The biggest headline of the week, and one of the biggest headlines of the entire year, broke early this morning when Netflix announced that they are on the road to acquiring Warner Bros., an $82.7 billion deal that will grant the monopolizing streaming service ownership of the Warner Bros. film and television studios, as well […]
The most basic things you can expect are that the HBO and HBO Max libraries will eventually be rolled into Netflix, while the streamer promises that they “expect to maintain Warner Bros.’ current operations and build on its strengths, including theatrical releases for films.” Netflix, however, is already talking about shrinking theatrical release windows.
Horrifying? Yes. And speaking of horrifying…
‘The Conjuring’
Thinking ahead into late 2026 and beyond, what does Netflix acquiring the vast Warner Bros. library mean for the horror genre specifically? Between Warner Bros. and the WB-owned New Line Cinema, Netflix stands to become the new home for several big time horror franchises, including Final Destination and The Conjuring Universe, both of which happened to just release record-setting new installments onto the big screen earlier this year.
Other properties in the WB/New Line arsenal include The Evil Dead, Gremlins, Mortal Kombat, and Beetlejuice, with new installments in the first three franchises already in the current pipeline. Sébastien Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn is set for theaters on July 24, 2026, while another (untitled) Evil Dead movie is in development from director Francis Galluppi.
A new installment in the Gremlins franchise was also just announced back in November, with Chris Columbus directing for a planned November 19, 2027 theatrical release.
As for Mortal Kombat, big screen sequel Mortal Kombat 2 is currently dated for May 8, 2026, with a third installment in the movie franchise also already announced.
Warner Bros. is also the distributor for the Legendary-produced MonsterVerse, with latest installment Godzilla x Kong: Supernova dated for WB release on March 26, 2027.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’
Another big horror property currently under the WB umbrella is Stephen King’s IT, which just spawned the HBO Max television series “IT: Welcome to Derry.” The series has a three-season arc mapped out, last we heard, with each new season jumping back in time by 27 years to fully explore the origin story of Pennywise and IT’s enduring impact on Derry, Maine.
It’s of course far too early to know if those plans will change once Netflix takes over, just as it’s far too early to really comment on the future handling of any of these properties.
On that particular note, we also can’t help but wonder about the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, which have been going through their own legal battles for the last several years. Both are at least in bed with WB/New Line on the distribution side, which has led Friday the 13th to come back to life through the “Jason Universe” initiative that removes the title “Friday the 13th” from the proceedings. Jason will return to the screen next year in the A24 and Peacock series “Crystal Lake,” a prequel to the original Friday the 13th.
The “Jason Universe” team is also promising that a new movie is in early development.
‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
And then there’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, which hasn’t shown a sign of life in fifteen years now. As Bloody Disgusting reported way back in 2019, the U.S. rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street reverted back to Wes Craven’s estate, while Warner Bros./New Line Cinema continues to own the international rights to the franchise and its iconic killer, Freddy Krueger.
Robert Englund told Indiewire just last month, “There are so many people involved who have a piece of the action. When Wes passed away, he left an awful lot of rights to his estate. He has many many rights that he worked out between character titles and names and plot and things like that. New Line Cinema obviously has a big hand in it. And much of that was surrendered to Ted Turner, then went to Warner Bros. So Warner Bros. has a huge piece of it.”
But for now and through much of next year, as WBD CEO David Zaslav wrote in a memo to staff this morning, “Until the transaction closes, WBD and Netflix remain separate companies.”
Stay tuned for more on this massive Hollywood merger as we learn it.
‘Gremlins’