According to Deadline, Scarlet Stallone's SRYN Productions has optioned the Fears To Fathom horror video game franchise for film and television, teaming up with the creator who goes by Rayll. The game is an anthology of standalone psychological horror entries inspired by real-life experiences, with no supernatural creatures and no elaborate mythology, and it launched in 2021.
The numbers that sold the option are the numbers of an indie game that quietly became a hit. The first entry, a house you should not be in, has 2.3 million downloads on Steam, and the later paid installments have sold 1.25 million copies between them. That is not a franchise with a global audience. It is a franchise with a specific one: people who buy one developer's house-horror games and play them in order. SRYN Productions, the company behind her slate of film and television projects (she plays Spencer on Tulsa King), is now the reason that audience gets a press release.
The quotes are the real story. "I've been playing video games since before I could read, and the first time I played Fears to Fathom, I was hooked. I've played every one since," Stallone says in the release, and then, "I love working with Rayll; we're a great team." The second sentence is doing the heaviest lifting, because Rayll and Stallone are both represented by Independent Artist Group. The team is a roster, the option is an in-house deal, and the press release is the product.
The format is the smart part. No ghosts, no mythology, just people in bad houses, told in standalone episodes, each one following a different protagonist. That is a streaming anthology with the pilot already written and the audience already measured. The pipeline is short and worth memorizing: an indie horror game with 2.3 million downloads, a celebrity LLC with the distribution, one agency on both sides, and a film and television option announced on a Friday. The game's title is Fears To Fathom. The only fear left to fathom is who is writing the check, and the release already answers it.
YOUR TURN: The games are real experiences in bad houses. If the series gets made, which entry gets the pilot, and who stays in the house for the finale?
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