{"id":381595,"date":"2026-04-16T00:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381595\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:24:16","slug":"sxsw-horror-movie-monitor-lands-at-searchlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381595\/","title":{"rendered":"SXSW Horror Movie ‘Monitor’ Lands At Searchlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSearchlight Pictures<\/a> has acquired U.S. rights to\u00a0Matt Black<\/a> and Ryan Polly<\/a>\u2019s feature debut Monitor<\/a>, the horror film that made its world premiere in the Mignighter section at SXSW<\/a>. The film, one of the festival\u2019s buzziest, stars Brittany O\u2019Grady, Viveik Karla, Ines H\u00f8ys\u00e6ter Asserson, Gunner Willis, Sara Alexander and Camila Bejarano Wahlgren.<\/p>\n

\n\tProducers are Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner, John Fischer and Adrian Guerra. Executive\u00a0producers include Nuria Valls, Hal Sadoff, Ben Levine, Dave Bishop and George Hamilton. Searchlight will also distribute in the UK and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe logline: After a disturbing video surfaces online, something begins to spread \u2014 moving from screen to screen and targeting anyone\u00a0who watches. No escape. No warning. Once you\u2019ve seen it \u2026 it\u2019s already too late.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMatt and Ryan have crafted a visceral, modern thriller that taps directly into our collective fear of\u00a0what may lurk\u00a0just out of view, at\u00a0the edges of our screens \u2014 delivering a truly wild ride. We can\u2019t wait to bring it to audiences,\u201d Searchlight Pictures president Matthew Greenfield said.<\/p>\n

\n\tPlans for a 2027 release will be announced at a later date. Chan Phung, Head of Acquisitions, and Ben Wilkinson, VP Business Affairs, negotiated the deal on behalf of Searchlight with Temple Hill Entertainment and UTA Independent Film Group. Protagonist Pictures handled international sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018Monitor\u2019 Writers And Directors Trace Transformation From Their Original Short To Feature Film Starring The Monster They Call \u201cA Weird Little Guy\u201d \u2013 SXSW Studio<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we made the original Monitor short film eight years ago, we never imagined it would one day find a home at Searchlight Pictures,\u201d said Black and Polly. \u201cWe\u2019re beyond thrilled to be partnering with them to bring this monster to theaters, where it truly belongs on the big screen. Monitor was always meant to be experienced with a room full of people being terrified together. We\u2019re incredibly grateful to our entire cast and crew and our partners at Temple Hill and Nostromo Pictures, who championed this project from the beginning and helped make this moment possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Searchlight Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to\u00a0Matt Black and Ryan Polly\u2019s feature debut Monitor, the horror film that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,198369,61386,409,111,139,69,198370,13530,82567],"class_list":{"0":"post-381595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-matt-black","10":"tag-monitor","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-ryan-polly","16":"tag-searchlight-pictures","17":"tag-sxsw"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}