Worst Halloween Box Office in Decades, Netflix Bids on WB, Stranger Things and Scream 7 Trailers
The battle for Warner Bros. Discovery is seeing a new champion enter the ring, with Netflix making some moves to put their own bid in for the studio’s properties. According to Reuters, the streaming pioneer engaged with investment bank Moelis & Co. in order to prepare an offer. Ironically, this is the same bank that worked with David Ellison at Skydance to take over Paramount whose first bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery was rejected. It was the worst weekend at the box office this year, with ticket sales coming in at just $52.4 million. This also makes it the lowest-grossing Halloween weekend in 31 years, excluding theater closures due to COVID in 2020. While new film Regretting You took in a respectable $50 million, Black Phone 2 really has the crown from the weekend having now brought in $104 million globally - another huge win for horror this year. Yorgos Lanthimos’ new film Bugonia, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, is sitting at a small $11.1 million globally after breaking into more theaters.Both Scream 7 and Stranger Things Season 5 released trailers recently. Stranger Things’ official trailer showed us a bit more of what to expect from that property and Scream 7, which releases on February 27, 2026, gave us a glance at the returning original cast members of Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, and David Arquette. As we discussed last week, Stranger Things will release in three parts on holiday weekends, four episodes on November 26, three episodes on Christmas Day, and the finale on New Year’s Eve.A 'Conjuring' prequel film is in development at Warner Bros. and New Line, with short film director Rodrigue Huart in talks to direct. Franchise veterans Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg, who co-wrote the two prior “Conjuring” films, 2023’s “The Nun II” and this September’s “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” are on board to pen the screenplay.After landing the rights to turn one of the world’s biggest video games into an epic movie, Paramount has now landed two A-list filmmakers to develop it. Sources tell Deadline that Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and Peter Berg have joined Paramount and Activision to develop and produce a Call of Duty movie, with Paramount distributing a live-action feature film.Hulu has ordered two more seasons of the revived King of the Hill animated series, the 16th and 17th overall and third and fourth seasons as a streaming original. Season 14 premiered in August and is the first half of Hulu’s initial two-season, 20-episode order; season 15 is set to debut in 2026.Sam Mendes' four Beatles films have filled out the cast by adding the spouses of the four band members. Saoirse Ronan will play Linda McCartney, Anna Sawai will play Yoko Ono, Aimee Lou Wood will play Pattie Boyd, and Mia McKenna-Bruce will play Maureen Starkey.Ariana Grande has joined the cast of season 13 of American Horror Story, which is currently on track to debut around Halloween 2026.Toho has officially revealed the title of its next “Godzilla” feature that will serve as a sequel to Godzilla: Minus One as “Godzilla -0.0” (Godzilla Minus Zero). The film will once again be written, directed and produced by the same team behind 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One.” Currently, there are no plot details, but the studio is currently targeting a release date in late 2026.Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are going back to the desert for The Mummy 4. The film will be directed by the duo known as Radio Silence, composed of Martin Bettinelli-Opin and Tyler Gillett, who directed 2019’s Ready or Not.
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