Audition Author Ryū Murakami Dies at 74 — plus Clayface and More

Evening News · Saturday 24 October 2026

Horror has lost one of its great literary troublemakers. Tonight’s edition remembers Ryū Murakami, the writer behind Audition, and also has Andy Weir’s new sci-fi adventure for the ears, a new psychological horror, Clayface heading for the top of the US box office, Michelle Dockery and Jessica Gunning stranded on an island for Netflix, and more belt-tightening at the BBC.

The News That Matters

Audition author Ryū Murakami has died at 74

• New development: The Japanese novelist and film-maker died at home on Saturday 17 October, his publisher Gentosha announced. The news was reported around the world on Friday 23 October
• Why horror fans know him: His 1997 novel Audition became Takashi Miike’s 1999 film, one of the most notorious Japanese horror films ever made
• Other screen work: He directed films himself, including Tokyo Decadence, and his novel Piercing was filmed by Nicolas Pesce in 2018 with Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska
• UK availability: His novels, including Audition, In the Miso Soup and Coin Locker Babies, are published in English in the UK by Pushkin Press and Bloomsbury

Born in Sasebo in 1952, Murakami won Japan’s top literary award, the Akutagawa prize, with his first novel, Almost Transparent Blue, in 1976. He went on to write more than 40 novels and story collections. He was no relation to Haruki Murakami, and his books were far edgier and angrier. The Guardian quoted one critic’s verdict that if Haruki is the Beatles of Japanese literature, Ryū is its Rolling Stones.

Gentosha called him a pioneering figure who “forged ahead at the forefront of his era”. Anyone who has sat through the last 20 minutes of Audition will never forget his imagination. He made cruelty and loneliness feel horribly ordinary, and that is why his stories still frighten.

Andy Weir’s Exoplanet scatters Anthony Mackie’s crew across time

• New development: Audible released the first trailer and a 19-minute excerpt from the opening episode on Friday 23 October, through Collider
• The story: The starship Wild Blue Yonder hits a quantum anomaly and crashes on the planet Forge LV, but each survivor lands in a different era: one in the present, one in the planet’s primeval past and one in the far future
• Who is in it: Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose and John Leguizamo lead a full cast that also includes Cherry Jones, Charlie Plummer and Ray Porter, the voice of the Project Hail Mary audiobook
• Who made it: Executive produced by Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary, and written by novelist and comics writer Benjamin Percy
• UK availability: An Audible Original, available on Audible UK from Thursday 5 November

The crew have to find a way to talk to each other across the ages, while working out who, or what, is behind their predicament. In the excerpt, Mackie’s chief engineer Jeff Shaw picks up a distress call from Leguizamo’s science officer, only to find the signal is coming from somewhere it simply cannot be.

It is a smart piece of timing, with Project Hail Mary fresh in everyone’s minds and Mackie about to be seen as Captain America in Avengers: Doomsday. Audio drama is a perfect home for a story about voices across time.

Watch the teaser

The Boys’ Cameron Crovetti leads psychological horror Dollkeeper

• New development: Catherine Ashmore Bradley and Cameron Crovetti will star as sister and brother Sara and Dylan, Deadline revealed on Friday 23 October
• The story: Plot details are under wraps, but the film follows a teenage girl confronting a terrifying figure connected to her family’s past
• Who is making it: Written and directed by Jay Henric and produced by Stephen Henric for Voodoo Pictures. Filming starts in the coming weeks in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• UK availability: UK date not yet confirmed

Crovetti played Homelander’s son Ryan in The Boys and starred in the 2022 remake of Goodnight Mommy, so he knows a thing or two about unsettling families. Bradley is best known as Luan Loud in Nickelodeon’s The Really Loud House.

Henric’s short Don’t Let It In became a feature, and her follow-up, Unknown, won the Scariest Short Film Prize at Popcorn Frights. The casting director, Chloë Curran, also cast David Fincher’s Cliff Booth, which Tarantino previewed at AFI Fest this week.

Update: Clayface heads for a $24 million US opening with an A- CinemaScore

• New development: After $10.4 million on Friday, including previews, DC Studios’ body horror is pointing to a $24 million to $25 million US opening and a No. 1 finish, Deadline reported on Saturday 24 October
• What audiences say: An A- CinemaScore, the same grade as James Gunn’s Superman and well above The Flash (B) and Supergirl (B-). Horror films usually land in the B or C range
• The cost: A net production budget of around $44 million, and it was shot in the UK
• UK availability: In UK cinemas now, having opened on Friday 23 October in 572 cinemas

On Friday we reported $3.5 million from Thursday previews. The weekend now looks better than forecast, and Deadline notes that premium large-format screens are bringing in close to half the takings, without any IMAX screens. It was a much quieter start for Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun, which took $300,000 on Friday from 880 cinemas, as Olivia Colman’s Wicker made a lively specialty start.

For a mid-budget horror film built around a Batman villain, that is a very healthy result, and it bodes well for Gunn and Peter Safran’s smaller, stranger DC films. Our verdict is in the Clayface Super Review.

Michelle Dockery and Jessica Gunning are stranded on a deadly island in Netflix’s Feral

• New development: Netflix has greenlit Feral, a seven-part darkly funny survival drama, with Genevieve O’Reilly, Philippa Northeast and Dolly de Leon also starring, The Hollywood Reporter Australia reported on Friday 23 October
• The story: Four very different women join their mining executive husbands on a corporate holiday to a beautiful but lethal island. When the men’s shady deals put them all in danger, the women must survive the jungle and each other
• Who made it: Written by Jude Mack from Shirley Conran’s 1987 novel Savages and directed by Emma Freeman, for Hera Pictures with Warner Bros. International Television Production. Filming takes place in Queensland, Australia
• UK availability: Netflix. Release date not yet confirmed

Dockery plays Julia, Baby Reindeer’s Gunning plays Annie, Andor’s O’Reilly is Silvana and Northeast is Suzy. Mack calls it “a wild, messy journey of self-discovery”, and producer Liza Marshall promises women who “behave deliciously badly”.

It is a terrific cast, and the idea of Lady Mary from Downton Abbey fending for herself in the jungle is reason enough to watch.

The BBC merges TV and radio commissioning as it cuts 100 content jobs

• New development: BBC content chief Kate Phillips told staff that TV and audio commissioning teams for comedy, arts and classical music will be combined from January 2027, Deadline reported on Thursday 22 October
• Who runs what: Comedy chief Chris Sussman will oversee comedy across TV and radio, Suzy Klein will run arts, and Radio 3 controller Sam Jackson will run classical music
• The cuts: Around 100 roles will close in the content division by the end of the financial year, with voluntary redundancy prioritised. The division is cutting 100 to 150 hours of original TV and 350 to 400 hours of audio by March 2028
• UK availability: The changes take effect from January 2027

It is part of the BBC’s plan to save £500 million. Development spending will fall by about 15 per cent, and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Blankety Blank, Celebrity Mastermind and Live at the Apollo have already been named as casualties.

It comes days after the BBC confirmed that BBC Three, BBC Scotland and Radio 4 Extra will close as broadcast channels. Fewer commissions and fewer commissioners will mean fewer chances for new British comedy, and that should worry all of us.

Have you seen Audition, and did it scare you as much as it scared us? Or will you be listening to Exoplanet in November?