object of Nova’s crush and starts noticing her after a life-changing event.” Chase Sui Wonders (I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025) made a guest appearance in the pilot. Merrin Dungey (The Lincoln Lawyer), Audrey Hsieh (Found), and Audrey Grace Marshall (The Flight Attendant) are also guest stars in the pilot, but could have had recurring roles if the show was ordered to series. Dungey’s character is Ms. LaDuca, the college counselor at New Sunnydale Academy. Hsieh and Marshall played Keiko and Jessica, high school students and members of the academy’s Evangelical Christian group.

Oscar-winning director Zhao, who is a self-professed lifelong Buffy fan, directed the pilot from a script by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman (Poker Face). The revival was coming our way from 20th Television and Searchlight TV, where Zhao has a first-look deal. Deadline recently said that the revival would be “starting a writers room soon, a sign that Hulu and the studios have high expectations for the project going to series. It is unclear yet whether other original Buffy cast members would return; that is considered likely.” But, apparently the pilot didn’t live up to Hulu’s high expectations.

This was being referred to as “the next chapter in the Buffyverse.” The pilot was executive produced by Gellar, Zhao, and the Zuckermans, as well as the original series’ executive producers Gail Berman of the Jackal Group and Fran Kuzui and Kaz Kuzui of Suite B. Also an executive producer the pilot was Dolly Parton, whose company Sandollar was behind the original show. In case you’re wondering, “Buffy creator Joss Whedon, who also wrote the 1992 movie the series was based on, had no involvement in the reboot. He has not worked in Hollywood in any official capacity since facing a slew of misconduct allegations in 2021.”

Not Surprised

After telling Variety and CNN that she was “not surprised” by Hulu’s decision, Zhao said, “I had an incredible, incredible time with Sarah [Michelle Gellar], with all the cast and crew doing this. And we, first and foremost, see ourselves as the guardians of the original show. Our priority for Sarah and for us has always been to be truthful to the show, to be truthful to our fans. So, things happen for a reason, and we keep our hearts open and we welcome the mystery. And what this might lead us to.

Asked if she and Gellar would be shopping the project to other distributors, Zhao repeated, “Welcome the mystery.

Are you hoping that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Chloé Zhao will find a new home for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

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A Quiet Place 3 announces cast with Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy returning, while Jack O’Connell and more embrace the silence

John Krasinski woke up bright and early on Monday to give everyone with an Oscars hangover some fantastic news! A Quiet Place: Part III is coming along nicely, and today, Krasinski is thrilled to announce new and returning additions to the cast. Krasinski shared the news on social media with an image of a pile of scripts, each with the following names printed on the cover: Jack O’Connell (Sinners, 28 Years Later), Jason Clarke (A House of Dynamite, The Last Frontier), and Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding, Queens of the Dead), who will join returning stars Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe. A Quiet Place: Part III is set to be released in theaters on July 30, 2027.

Krasinski hypes A Quiet Place: Part III

Back when Paramount Pictures released A Quiet Place Part II in 2020, Krasinski said he had some elements of the third film in mind while working on the script for the second. He told Collider, “I genuinely hadn’t thought about a second one when I was doing the first one. However, I really had these questions while I was doing it. I put the fires out in the distance in the first one, and I always thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we got to explore where those fires lead to? Who’s on the other end of those fires?’ But I never thought that there would be a sequel. So then when I actually came around to writing the sequel, I started with the fires. And so this time, I think when my brain started wandering of questions of what would this mean later on, I started to write down notes in case I could prepare myself for a third one.”

Not so quiet on the way to the bank

Astonishingly, Paramount’s A Quiet Place franchise has earned over $900 million worldwide across three films: A Quiet Place, A Quiet Place: Part II, and the Michael Sarnoski-directed spinoff A Quiet Place: Day One. While A Quiet Place: Part II got pushed due to Covid, it eventually took the box office by storm (all things considered) for a $341M global take. The sequel gets credit for helping the pandemic box office get back in fighting form, and theater owners hope the upcoming sequel will do even bigger numbers. While A Quiet Place: Day One only made $262M worldwide, analysts think that a proper sequel in the core franchise will perform even better.

Are you excited about A Quiet Place: Part III? What do you think about the new cast additions? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Friday the 13th franchise may benefit from the Paramount / Warner Bros. merger

2009 was the last time we got a new feature film in the Friday the 13th franchise. The series has been at a virtual and sometimes complete standstill for most of the last seventeen years – and the first problem it ran into was friction between the studios Paramount and Warner Bros. Paramount had released the first eight films in the franchise, then it passed over to New Line Cinema / Warner Bros. for Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, and Freddy vs. Jason. While the ’09 film wasn’t a direct remake of any previous Friday the 13th, it did contain elements that were lifted from the first four movies, so Warner Bros. had to collaborate with Paramount on that one. After a massive opening weekend, a sequel was put on the fast-track for a 2010 release… but it quickly fell apart because Paramount and Warner Bros. couldn’t agree on the money split for a follow-up.

Now, Paramount and Warner Bros. are moving toward a merger – and original Friday the 13th producer/director Sean S. Cunningham, who has been involved behind-the-scenes again during the Warner Bros. era, couldn’t be happier.

Beneficial Merger

Here are some other reasons we haven’t gotten another Friday the 13th movie in seventeen years: Christopher Nolan, who Warner Bros. had worked with on the Dark Knight trilogy, set up his sci-fi movie Interstellar at Paramount. WB wanted in on the action, so in exchange for being allowed to get involved with the Nolan film, they handed the Friday the 13th rights over to Paramount for a period of five years. Paramount would be allowed to knock out as many F13 movies as they could between 2013 and 2018. The Paramount of the ’80s would have produced three or four movies in that window of time. How many Friday the 13ths did the Paramount of the ’10s make? Zero. They kept the project in development hell right up to the last minute, then cancelled it completely because one of their other horror releases, Rings, was a box office disappointment.

Then there was an extended copyright lawsuit between Cunningham and original Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller. That dragged on for years, and when it came to an end, Miller was awarded with the U.S. copyright to the first film. He has gone on to team up with his lawyer Marc Toberoff, A24, showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, and Friday the 13th franchise rights holder Rob Barsamian – the last surviving investor in the original film – to develop the “expanded prequel” / “pre-remake-quel” TV series Crystal Lake, which will premiere on the Peacock streaming service sometime this year. The rights holders also teamed with Angry Orchard for the short film Sweet Revenge, which dropped online last year (and then disappeared after a few months).

But Cunningham didn’t just walk away from the Friday the 13th business because he lost that copyright lawsuit. Three years ago, it was reported that he was developing a new Friday the 13th movie. Five months ago, Barsamian confirmed, “We are actively working on a new movie.

Now, Cunningham has told TMZ that he and Miller have patched up their differences and everyone is hoping that the Paramount / Warner Bros. merger will resolve any studio issues and get the new Friday the 13th movie into production.

As TMZ reported, “Cunningham tells TMZ a film treatment for an “old school” Jason flick is done … and he’s hopeful that, with the mega-merger of Warner Bros. and Paramount, the project will gain serious traction because he says both studios have rights –and that’s been a major hurdle. The horror icon Cunningham tells us that he and franchise co-creator Victor Miller resolved their issues … and he hopes the upcoming studio merger will take care of the other entanglement.

Cunningham went on to say that the script needs a “young writer” because the heart of the series has always been “the fear of untimely death” — and SC says he’s too old to be worried about that these days. He also mentioned he’s just a “cheerleader” for the project … but anticipates being an executive producer — if it happens.

Are you glad to hear that we might finally get a new “old school” Friday the 13th movie, thanks to the Paramount / Warner Bros. merger? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the franchise get back on track – and I love that the treatment they have is described as being for an “old school Jason flick.” That’s exactly what I want.

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Unmade Rob Zombie Movies We Want To See

Rob Zombie Movies We Want to See

Rob Zombie has said that for every one film project of his that moves forward, there are five potential projects that fall by the wayside. We haven’t heard of quite that many unmade Rob Zombie movies, but we have heard of several over the years that never got off the ground… and unfortunately, most of them sounded pretty interesting. A little over a year ago, Zombie had said he didn’t know what his next movie is going to be, but he did know what it’s not going to be: he won’t be continuing his Firefly franchise (which consists of House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, and 3 from Hell), and he doesn’t want to make a sequel to The Munsters (which was poorly received). So while he figures out his next cinematic move, we we have put together a list of Rob Zombie Movies We Want To See!

DR. SATAN PREQUEL/SEQUEL

Okay, so this flies right in the face of what Zombie just said about not making any more movies in the Firefly franchise. But while we agree that there’s nowhere for the story to go after the events of 3 from Hell, there could be an interesting story that focuses on the bizarre character of Dr. Satan. A prequel set before House of 1000 Corpses could show how Dr. Satan got involved with the Firefly clan and set up his underground lair full of experiment subjects. A sequel could dig into what happened to Dr. Satan after he was taken out of his lair at the start of The Devil’s Rejects. Maybe the best approach would be a sequel that provides some flashbacks to the pre-Corpses days.

Zombie did shoot some Dr. Satan material for The Devil’s Rejects, a scene where the mad doctor attacks a nurse played by Rosario Dawson, but it ended up on the cutting room floor.

THE PUNISHER

A while back, Thomas Jane mentioned that Rob Zombie was in the running to direct The Punisher 2 when the project was set up at Lionsgate and Jane was still attached to star in the follow-up to the 2004 Punisher film. Our minds have been swimming with the possibilities ever since. Jane’s time as The Punisher may be over (although you never know, in these days where Michael Keaton is Batman again and Hugh Jackman is playing Wolverine one more time), but it could be very interesting to see how Zombie would handle a Punisher story.

We know he can deliver the level of violence the audience wants to see from the heavily armed vigilante, but what sort of style would he bring to the film around the character and the violence? Would it be dark and gritty? Neon-soaked madness? Did Lexi Alexander already give us something along the lines of a Zombie Punisher with her Punisher: War Zone? We’ll probably never find out, but it’s fun to daydream about.

THE CROW: 2037

In 1997, it was announced that musician Rob Zombie would be making his feature writing and directing debut with an addition to the Crow franchise that would have been called The Crow: 2037. The story would begin in “2010, when a young boy and his mother are murdered on Halloween night by a Satanic priest. A year later, the boy is resurrected as the Crow. Twenty-seven years later, and unaware of his past, he has become a bounty hunter on a collision course with his now all-powerful killer.” What that synopsis doesn’t mention is that a plague has knocked the planet back into the Dark Ages by the time 2037 rolls around, so our hero wields a sword and gets around on horseback.

An unexpected mixture of medieval times and influences from the Universal Monsters movies, The Crow: 2037 would have been a very unique entry in the franchise… so unique that the producers seemed to get cold feet and decided to make a more typical Crow movie instead. For a while, Zombie considered turning his script into an original film called Black Rider X, but then moved ahead with House of 1000 Corpses instead. So all we can do now is read the The Crow: 2037 script (which is readily available online) and try to imagine what could have been. In the meantime, the new reboot of The Crow is due out in June.

WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE SS

Werewolf Women of the SS is a faux trailer Zombie made for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant Grindhouse project, and while all of the faux trailers are a lot of fun in their short form, it would also have been amazing to see them all get expanded into actual features, like Rodriguez’s faux trailer Machete was. Eli Roth is currently in production on a Thanksgiving feature, Edgar Wright has pondered a Don’t feature, and in the past Zombie has asked fans if they would be interested in seeing a Werewolf Women of the SS feature. We would be!

An homage to movies like Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, Fraulein Devil, and Love Camp 7, Werewolf Women of the SS is set during World War II and involves Nazi mad scientists, the She-Devils of Belzac, and Fu Manchu working together in an attempt to create an army of werewolves.

TYRANNOSAURUS REX

Zombie had no intention of making Halloween II. He was going to hand that sequel over to Inside directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury while he made a different project for Dimension: Tyrannosaurus Rex, which was even given a 2009 release date. He started promoting the project with posters and concept art… but then Bustillo and Maury left Halloween II and Dimension roped Zombie into doing that movie for 2009 instead of Tyrannosaurus Rex. There was some hope that he would make the original film after Halloween II, but by the time he was done with his second Michael Myers movie his working relationship with Dimension had been damaged beyond repair.

Zombie revealed very little about what Tyrannousarus Rex would have been, but he did say it wasn’t a horror movie. Comparing it to Straight Time, Raging Bull, and a serious version of Every Which Way But Loose, he said the movie would be “about this washed-up prizefighter who’s got this self-destructive tendency, and he comes out of prison and the only way he knows how to survive is by fighting. But his boxing career is over so he gets caught up in this sort of underground fight ring.” Concept art revealed that, like Clint Eastwood in Every Which Way But Loose, this prizefighter would also end up running into trouble with a biker gang.

Thirteen years later we’re still hoping to see Tyrannosaurus Rex somehow, because Zombie making a “incredibly violent ’70s action movie” about a washed-up prizefighter sounds like a whole lot of fun.

THE NAIL

Some of the concept art for Tyrannosaurus Rex brought to mind The Nail, a comic book Zombie wrote with Steve Niles in 2004 that happened to center on a character named Rex. So it was erroneous reported that Tyrannosaurus Rex was an adaptation of The Nail and that really caught on, despite Zombie and Niles both saying Tyrannosaurus Rex was a different story. So if they are different stories, that means we need to see both Tyrannosaurus Rex and a cinematic adaptation of The Nail, because The Nail was really cool.

Basically a souped-up version of the 1975 classic horror film Race with the Devil, The Nail had the following synopsis: “Small-time pro-wrestler Rex Hauser (a.k.a. The Nail) makes a living touring the small-town wrestling circuit with his family. Its business as usual for this close-knit bunch until they unwittingly cross paths with a murderous gang of Satanic bikers. But these aren’t your run-of-the-mill devil worshipers. In fact, Hauser and his family just might be up against the most un-Godly evil ever known to man.

The comic was a fun read, and it would be a blast to see it brought to life on the screen.

BIGFOOT

Speaking of Rob Zombie / Steve Niles comic books that desperately need to be brought to the screen, the pair also made an awesome “cryptid run amok” comic book appropriately called Bigfoot in 2015. The synopsis is simple: “A monstrous ape-man is stomping around the woods of the Pacific Northwest, and he’s not happy with mankind.” If Bigfoot were ever brought to the screen, it would easily be one of the best Bigfoot movies we’ve ever gotten. The Bigfoot in this story is a terrifying beast that makes a bloody mess of the people who are unlucky enough to cross paths with it, and we’re dying to see this creature splatter blood and guts across the screen in a live-action movie.

THE BLOB

The week Halloween II was released in 2009, it was announced that Zombie would be writing and directing another remake, this one of the 1958 sci-fi horror classic The Blob, which already received an awesome remake in 1988 and was about a gelatinous creature falling from the sky and consuming everything it came in contact with, growing larger with every meal. Zombie immediately made it sound like he was the wrong choice for the job when he said his movie wouldn’t be about “a red blobby thing”, so not many people minded when he decided to walk away from the project… But years later, concept art from Zombie’s abandoned version of The Blob showed up online and made it look like he had been plotting something fascinating.

Just going by what’s shown in the artwork, it appears that an alien monolith would have shown up in a small town, and this mysterious object would become the centerpiece of an annual rock festival. After five years, some kind of energy starts emanating from the monolith that makes people melt down into hideous, disgusting “blob people”. Some of the imagery is a bit too much like Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse movie Planet Terror, but it still looks like Zombie’s take on The Blob would have been entertaining and delightfully strange. However, we are finally getting another remake of The Blob, which will be coming from the Hellraiser reboot director, David Bruckner.

BROAD STREET BULLIES

In 2012, we heard that Zombie would be branching out of the horror genre with Broad Street Bullies, which would tell the story of “the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team that evolved from a cellar-dwelling expansion team into a team that racked up victories and penalty minutes in equal measure during the 1970s.” Zombie initially said he had secured the rights to the team’s story, had the full support of the Flyers organization, and was ready to make a movie that was like “Rocky meets Boogie Nights on ice”. But Broad Street Bullies never made it into production, and Zombie would later say that it was a nightmare trying to get all the necessary rights together.

Aside from comedies like Goon, it seems to be very difficult to get a hockey movie into production, as Kevin Smith also ran into trouble when he tried to make his own hockey movie, called Hit Somebody. So we’re left wishing that we had both Hit Somebody and Broad Street Bullies to watch right now. It would have been very interesting to see Zombie make a hockey movie set in the 1970s.

MANSON MURDERS PROJECT

This wasn’t going to be a movie and the Manson Family story has gotten too much coverage over the decades, but Zombie has been fascinated by the story since he was a kid and when he started developing a limited series that would “revisit the people and events connected to the Manson Family murder spree in August 1969“, he had an intriguing collaborator: the script was going to be written by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis. Their aim was to “tell converging stories of people and events leading up to and after the murders, from shifting points of view.

In general, it would be just fine if Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood turned out to be the end of Manson Family stories, but we are left quite curious to find out how Zombie and Ellis would have handled the material. The Manson Murders Project was set up at Fox in 2014, and was scrapped when NBC started airing their own Manson-related series Aquarius in 2015.

RAISED EYEBROWS

Zombie made it clear in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects that he had an appreciation for the Marx brothers, so when Broad Street Bullies started looking troublesome in 2015 it wasn’t too surprising that he shifted over to trying to make a film based on the memoir Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho’s House by Steve Stoliar. This would have been “the bizarre story of the last years in the life of Groucho Marx, told by a young Marx Brothers fan who spent those years as his personal secretary and archivist. In addition to getting to know his hero, the author found himself in the orbit of Groucho’s brothers Zeppo and Gummo, Mae West, George Burns, Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, S.J. Perelman, Steve Allen, and scores of other luminaries of stage, screen, TV and literature. The downside of this dream-come-true was getting close to his idol as the curtain was coming down, and dealing with Erin Fleming – the mercurial woman in charge of Groucho’s personal and professional life.

For the first time, Zombie hired someone else – Oren Moverman – to write the screenplay for one of his films. He said he saw this story as “Groucho’s Sunset Boulevard“, “a sad, funny and very dark tale of a one of Hollywood’s greatest stars final years.” But once again, he found it too difficult to get a non-horror project into production. It’s a shame, because he chooses terrific material for his attempts to step out of the genre. If his version of The Munsters turns out to be a nice comedy like the sitcom source material, maybe it will open some non-horror doors for him.

Honorable Mention: C.H.U.D.

Some projects Zombie has been said to be involved with over the years were never actually happening. For example: there was a rumor that he was working on an animated adaptation of the comic book The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning. Not true, and we’ve already seen him do the homicidal family thing multiple times. In 2007, a rumor emerged online saying that Zombie would be following his remake of Halloween with a remake of the 1984 film C.H.U.D. It was just a joke… but not such a bad idea. There is something appealing about the thought of Zombie making a movie about creatures called Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, crawling out of the sewer to consume flesh.

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Sunday, March 15, 2026

Hokum (SXSW) Review: An atmospheric horror flick with a strong performance by Adam Scott

PLOT: A misanthropic author (Adam Scott) travels to a remote inn in Ireland where his late parents once honeymooned, planning to spread their ashes. Once there, he becomes embroiled in a mystery that may involve a haunting, forcing him to reckon with his tortured past.

REVIEW: Neon has steadily built a reputation as Hollywood’s biggest horror studio, usurping the once-dominant A24. Their taste and track record are so strong that each new release turns into an event for horror fans. As such, among all the movies premiering here at SXSW, none seemed to have the anticipation of Hokum, which was programmed in their midnight section and is directed by Damian McCarthy, whose previous films, Caveat and Oddity, both took on Irish folklore.

Hokum does a similar thing, with it being a tale of Irish spirits haunting a creepy hotel, but by casting an American in Adam Scott’s cynical Ohm Bauman, it’s probably McCarthy’s most accessible work to date, with it being a well-executed ghost story wrapped up in a surprisingly potent morality tale.

Adam Scott is great as Ohm, an author dealing with childhood trauma who hides behind a façade of ego and even flashes of cruelty. Yet, he finds himself unexpectedly owing a personal debt to the hotel’s kind bartender (an excellent Florence Ordesh), and when she goes missing, he seems to be the only one committed to finding her, along with a local derelict, Jerry (David Wilmot), whom she was similarly kind to. The two find themselves working to unravel the mystery of her disappearance, leading to Ohm being trapped in a long-locked honeymoon suite said to be haunted by malevolent spirits.

McCarthy does a good job establishing Ohm as an anti-hero who, while initially insufferably arrogant, proves to have a somewhat brave streak, making this—more than anything else—a redemptive tale. It’s also a very creepy one, with lots of subtle, spooky imagery in the first half paving the way for more grotesque, legitimately scary ghouls as the film goes on, and lots of screaming from the midnight audience I saw it with.

It also proves to be a pretty cracking mystery, even when not considering the supernatural element, which becomes a major part of the film’s second half. McCarthy has made a beautiful film, shot on location in West Cork, with gorgeous cinematography by Colm Hogan. It’s produced by veteran horror producer Roy Lee, with The Conjuring composer Joseph Bishara providing a spine-tingling soundtrack. Hokum, at times, feels almost like an elevated Conjuring installment with a bit of an international, indie flavour, and the local cast is terrific. Wilmot steals scenes as the surprisingly resourceful Jerry, who, like Ohm, is haunted by his own past, while Peter Coonan is good as the hotel manager who may or may not know more than he lets on.

While it remains to be seen if Hokum can tap into the zeitgeist the same way other Neon movies have, the audience at SXSW had a blast with it, and I never found it to be anything less than totally compelling. Neon is giving it a prime early May release date, and it could become a breakout hit, while Scott continues to impress as his career quickly rises thanks to Severance. This is another strong role for him.

Hokum Adam Scott

Hokum

GREAT

8

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Friday, March 13, 2026

Single White Female reboot starring Jenna Ortega and Taylor Russell finds a writer

Jenna Ortega Taylor Russell

UPDATE: Almost exactly one year to the date after it was announced that Taylor Russell and Jenna Ortega will be starring in a Single White Female reboot, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that the project is moving forward under the title Single Female, with Bodies Bodies Bodies screenwriter Sarah DeLappe signing on the write the script.

Russell and Ortega are producing the film with Stacey Sher and Marisa Paiva.

The original article, posted on March 14, 2025, follows:

Industry scooper Jeff Sneider of The InSneider reports that Taylor Russell (Bones and All) is in talks to star in a reboot that has been in the works for years, an update of the 1992 thriller Single White Female. Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) is also reportedly in talks to star in the film, which is set up at Sony and 3000 Pictures. Variety quickly confirmed Sneider’s report.

As Sneider notes, “Obviously, the title would likely change, as Ortega and Russell are women of color, and neither identifies as white.” Maybe they’ll just drop the middle out and call it Single Female.

Directed by Barbet Schroeder from a screenplay by Don Roos, the ’92 film was based on the novel SWF Seeks Same by John Lutz. Here’s the synopsis: Having recently split from fiancé, Allison Jones welcomes new roommate Hedra Carlson. The young women quickly form a bond, but as Allison starts to rethink her engagement, Hedra grows jealous and hostile. As Allison learns new details about her roommate’s life, Hedra gets violent in her efforts to get Sam out of the picture. With Hedra turning more menacing by the minute, Allison finally understands what she’s up against. Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh starred.

More than eight years have passed since we heard that a TV series based on Single White Female was in the works at NBC, but that show never made it into production. So the plan has changed and Sony is looking to make another movie out of the concept. The original film was made on a budget of $16 million and earned more than $84 million at the box office. Sony previously cashed in on the title with a 2005 direct-to-video sequel called Single White Female 2: The Psycho, starring Kristen Miller and Allison Lange.

What do you think of the idea of Jenna Ortega and Taylor Russell starring in a new take on Single White Female? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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The Duffer Brothers Invite You to a Creepy Wedding With a Disturbing Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Trailer

I’ve been to a few nightmare weddings in my day, but nothing quite like this. On Friday, Netflix unveiled a new and disturbing trailer for Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, a new horror series from Haley Z. Boston and the Duffer Brothers, of Stranger Things fame, of course. The new psychological horror series premieres on March 26, with all eight episodes dropping on the same day.

What Happens in the New Trailer?

In the new trailer for Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) want to get married. However, instead of making it a big to-do, Nicky has the not-so-brilliant idea of hosting the celebration at his parents’ vacation cabin in the woods. It’s at the cabin where Rachel meets Nicky’s family, and things quickly take a turn for the invasive and terrifying. How do I put this? There’s something wrong with Nicky’s family. They’re creepy, have no concept of privacy, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say there’s some strange occult s**t going on. Unfortunately for Rachel, she won’t have too much time to figure things out, because to survive the ordeal, she’ll need to reconsider her vows and get the hell out of dodge before she’s celebrating her future as a corpse bride.

Boston on Her Approach to Horror

Tudum recently spoke with Haley Z. Boston, the creator of the new series, about her unnerving approach to horror.

“I love horror. It’s natural to me, [it’s how] I process my own emotions and feelings and my own understanding of the world,” Boston told Tudum“I think horror allows you to explore taboo feelings and take all of these fears and give them some bite.”

The show isn’t about jump scares. Instead, as Boston puts it, the tone is “unsettling, getting-under-your-skin dread,” mixed with character-driven storytelling. “I love to explore characters. I think sometimes that’s lacking in the horror genre,” she says. “My natural approach is from a place of character and dialogue and humor and then infusing that with unsettling horror … I’m like, ‘I want to be unsettled. I want to be freaked out.'”

Who stars in Something Very Bad is Going to Happen?

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen stars Camila Morrone (Daisy Jones & The SixThe Night Manager) as Rachel, Adam DiMarco (The White LotusOvercompensating) as Nicky, Jennifer Jason Leigh (FargoAnnihilation) as Victoria, Ted Levine (MonkBig Sky) as Boris, Gus Birney (Shining Vale) as Portia, Jeff Wilbusch (UnorthodoxOslo) as Jules, Karla Crome (The Last Disturbance of Madeline HyndeLazarus) as Nell, Sawyer Fraser (The Good Doctor) as Jude, and Zlatko Burić (Triangle of Sadness).

What do you think about the new trailer for Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen? I plan to check this out as soon as it drops on Netflix on March 26 and hope it’s as creepy as it looks. The last time I enjoyed something wedding-related, it was 2019’s Ready or Not, so I’m due for some frightening events revolving around young love and nutulas gone wrong. Let’s go!

The post The Duffer Brothers Invite You to a Creepy Wedding With a Disturbing Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Trailer appeared first on JoBlo.