Syfy Insider Exclusive

Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!

Sign Up For Free to View
SYFY WIRE WIRE Buzz

WIRE Buzz: Robert Patrick gets murderous in trailer for Tone-Deaf. Plus: Creepshow updates

By Josh Weiss
Robert Patrick Tone-Deaf

Come one, come all! We've got a new WIRE Buzz, and best of all, it's absolutely free of charge. Step right up and get updates on the world of genre. Don't be shy!

A Terminator 2 alum is now a slasher villain, a celebrated director is about to switch things up with his career, and a highly anticipated horror anthology will feature two hitmaking musicians.


He played a shapeshifting Terminator, and now he's playing a dude who doesn't want to die without killing a few folks. You know, just a common bucket-list item.

Anyway, Robert Patrick, alongside Amanda Crew (The Age of Adaline), headlines Tone-Deaf, an upcoming slasher horror-comedy from director Richard Bates Jr.

Here's the first trailer, which is all kinds of trippy.

Also written by Bates (Trash Fire), Tone-Deaf follows Olive (Crew), who heads off to a nice little Airbnb for the weekend after losing her job. Little does she know that the home's owner, Harvey (Patrick), is about to embark on a murderous rampage that involves spilling her blood.

"I was watching one of these slasher films with Jason," Bates told SYFY Fangrrls in April. "Obviously, an iconic bad guy. So, the idea was to make a villain for the times."

Kim Delaney, AnnaLynne McCord, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Hayley Marie Norman, and Ray Wise make up the rest of the cast.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the flick, which will be distributed by Saban Films, hits theaters and On Demand Aug. 23.


After a long career in the live-action cinematic space, Ron Howard (Solo: A Star Wars Story) is finally tackling an animated project. Based on a report from Variety, the award-winning director and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment will helm a big-screen adaptation of Florence Parry Heide and Edward Gorey's The Shrinking of Treehorn.

The 1971 children's book tells the story of a boy who starts to shrink after playing a strange board game, and before you ask, the answer is no — the game is not called Jumanji. Sadly, no one in the boy's life, from his parents to his friends, seems to mind that he's starting to lose height. He's laughed at and is even called to the principal's office. The protagonist must find a way to cure himself, and he does, but that solution ends up turning him ... green.

The Shrinking of Treehorn

Paramount will release the film, which is being made via a partnership with Animal Logic, the Australian animated/visual effects studio that helped bring the world Happy Feet and The Lego Movie.

Rob Lieber (known for adapting young-reader books like Peter Rabbit and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) is writing the screenplay.

“I’ve long had this passionate point of view that Ron Howard should make a tentpole animated movie. That’s how this started,” said Zareh Nalbandian, Animal Logic’s entertainment CEO, in a statement published by Variety.

Imagine and Animal Logic are also working on Rainbow Serpent, a film about the creation of the world inspired by Australian aboriginal culture; Zero, an Inside Out-esque project that explores the nexus of family and technology; and Muttnik, a half-animation, half-live-action tale of a dog launched into space by the Russians.


Shudder's reboot of iconic horror anthology Creepshow will feature the musical likes of Big Boi and Kid Cudi in Season 1 of the series, which arrives later this year, the network has announced.

Big Boi (formerly a member of Outkast) and rapper Cudi are both Grammy winners and will be joined on the series by Jeffrey Combs (Star Trek), Bruce Davison (X-Men), and DJ Qualls (The Man in the High Castle).

Kudi and Combs are set to appear in "Bad Wolf Down" (about a group of American soldiers in World War II who are trapped behind enemy lines); Davison in "Night of the Paw" (about a lonely mortician); Big Boi in "The Man in the Suitcase" (about a traveling college student who discovers a man trapped inside a suitcase); and Qualls in "The Finger" (about a forlorn man who finds a severed, not-quite-human appendage on the street).

Creepshow began in 1982 with a movie written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero. A sequel, based on published stories of King's, was released in 1987. A threequel, which had no involvement from King or Romero (who passed away in the summer of 2017), arrived on home video in 2007.

Showrun by The Walking Dead vet Greg Nicotero (he actually worked for the makeup department on Creepshow II), the newly revived anthology will adapt certain episodes from stories written by King and his son, Joe Hill.

Adrienne Barbeau, Giancarlo Esposito, David Arquette, Tobin Bell, Tricia Helfer, and Dana Gould have already been confirmed as part of the cast.