BOOM!
Blumhouse is bringing one of comics’ most popular horror properties to the big screen.
The company announced that it has secured film rights to “Something Is Killing the Children,” publisher BOOM! Studios’ breakout hit, for a live-action feature and an adult animated series. The switch places the powerhouse genre brand in charge of shepherding James Tynion IV and Werther Dell’Edera’s bone-chilling story from cult favorite to mainstream juggernaut.
The comic follows Erica Slaughter, a hair-trigger monster hunter who has the advantage of seeing the creatures that adults can’t. Her arrival in the sleepy Midwest town of Archer’s Peak, which is experiencing the mysterious disappearance of children, sparks a grisly manhunt that marries folk horror with intimate character stakes. Since the series debuted in 2019, it has sold over five million copies around the world, said an announcement from the publisher, and won multiple Eisner Awards that have established Tynion IV as one of the genre’s leading creative figures.
Blumhouse’s plan for page-to-screen adaptation strategy
Industry sources have reported that Blumhouse’s adaptation approach is two-fold: a theatrical, live-action film and an adult animated series. Creator James Tynion IV is due to shuttle over to direct the television component, with Dell’Edera attached as a co-executive producer — a creative baton-pass rare enough to note. That continuity page-to-screen implies that the adaptation might retain the comic’s lacerating tone, sly humor, and visual language built from shadows, negative space, and abrupt violence.
Blumhouse has not revealed distributors, filmmakers for the feature, or a release time frame. The studio’s playbook tends to emphasize finding transportive storytelling solutions within tight budgets and to be concept-forward rather than spectacle-crazy; that approach seems like a particularly good fit for a property whose effectiveness primarily depends on dread, practical atmosphere, and creature reveals that hit hard when they do.
Why the comic has industry heat and strong market demand
“Something Is Killing the Children” was literally tailor-made for serialization, not to mention cross-format storytelling. Its mythology — of a shadowy order of monster hunters that enforce a ruthless code — naturally scales beyond Archer’s Peak, an approach already piloted in the spinoff House of Slaughter. Trade sources, like ICv2, have noted the franchise’s large orders and prolonged reprint cycles, with demand sticking to a rarely seen creator-owned horror level.
The Hollywood Reporter described a bidding process that had included Lionsgate and Netflix before Blumhouse emerged the victor. Netflix had been working on the project at various stages, first with The Haunting of Hill House’s Mike Flanagan and producer Tracy Major previously attached, and later with Dark’s Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, before the streamer ultimately pulled out late in 2024. That extended runway testifies to how much in demand the IP has been as potential suitors awaited the right creative and business match.
History points to commercial upside for horror adaptations
Blumhouse has demonstrated recently that they have real box office and franchise potential with adaptations. On a small budget, The Black Phone, adapted from the Joe Hill short story, raised over $160 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo and studio data. Five Nights at Freddy’s ascended even further, with about $297 million in global receipts despite a simultaneous streaming release, becoming the studio’s biggest box office hit. Those results demonstrate two things crucially: known-but-niche IP can travel, and horror audiences will turn out for original premises with mythologies they can follow across entries.
The adult animation lane is strategic for the same reason. Series like Invincible and Castlevania have demonstrated that there’s room for complex arcs, graphic violence, and seasonal eventization to coexist with mature animation fairly seamlessly without watering down tonal quality. For Erica Slaughter’s monster hunts — which blend the terror felt by children with the moral compromises of those vowed to protect them — animation can turn Dell’Edera’s stark, expressionistic paneling into kinetic motion while preserving its jagged edges.
What to look for as development begins on the project
It all comes down to the casting that you make with Erica Slaughter. The character’s charm rests on accuracy and self-control — a monster hunter who almost never uses precious words. A naturalistic Wisconsin setting and a cast of children require a steady directorial hand, and the creature design needs to balance primal silhouette against tactile terror. Look for continual debate about how much to show on screen and how much to simply suggest, a signature of the comic’s scares.
Crucial business questions remain unanswered: who will write and direct the feature, where projects will land for distribution, how the film and series are expected to interlock. But with the creators and a studio that have turned lean horror into outsized hits at play, the odds are in favor of it being translated with faithfulness and growing into a sturdy, multi-format horror universe.
