A24 is said to have won the bidding war for Blue Ruin and Rebel Ridge filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier’s next movie, currently billed as ‘Untitled Halloween Project.’
Slow-burn thriller Rebel Ridge was a major success for Netflix, going by its own metrics, and so it’s little surprise that there’s been interest in whatever writer-director Jeremy Saulnier makes next. According to recent reports, though, Saulnier wants to ensure his next movie appears in cinemas – and so he’s signed a deal with indie production company A24.
Hollywood scoop acquirer Jeff Sneider (via World Of Reel) writes that Saulnier’s latest project is simply billed as ‘Untitled Halloween Project’, and that A24 ended up being the winning bidder among the competing offers from Netflix, 20th Century Studios and rival indie firm, Neon. Key to A24’s success, the reporting goes, is that a cinema release came as part of A24’s offer – something Netflix rarely gives to its productions, barring the odd high-profile exception.
Beyond this, little is known about Saulnier’s next film. From his breakthrough with Blue Ruin in 2013, the American filmmaker has become known for his lean, intense thrillers. The wry revenge fable Blue Ruin was followed by Green Room in 2015 – a raw, bloody yarn about a punk band (led by the late Anton Yelchin) trapped in a club backroom by neo-Nazis.
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Saulnier broadened his canvas with 2018’s chilly Hold The Dark, before returning in 2024 with the First Blood-esque thriller Rebel Ridge; starring Aaron Pierre as a former Marine clashing with small town cops, it notched up some 30m views in its first three days on Netflix.
The director’s latest film has been compared to The Fugitive, with Sneider describing it as a “chase story”; last year, Saulnier told The Playlist that he was writing “something that’s a little more in the Green Room universe,” and that it was about “music and Halloween and fun shit.”
More on Jeremy Saulnier’s next movie as we get it.
