How many hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars have characters like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Ghostface made for studios through movies, TV, and merchandise over the years? Could you imagine owning just a bit of that? Per THR, Eli Roth wants to give fans the chance to own a piece of a potential new horror empire. Roth has launched The Horror Section, a new media company that plans to produce all things horror, including movies, TV shows, games, podcasts, and more.
What’s exciting about this is that up to a 10 percent stake in the company will be available for fans. They’ll be able to share in potential profits and ownership of horror characters and franchises. They’ll also enjoy first looks at upcoming projects and other perks, such as being “killed” on camera in one of the movies. Together with Media Capital Technologies, The Horror Section has partnered with investing platform Republic to give accredited and non-accredited investors worldwide the chance to get involved. It all launched on March 21st at HorrorSectionStudios.com.
“I’ve done this very successfully and everything that I’ve done for this zone has made a lot of money for a lot of people,” Roth told THR. “Now it’s time to put it all under one umbrella, build a label, but really do that go-for-the-throat horror that I love, that the fans love from me.“
Roth used Thanksgiving as an example of the type of movie that The Horror Section would produce but added that it would be “the tamest type of movie that I would do for this new company” and that “everything else is going to go further than that.“
The massive success of the Terrifier franchise (particularly the third movie) showed Roth that you don’t need to go through the studio system to get a mainstream release for truly unrated horror. “What Terrifier 3 showed me is that the unrated horror is truly mainstream theatrical in a way that it hasn’t been before,” Roth explained. “I had arguments on certain movies – that’s too much, you should cut that, audiences won’t accept that. Terrifier threw all that out the window.” The Horror Section has partnered with Iconic Events, the theatrical distribution company behind Terrifier 3, to ensure its films get a proper release.
The potential is rather thrilling. Horror fans are among the most passionate of any fandom, so get a bunch of them financially involved, and you’ve got an invested (literally) army ready to market your project. Could The Horror Section give us the next Leatherface or Art the Clown? Time will tell, but I wish them the best of luck!
