Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems has acquired “Mime,” a supernatural horror package starring John David Washington and directed by Sierra Leonean-American filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu.
Screen Gems secured the project after competing bids from Amazon MGM Studios and Searchlight Pictures, according to Deadline.
The story takes place in a New York City apartment complex during a heat-wave blackout.
Stephen Herman wrote the screenplay from his original idea. The film is in active development, with production planned for spring 2027.
Matt Tolmach and Camilla Grove will produce alongside filmmaker Scott Derrickson under his Crooked Highway company.
“Mime” joins several studio horror projects to which Jusu has been attached since “Nanny,” her feature debut. They include a feature-length expansion of her 2019 vampire short “Suicide by Sunlight” for Universal Pictures and Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions; a continuation of George A. Romero’s 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead” for Amazon MGM Studios; and a new film set in the world of David Cronenberg’s 1986 body-horror film “The Fly” for 20th Century Studios.
Jusu wrote and directed the supernatural horror “Nanny,” which premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize. Anna Diop starred as a Senegalese immigrant caring for the daughter of a wealthy New York family while preparing for her son to join her from Senegal.