Paramount Pictures has renewed its exclusive, multiyear production deal with Walter Hamada and his 18Hz Productions.
Under the deal, Hamada, a former DC Films head, will continue to focus on the genre pic with low- to mid-size budgets for theatrical and streaming. His producing credits include The Conjuring franchiseand The Batman.
In 2023, Hamada started out in producing after working in the studio trenches for Warner Bros. and New Line, where he oversaw the making of movies such as It and Aquaman. He signed an initial exclusive, multiyear production deal at the time with Paramount to spearhead the studio’s mainstream horror movies.
The goal was to release several low- to mid-budget films annually across theatrical and streaming.
Upcoming 18Hz productions include Primate, directed by Johannes Roberts and set for a Jan. 9, 2026 release. The genre pic stars Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander and Troy Kotsur and centers on a group of friends on a tropical vacation that turns into a terrifying and primal tale of horror and survival.
The 18Hz slate includes an untitled horror film from director André Ovredal and starring Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell and Melissa Leo and has a script written by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess; and director Caye Casas’s Familiar.
18Hz is also at work on Suffer Little Children, from director and writer Rodrigue Huart and a reimagining of the 1976 Spanish horror film Who Can Kill a Child? Plot details are under wraps, but the original film followed a couple who travels to a remote island for a vacation, only to realize all the adults on the island have been killed.
