Occupant: Barbarian director Zach Cregger producing haunted house movie for New Line Cinema

Barbarian (watch it HERE) writer/director Zach Cregger’s winning streak continues. Made on a budget of $4.5 million, Barbarian earned more than $40 million at the domestic box office when it was released by 20th Century Studios last year – a big enough success story that New Line Cinema forked over $38 million to pick up Cregger’s mysterious new horror project, Weapons. (Beating out Jordan Peele and Universal in the bidding war.) New Line then signed a first look deal with BoulderLight Pictures, the production company behind Barbarian. And as part of this deal, they put a sci-fi thriller called Companion on the fast track to production, with Cregger producing alongside BoulderLight and Vertigo’s Roy Lee. Now The Hollywood Reporter has learned that New Line Cinema has won another bidding war, this time picking up the haunted house project Occupant from new writer Victor Sweetser… and Cregger is going to be producing the Occupant film alongside Roy Lee and Scott Glassgold, who originated and developed the project.

Paramount, Lionsgate, and Amazon were all bidding against New Line Cinema in this auction. Within thirty-six hours of the project (which is built on a 39-page short story by Sweetser) becoming available, bids grew from a $25,000 option to a final purchase price that’s in the high mid-six figures. 

According to The Hollywood Repoter, Occupant is described as a reverse haunted house story. Instead of a family moving into an abode, here a historical house is moved for preservation purposes into a neighborhood. Scares ensue.

New Line Cinema’s president and CCO, Richard Brener, had this to say about Cregger and the Occupant deal: “If I just saw Barbarian, it would be enough for me to bet on Zach having a long and impressive career. But after reading Weapons and discussing Companion and Occupant with him, it’s a virtual lock. When you add how collaborative and personable he is on top of that, well, I hope he is part of the New Line family as long as possible.“

As The Hollywood Reporter notes, before getting into the horror business Cregger was in the comedy game as a co-founder of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know and co-directed a little-seen 2009 movie titled Miss March. He also starred in a comedy titled Wrecked that aired on TBS for three seasons. Now he has three genre projects in the works at New Line Cinema, and will be receiving $10 million to write, direct, and produce Weapons.

What do you think of the horror career Cregger is quickly building, and how does Occupant sound to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below. I enjoyed Barbarian and Occupant sounds interesting to me, so I look forward to seeing how it’s going to turn out.