EXCLUSIVE: Halloween may be over, but the horrors never cease — election notwithstanding. With that, some big news today: Sources tell Deadline that Lionsgate and subsidiary 3 Arts Entertainment are partnering to launch Render Road, a new horror production banner.
This is the initiative Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer alluded to on today’s Q2 earnings call, when he referred to something to come “soon” from 3 Arts in the horror space. Luke Maxwell and Will Rowbotham, two of the manager-producers leading the charge in cultivating new generations of horror filmmaking talent, will spearhead the effort for 3 Arts.
Render Road, we’re told, will develop, produce and finance projects for digital alongside traditional films and television series. This comes as those two lanes continue to converge. The company will collaborate with up-and-comers and established artists alike; they’’l shepherd some projects independently, alongside these artists, and guide others in partnership with other studios and production companies.
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The new banner allows Lionsgate to benefit more directly from 3 Arts’ talent pipeline. Serving in a sense as curators, 3 Arts’ Maxwell and Rowbotham will in turn build on Lionsgate’s legacy as home to such major horror properties as Saw, Blair Witch and House of 1000 Corpses.
To be clear, Maxwell and Rowbotham will remain managers at 3 Arts while at the helm of Render Road, which will be open to all, rather than collaborating exclusively with 3 Arts talent. Meanwhile, it’s understood that Maxwell and Rowbotham will take their clients’ lead on the destination for their own projects.
3 Arts — and the Render Road duo of Maxwell and Rowbotham, in particular — have made major waves in horror in recent years, demonstrating a savvy in identifying the star filmmakers of tomorrow and bringing them through their breakout projects.
Most notably of late, client Kane Parsons smashed records this summer with over $400M for horror phenomenon Backrooms, the highest grossing film in A24 history. Alongside Curry Barker’s Obsession ($523MWW), the film is one of the biggest of the year in the genre and has brought creator-driven horror to the town’s attention as the next big thing in theatrical. This, as Gen Z and millennials lead the way in theatrical attendance growth, per a recent Fandango study. Outgrossing The Mandalorian and Grogu, Backrooms set A24 opening records in 41 countries; Parsons was just 19 years old when we exclusively reported that he’d been signed to direct the film, based on his same-name web series and the creepypasta that inspired it.
Beyond Parsons, 3 Arts reps such buzzy talents as Ian Tuason, of A24’s Undertone, who is directing the next installment of the Paranormal Activity franchise, and Nic Curcio, who made Play House for little more than 100K after winning a Fantastic Fest pitch competition and a year later wound up with distribution through Focus Features. Then, there’s Dylan Clark, who is directing Lionsgate and Blumhouse Atomic’s new Blair Witch as well as Lionsgate’s Portrait of God. The latter time, starring One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti, is bringing horror icons Sam Raimi and Jordan Peele together as producers for the first time.
As mentioned, Parsons and Curry’s success has led the industry toward something of a fundamental paradigm shift — at the very least, a reassessment of the kinds of projects that warrant greenlighting and who to make them with. The duo’s success followed that of Markiplier, who with the self-financed and self-distributed video game adaptation Iron Lung ($50MWW), took the first shot across the bow to demonstrate that creators will play a substantial role in the future of Hollywood, and entertainment, more broadly.
The summer of Obsession and Backrooms has led studios down the path of investing further in young digital native filmmakers, and quickly. Focus Features set up Barker’s follow-up Anything but Ghosts as part of the deal to release Obsession. Meanwhile, studios have gotten behind young talent on horror titles such as The Mandela Catalogue (Amazon/UA/Amblin), Siren Head (Warner Bros.), Cartoon Cat (TriStar) and Portrait of God (Lionsgate) — some based on preexisting IP, some not.
Most recently kicking off production on a new chapter of Blair Witch and greenlighting Portrait of God, Lionsgate is presently at work developing the next installment of Saw, directed by Mike P. Nelson, as well as Sam Raimi’s remake of the ventriloquist dummy horror flick Magic.
News of Render Road comes amid a shifting landscape in studio horror, with the introduction of Paramount Primal, and Focus Features’ apparent decision to go all in on the space.
