Good Boy Director Ben Leonberg Set to Helm Horror Adaptation Look Out
Ben Leonberg will direct the film adaptation of Look Out for Republic Pictures, Variety reported on Friday, 6 November 2026. The director first drew attention with Good Boy, a horror film whose only lead is a dog.
Leonberg will also co-write the adaptation with Alex Cannon, who previously worked with him on Good Boy. A writer's job is to turn a book or other source into a screenplay, the blueprint the actors and crew work from.
The source is a horror novella, a short novel, from Artists Writers and Artisans (AWA) and Vertigo Entertainment. Dan Baillie wrote it, and Tim Bradstreet provided the artwork. It came out in May 2025 as the first title in a partnership between Vertigo and AWA called "Future of Fear."
The story follows Oscar. After a divorce, he takes a job as a fire lookout at a remote forest outpost. There he finds a paper listing rules for staying safe.
Roy Lee and Andrew Childs will produce the film for Vertigo Entertainment. Zach Studin will produce for AWA.
Leonberg's path to this project began at SXSW 2025, the festival in Austin, Texas, which ran from 7 to 15 March that year. Good Boy made its feature debut there. Leonberg's family dog, Indy, plays the film's sole protagonist. IFC Films and Shudder acquired the film.
Leonberg has other work in progress. Variety reports that he is developing Ankle Snatcher for Sony Pictures, an adaptation of a short story by Grady Hendrix, again with Cannon. He also wrote and directed Follow Mode, a horror feature produced by Temple Hill, which is in post-production, the stage where editing, sound and visual effects are finished.
No start date or release date for Look Out has been announced. For now, the news is simple: a director who made a film with a dog is taking on a story about a lonely lookout and a set of rules nobody should ignore.
