Josh Giuliano Sets ‘Occupant’ With Blumhouse Atomic Monster Following TIFF Premiere Of Horror Debut ‘River’; Focus Features Distributing

EXCLUSIVE: Following last night’s TIFF world premiere of his buzzy debut feature River, Josh Giuliano already has his next project — another horror film with a distributor on board and major backing.

He’s set to write and direct Occupant for Blumhouse Atomic Monster, Divide/Conquer and Spooky Pictures, with Focus Features distributing. Focus holds worldwide rights to the project and has set Universal Pictures International to handle international distribution.

Plot details for Occupant are being kept under wraps.

Producers are Jason Blum for Blumhouse Atomic Monster, Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks for Divide/Conquer, and Steven Schneider for Spooky Pictures. Executive producers include Daniel Bekerman, Derek Bishé, Neil Mathieson, Allie Steffler, Sam Zimmerman, and Jeremy Kulyk. The film is set up in association with Closer Media.

Giuliano came to Blumhouse Atomic Monster through Zimmerman, who oversees the slate after joining earlier this year from Shudder. A fan of his work, he got the ball rolling on the Occupant partnership after connecting the filmmaker with Divide/Conquer’s Gilreath and Hendricks, who have a first-look deal with Blumhouse Atomic Monster on which we were first to report last December. The project reunites many of the parties behind Curry Barker’s breakout Obsession, one of the films igniting recent fervor around young digital native filmmakers. That one was also released by Focus, becoming the studio’s top-grossing film ever at over $512M worldwide.

Coming off a massive summer with Obsession and the Atomic Monster-produced Kane Parsons debut Backrooms, Blumhouse Atomic Monster is taking the same approach with Giuliano as they did with Barker; they set up Barker’s next project Anything but Ghosts at Focus after flipping for his debut feature, though they don’t have a producing credit on Giuliano’s first film as they did on Barker’s. (Spooky Pictures’ Schneider was part of the producing team, alongside Nick Antosca and Alex Hedlund.)

Premiering as part of TIFF’s Midnight Madness program, Giuliano’s River stars Jane Levy, Jessica Rothe and Max Mattern as three estranged siblings who reunite in their hometown after the death of their father. They set out to scatter his ashes at his favorite spot on a remote river, but when their boat breaks down, the trip devolves into a waking nightmare. Dane DiLiegro also stars.

An alumnus of the American Film Institute’s directing program, Giuliano’s shorts have won awards at genre festivals like Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, and FrightFest. He is represented by CAA, Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment, and Marios Rush.