Scary Movie (aka Scary Movie 6) will begin streaming September 3 on Paramount+. That marks a 91-day window between theatrical and streaming for the Paramount/Miramax pic.

The latest reboot, which brought the Wayans Brothers back together, brought in over $230 million at the worldwide box office following its release. The pic before P&A spend, cost $30M. Twenty-six years after launching, the franchise crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office in June.

Scary Movie 6, which comes 13 years since Scary Movie 5 and 26 years since the original film, is the first pure R-rated comedy (not a hybrid action or superhero genre movie) to cross $100M since 2017’s Girls Trip. Scary Movie opened to $105.5M worldwide, repping a franchise record.

Written by Marlon & Shawn & Craig & Keenan Ivory Wayans along with Rick Alvarez and directed by Michael Tiddes, the film saw the return of four key characters – Shorty (Marlon Wayans), Ray (Shawn Wayans), Brenda (Regina Hall), and Cindy (Anna Faris).

The pic also features familiar faces Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri and Chris Elliott, and newcomers including Kenan Thompson, Kim Wayans, Damon Wayans Jr., Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Cameron Scott Roberts, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, Gregg Wayans, Benny Zielke and Ruby Snowber.

Scary Movie is based on characters created by Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Producers include Rick Alvarez, p.g.a., Craig Wayans, Marlon Wayans, p.g.a., Shawn Wayans and Keenen Ivory Wayans. Executive Producers including Jonathan Glickman, Thom Zadra, Alexandra Loewy, Marc Weinstock, Marsha L. Swinton and Neil H. Mortiz.

EXCLUSIVE: Marissa Jo Cerar (Black Cake) is developing the E.L. Westbury novel Drowning in Paper Flowers for TV, with Jenna Bush Hager and Ben Spector of Thousand Voices, as well as Universal Global Television.

The recently re-released novel follows Ruby Powell, a middle-aged housewife living in Dallas, who outwardly appears perfect—wealthy, beautiful, and respected in her community. However, the truth reveals a woman struggling with dissatisfaction in her marriage, a sense of inadequacy as a mother, and an addiction to anti-anxiety medication due to recurring nightmares. Her teenage daughter resents her, and her 6-year-old son suffers from PTSD after a past kidnapping. When Ruby is no longer able to separate the truth from the lies of her carefully created facade, she faces a nightmare involving an affair, a dead body, and a lifelong secret.

“I’m so excited to collaborate with this incredible team,” shared Cerar. “Meeting Ms. Westbury was like catching up with an old friend, and I can’t wait to bring Ruby and Ivy to the screen in a killer, female-forward thriller that is, somewhat shockingly, deeply personal to me.”

Added Bush Hager, “We are thrilled to partner with UGT to adapt Drowning in Paper Flowers. Erika wrote a page-turning thriller, set in my home state of Texas, with shocking twists and characters who leap off the page. Ben and I have been dying to work with Marissa Jo ever since she adapted one of my favorite books, Black Cake, and are so thrilled that MJ had her own personal connection to the material.”

Westbury is the author of Drowning in Paper Flowers, her breakout novel and traditional publishing debut. Originally self-published in December 2024, the domestic thriller gained a following, building a readership before sparking a highly competitive auction and ultimately selling to Atria Books in a major seven-figure deal in North America. UK and Commonwealth rights have sold to Orion (Hachette UK), with translation rights acquired in six languages to date. Atria and Orion just launched Drowning in Paper Flowers on August 11. Westbury is represented by WME. 

Cerar began her career as a writer-producer on shows such as Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, Fox’s Shots Fired, and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. She is an NAACP Image Award and two-time Humanitas Prize-winning writer for the two series she created and served as showrunner: ABC’s Women Of The Movement and most recently, Hulu’s Black Cake, her adaptation of Charmaine Wilkerson’s best-selling novel. Cerar has projects in development at Hulu, UTV, and Paramount TV. She is repped by CAA, Heroes and Villains Entertainment, and Myman Greenspan.

Bush Hager and Thousand Voices, who are represented by UTA, have a first-look deal with Universal Studio Group.

Vertical video will generate $150B this year – and that’s excluding China, the country where it originated.

Owl & Co’s inaugural Vertical Economy Report revealed the stat, which is up 42% on the figure the previous year and highlights how quickly microdrama has taken hold as a major content vertical. So much so, in fact, Hernan Lopez‘s Owl & Co is dubbing it “the third audiovisual language.”

The report claims to be the first that sizes vertical video as a whole rather than a collection of apps, and that other market estimates have tracked only microdrama, a subset it says it worth roughly $4B of the overall total.

The Vertical Economy Report includes figures count advertising, consumer and shopping take-rate revenue across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts and vertical-native apps, including all microdrama apps and live shopping platform Whatnot, but not brand deals paid direct to creators and GMV (gross merchanize value) booked by sellers.

As such, the findings show Meta, ByteDance and YouTube generate 94% of vertical video revenue outside of China, with advertising the model scaled business model at $131B, ahead of consumer revenue and shopping fees.

“Vertical is no longer optional,” said Hernan Lopez, founder of Owl & Co, who was previously founder of Wondery and CEO of Fox International Channels. “As multiple audience cohorts shift time spent and frequency to vertical, revenue, talent and IP are following.”

The report also shows microdrama is “disrupting itself.” Despite the sector growing from $3B in 2025 to a projected $4B this year, “growth is shifting from in-app purchases to advertising and subscriptions including web-based.” Free ad-supported apps went from 15% of time spent to 83% in five quarters, posing questions for the business model.

Other findings back up the notion that AI is widely used in microdrama production, which has driven up the number of releases. Across the seven leading paid-for apps, series releases rose “more than fivefold” since the second quarter of this year. However, average time spent per new title dropped.

The report draws on Owl & Co’s Vertical Index, which tracks more than 37,000 titles across 14 app libraries and updates daily.