The mᴀssively popular Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ franchise will take its next step forward in 2026 with Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn, and the production process got a major update straight from the movie’s writer/director, Sébastien Vaniček. After a long hiatus, the Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ franchise was rebooted in 2013 with Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ by Fede Álvarez (Alien: Romulus), and followed up with Lee Cronin’s Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Rise in 2023.

The franchise’s current cadence is to have Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, the originators of the Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ series, hand-pick a new director for each new movie. Each director brings their own unique style and flair to the base concept of ᴅᴇᴀᴅites wreaking havoc on the mortal world, and while there are some commonalities and Easter eggs, each new movie can comfortably be treated as a stand-alone.

The latest choice is 28-year-old writer and director Sébastien Vaniček, who put his stamp on the horror genre with the arachnophobic French creature feature Infested (тιтled Vermines in the original French) in 2023. Vaniček took to Instagram recently to provide an update on the production of Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn, noting that filming is now underway.

The movie is set to star Souheila Yacoub (Dune: Part Two), Hunter Doohan (Daredevil: Born Again), Luciane Buchanan (The Night Agent) and Tandi Wright (Pearl). While plot details are sparse with the movie’s release date still a year away, we do know that Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn is the first of two Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ movies currently in development.

What Sébastien Vaniček’s Instagram Update Means For Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn

Sam Raimi’s Hand-Picked Director Will Bring His Unique Style To The Franchise

Sébastien Vaniček proved he can creep audiences out with his feature-length directorial debut Infested, which saw a French housing complex overrun by rapidly growing and mutating spiders. He now gets the opportunity to bring his style to the ᴅᴇᴀᴅites, which have a few basic guidelines he’ll need to stick to, but otherwise he has free rein to unleash a new version of the nightmarish demons.

With the movie’s release date a year away, production should swiftly yield a marketing campaign. Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Rise was a runaway hit at the box office after a 10-year break after Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. It raked in $147 million on a budget of just $19 million, so it stands to reason that Warner Bros. will want to capitalize on the renewed interest in the franchise.

Our Take On Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn’s Upcoming Release

Vaniček Can Deliver On The Perspective He Gave The Studio

Vaniček’s vision for Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn sounds like it will be a singularly brutal examination of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅites’ chaos. As he told the French publication Konbini:

I told the studio that I wanted to make a nasty film, a film that hurts, from which you come away tested.

It sounds like Vaniček will lean harder into the gory, vicious side of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅites and less into the campy, borderline silly chaos that they’re capable of. That should bode extremely well for the movie’s prospects with critics and at the box office, as the bloody Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Rise pulled no punches to great effect, not even sparing children from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅites’ fervor.

Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Burn has all the pieces in place to continue moving the Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ franchise in the right direction. Sébastien Vaniček’s update about production beginning a year before the movie’s release date should start the hype cycle off properly among horror fans.

Source: Konbini, Sébastien Vaniček