This year has already been a great year for horror movies, with films like A Quiet Place, Insidious: The Last Key, and Hereditary making notable impressions on audiences. One of the projects coming later this year is Sony's Slender Man, and although the movie has filmed and we've even gotten a trailer for it, it now seems that the film is experiencing some major behind-the-scenes issues. In fact, on the heels of a dispute between the producers and Sony, Slender Man is now being shopped to other studios around Hollywood.
It sounds like there's a dispute between Slender Man's producers and Sony over the proper marketing strategy for the upcoming horror film. While Sony reportedly wants to frame the film's release as a low-budget horror romp in the vein of the successful Blumhouse model (think Split or Happy Death Day), the producers allegedly have more faith in the film's potential for success and want to see the studio pump more money into the marketing campaign, as well as see it debut on more screens. Per Variety, as a result of this disagreement, the producers have begun shopping the film around to other studios in search of a higher offer, though we've yet to hear of any studio agreeing to do so yet.
Something like this is not unprecedented in Hollywood, but it's rare to see a film in search of a new studio this late in the game. If the producers of Slender Man can find a new studio for the upcoming horror film, the assumption is that Sony will receive reimbursement for the marketing material that it has already funded. That said, Slender Man has not officially moved to a new studio yet, so it remains entirely possible that the film could stay at Sony if the producers cannot find a new home for it in time for its release date.
This situation is far from the first issue to pop up in Slender Man's road to the silver screen. The film has already garnered a fair amount of controversy, as Slender Man has recently been at the core of an actual criminal case involving a group of girls who claim that the creepy figure inspired them to stab their friend 19 times. It is worth noting that Slender Man is not being framed as a recreation of those actual events or inspired by the real-life stabbing (Slender Man is a "Creepypasta" meme that has been around for years), but the film has received some backlash for allegedly capitalizing on the incident.
CinemaBlend will bring you more updates related to the Slender Man and this bizarre behind-the-scenes as new information about it becomes available to us in the coming days. As of right now, the horror film remains set for an August 24 release date.
