Blumhouse CEO tells fans to "have faith" after hiring lesser-known director

Blumhouse is moving forward with its Dead by Daylight movie, led by Icelandic filmmaker Thordur Palsson. The announcement prompted many Twitter replies of "Who?", and CEO Jason Blum responded: "No one had heard of Emma before Five Nights at Freddy's, and that worked out pretty well. Have faith, my friends."

Palsson has made a name for himself in Nordic cinema. He is best known for his Netflix detective series The Valhalla Murders, which sits at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, and his 2025 monster movie The Damned, which scored 90%.

The film will be based on the Dead by Daylight video game franchise, where four survivors — Dwight, Meg, Claudette and Jake — must complete tasks and escape before a fifth player, the killer, picks them off and feeds them to The Entity. No cast has been announced; filming is said to start sometime in 2027, and Crawl scribe Alexandre Aja and The Conjuring 2's David Leslie Johnston-McGoldrick are penning the script. The movie does not yet have a release date.

Iceland

blumhouse, dead-by-daylight, thordur palsson, jason blum, valhalla murders, the damned, alexandre aja, johnston-mcgoldrick, netflix, rotten tomatoes