The deal
New Line Cinema has won a competitive bid for English-language remake rights to Paolo Strippoli’s psychological horror thriller The Spiral, Italy’s entry for the International Film Oscar this year. The package also hands the studio distribution of the finished Italian-language film in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
New Line plans a limited U.S. theatrical release before the end of the year, timing the subtitled original for awards season while the remake is developed. Strippoli wrote and directed the film, which stars Jasmine Trinca as a mother drawn into a Faustian pact by a stranger played by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. It opened in Italian cinemas on October 4 and has grossed about $4 million locally.
Why the awards trail matters for a remake
The film’s festival run is the commercial spine of this deal. The Spiral premiered in competition at Venice and won the Young Cinema Award and the Green Drop Award. At Toronto it played Midnight Madness and finished first runner-up for the People’s Choice audience prize. Sitges added Best Actress for Trinca and the Silver Méliès for Best Film, with further selections at Busan, Chicago and Thessaloniki.
- Venice: Young Cinema Award and Green Drop Award
- Toronto: first runner-up, People’s Choice Midnight Madness
- Sitges: Best Actress (Trinca) and Silver Méliès Best Film
For buyers, a festival shelf like this functions as de-risking. A psychological horror arrives in a boardroom with audience and jury validation already attached, which makes the case for an English-language retelling easier than an unproven spec.
A bundle, not just an option
The structure is worth noting: remake rights and finished-film distribution are being sold together. That lets New Line test how a subtitled horror travels in nine markets before committing to the English version’s budget and casting. Le Pacte, which handles international sales, brokered the deal for producers Marina Marzotto and Mattia Oddone of Rome-based Propaganda, with Rai Cinema and co-producers Kazak Productions in France, Tarantula in Belgium and Dinamo Film in Italy.
The film is Strippoli’s fourth feature, following A Classic Horror Story (2021), Flowing (2022) and The Holy Boy (2025).
What to watch
The year-end limited run is now the signal. If the subtitled original holds screens in a packed awards corridor, momentum builds for the remake; if it stalls, New Line still controls the finished film across a wide footprint. Either way, a roughly $4 million Italian theatrical performance is now attached to a Hollywood option — a useful reminder for media planners that genre plus an Oscar submission label can move an acquisition faster than either element alone.
Foreign-language horror has long travelled through festival circuits before being retold in English, because the premise is the asset and the original’s run is the proof. What has changed is the bundle: platforms and studios now want completed-film rights in the same negotiation, so a subtitled release can generate data while the remake works through development.
Source: Deadline
