Two years after Strange Darling positioned JT Mollner as one of American genre cinema’s sharpest voices, his next film has a date. Sony Pictures has set June 4, 2027 for Skeletons, Mollner’s creature horror produced by J.J. Abrams. Principal photography began in June 2026.
The film adapts Philip Fracassi’s short story “Fail-Safe.” The plot centers on a young boy who slowly discovers that his mother is secured in a cage every night. Brian Duffield wrote the original screenplay; Mollner revised it. The cast includes Brie Larson, John Goodman, Kyle Gallner, Willa Fitzgerald, Ione Skye, Daithí Ó Haragáin, and Keith Carradine.
Sony acquired the project at the European Film Market in a bidding war against Paramount, Warner Bros., and Neon, in a deal reported at approximately $25 million for domestic rights, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The competition reflected the weight of the package: a filmmaker with one critically acclaimed indie behind him, a producer with franchise gravity, and a lead actor with Oscar credibility.
Mollner shot Strange Darling on 16mm in a shuffled chronology that earned comparisons to Tarantino and Verhoeven. The gamble worked: the film became a critical reference point for a certain kind of formally ambitious American thriller. Skeletons is the other side of that equation. Summer 2027. Sony. Mainstream infrastructure, applied to something weirder than the release date suggests.
