Peter Jackson Lines Up Tintin 2 — plus A24’s Slayground and More

Evening News · Monday 19 October 2026

Peter Jackson has named his next film as director, and it is not set in Middle-earth. Tonight’s edition also has a January date for Jeremy Saulnier’s haunted-house horror Slayground, the rediscovered first film of George A. Romero, a new home for the Screamfest thriller The Night Driver, a first proper look at DC’s Mister Miracle, another shake-up at Netflix and Agnez Mo joining Nicolas Cage in a cyber-thriller shooting in London.

The News That Matters

Peter Jackson says Tintin 2 will be his next film, as The Hunt for Gollum nears the end of its shoot

• New development: Jackson gave the update at the Sitges Film Festival, where he received its 2026 Honorary Grand Prize; his comments were reported on Sunday 18 October
• Tintin 2: The script, written by Jackson and Fran Walsh, is finished. He will direct, completing the swap agreed with Steven Spielberg, who directed the 2011 film
• Middle-earth: Andy Serkis’s The Hunt for Gollum has “about two weeks” of filming left in New Zealand; The Shadow of the Past, written by Stephen Colbert and Philippa Boyens, is still at script stage
• UK availability: The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum opens in UK and US cinemas on 17 December 2027. Tintin 2 has no release date yet

Fifteen years after The Adventures of Tintin, the sequel finally has a director ready to go. “We’ve also already written the script for Tintin 2, the second Tintin film,” Peter Jackson said at Sitges, as reported by Screen Rant. “That will be the next film I make.” It honours the pact he and Steven Spielberg made years ago: Spielberg directed the first film with Jackson producing, and now they swap. Jackson has not said which Hergé story it adapts, though fans have long expected the two-part The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun.

He had good news for Middle-earth too. “The Hunt for Gollum is almost finished filming. I think there are about two weeks of shooting left,” he said, and The Shadow of the Past is still being written, which answers recent reports that it had stalled. Serkis directs and stars as Gollum, with Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and Lee Pace returning alongside newcomers including Kate Winslet, Jamie Dornan and Leo Woodall. Jackson picked up his award at the same festival that crowned the French body horror Sanguine at the weekend.

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Jeremy Saulnier’s haunted-house horror Slayground sets a January date, with its full trailer due on Tuesday

• New development: A24 revealed a new poster and a US cinema date of 29 January 2027 on Monday 19 October; the full trailer is promised for Tuesday 20 October
• The film: The Green Room director’s return to full-blooded horror, set around a Halloween haunted-house attraction
• Cast: Imogen Poots, James Badge Dale, Matty Matheson, Cory Michael Smith, Chase Sui Wonders, Sophie Wilde, Young Mazino and Stephen Root
• UK availability: US cinemas from 29 January 2027. UK date not yet confirmed

A decade after Green Room, Jeremy Saulnier is heading back into horror, and A24 has now set a date. Slayground reaches US cinemas on 29 January 2027, bringing what is reportedly a Halloween-set story to the depths of winter. Plot details are still scarce beyond the setting, a haunted-house attraction where, you suspect, the scares stop being staged.

The cast reunites Saulnier with his Green Room star Imogen Poots and adds The Bear’s Matty Matheson, The Last of Us’s Young Mazino and Sophie Wilde, who has also just wrapped Arkasha Stevenson’s secret A24 vampire film. After the thrillers Hold the Dark and Rebel Ridge, this looks like the genre film many fans have wanted from him. The full trailer arrives tomorrow.

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George A. Romero’s lost first film, Expostulations, will finally be screened

• New development: The George A. Romero Foundation announced the world premiere of “A Night at the Symphony” on Monday 19 October
• The film: Romero’s 1962 debut short, long thought destroyed in a basement flood, restored from surviving 16mm footage and given a new orchestral score by Christian Kriegeskotte
• The event: One night only on 26 March 2027 at Pittsburgh’s Byham Theater, the venue (then The Fulton) where Night of the Living Dead premiered in 1968, performed live by the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh
• UK availability: No UK screening or release has been announced

Before Night of the Living Dead, there was Expostulations. For decades, Romero’s 1962 first film was believed lost, its elements apparently ruined by a flood. Surviving 16mm footage has now been found and restored by the George A. Romero Foundation, and it will be shown in full, with a newly commissioned score played live, at the heart of a symphonic tribute to the man known as the Godfather of Horror.

The footage is a time capsule in its own right: colour film of Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the early 1960s, with a cast made up mostly of local African-American actors, and early signs of the way Romero would use his home city on screen. The evening also features reworked music from Day of the Dead, Martin, Knightriders and Dawn of the Dead. “Dad loved music and had a huge collection of movie scores on vinyl. He absolutely would have loved this project,” said Tina Romero, the foundation’s acting president. Net proceeds go to the foundation’s preservation and education work.

Terrifier distributor Cineverse picks up the Screamfest thriller The Night Driver

• New development: Cineverse has won North American rights following the film’s Screamfest premiere, Deadline reported on Monday 19 October
• The film: Josh Lucas plays a travelling pharmaceutical salesman stalked across America by a killer and framed for his murders; Alyssa Milano plays his wife and David Arquette the detective trying to clear him
• Behind the camera: Jeremy Weiss directs his first feature from John Cork’s script; Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham is an executive producer
• UK availability: Cineverse’s deal covers North America only. UK date not yet confirmed

Cineverse, the company that made Terrifier a box-office phenomenon, has beaten rival bidders to The Night Driver. Sold by VMI International, the film follows Hurdis Matheson (Lucas), who survives a run-in with a psychotic killer only to be hunted by him from state to state while the police chase Hurdis for the bodies left behind.

Cineverse compares it to The Hitcher, which tells you the tone: open roads, a relentless pursuer and a hero nobody believes. John Cork’s screenplay has also been published as a graphic novel, and the cast includes Charlotte Kirk and Gina La Piana. No release date has been announced, but Cineverse’s record with independent horror makes it a natural home.

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Update: James Gunn makes Mister Miracle official, with a first look at Scott Free and Big Barda

• What is new: Gunn confirmed the casting on Monday 19 October and released new artwork from the series, calling it a “forthcoming animated DCU series”
• Why it matters: The wording settles a weekend debate, fuelled by a fake post, over whether the show is DCU canon; DC labels non-canon stories “Elseworlds”
• Voices: Josh Hutcherson as Scott Free and Mackenzie Davis as Big Barda; Tom King is showrunner, adapting his and Mitch Gerads’ comic
• UK availability: DC Studios is targeting 2028. UK platform and date not yet confirmed

Last week we reported that Josh Hutcherson and Mackenzie Davis had been confirmed as the leads of DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation’s Mister Miracle, after Peter Safran let it slip on the Clayface red carpet. Now James Gunn has made it official, with a new image that shows how far the designs have moved towards the actors themselves. Barda towers over Scott, and the picture puts their marriage, the heart of King and Gerads’ Eisner-winning comic, front and centre.

The bigger news may be in Gunn’s wording. Because the voice cast of a canon DCU animated show could, in principle, play the same roles in live action, “animated DCU series” matters. Safran has said he has seen animatics for all eight 30-minute episodes of season one.

Update: Netflix ousts film chief Dan Lin ahead of Peter Rice’s arrival

• What is new: Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter reported Lin’s exit on Monday 19 October, saying he was told over the weekend
• The context: It follows roughly 1,000 job cuts and the departures of content chief Bela Bajaria and film co-head Doug Belgrad. Peter Rice becomes chief content officer on 26 October and is expected to choose Lin’s successor
• What comes next: Netflix reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday and holds a company town hall on Wednesday
• UK availability: No change to Netflix’s UK service or announced release dates

The turmoil at Netflix has reached its film division. Dan Lin, who replaced Scott Stuber in 2024 with a brief to make fewer, cheaper films, is out, according to Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter. It is the latest move in a restructuring that began with around 1,000 job cuts and continued last week with Peter Rice’s appointment as content chief. Netflix had not commented at the time of writing.

Lin’s tenure brought mid-budget hits such as The Rip, Apex and People We Meet on Vacation, as well as big swings including Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and Netflix’s recent experiment with reporting box office for La Bola Negra. Under Rice, co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said the focus will be on “creating big, buzzy hits”. No replacement has been named, and Deadline says no interviews have begun.

Agnez Mo joins Nicolas Cage and Michael Sheen in London-shot cyber-thriller C.L.A.Y.

• New development: Deadline reported the casting on Monday 19 October
• The film: A computer prodigy is drawn into C.L.A.Y. (Clowns Laughing At You), an underground hacker collective whose pranks have real-world consequences and draw the attention of spies, gangsters and rival hackers
• Cast: Nicolas Cage, Michael Sheen, Agnez Mo, Jordi Mollà, Emilio Sakraya and Adrian Topol; Simon Afram writes and directs his first feature
• UK availability: Filming starts in London in November. UK release date not yet confirmed

Indonesian singer and actor Agnez Mo, who made her English-language screen debut in Reacher season four, has landed her first English-language film role. She joins Nicolas Cage and Michael Sheen in C.L.A.Y., the directing debut of Simon Afram, writer and producer of Simon West’s upcoming Second World War spy film Fortitude.

Cameras roll in London next month. Cage has had a busy October, having also been cast in True Detective season five, and pairing him with Sheen in a hacker thriller is an intriguing prospect. “She’s a perfect fit for the world of C.L.A.Y.,” Afram said of Mo.

Peter Jackson says Tintin 2 is next. Which Hergé adventure would you most like him to adapt?