Sony's Screen Gems has outbid Amazon and Searchlight Pictures to acquire Mime, a supernatural horror package starring John David Washington with Nikyatu Jusu directing, according to Deadline.

No official logline has been released, but the film is reported to be set in a New York City apartment complex during a heat-wave blackout. Stephen Herman wrote the screenplay, based on his original idea.

The producer roster carries weight. Matt Tolmach, Scott Derrickson through his Crooked Highway banner, and Camila Grove all produce, with Washington also producing. The project falls under a first-look deal that Screen Gems has with Derrickson — an arrangement where the filmmaker brings projects to the studio before shopping them elsewhere.

Jusu earned the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Nanny, the first horror film to take the festival's top honour. That film starred Anna Diop as a Senegalese immigrant nanny in New York City who confronts a concealed truth while caring for an Upper East Side family's child. Blumhouse and Amazon won the global rights to Nanny for $7 million out of Sundance 2022.

Washington has built a résumé that stretches from BlacKkKlansman to Tenet and The Creator, moving between prestige drama and large-scale genre. Pairing him with Jusu, a director whose Sundance win signalled horror's arrival in the festival's top tier, gives Screen Gems a package that drew three bidders for good reason.

Derrickson's involvement connects the project to a filmmaker with proven commercial horror credentials — Sinister, The Black Phone — and his first-look deal is the mechanism that brought Mime to Screen Gems rather than to a streaming buyer. That Amazon and Searchlight both pursued the package signals how competitive horror acquisitions have become, particularly when a name director and a marketable lead are attached before a camera rolls.

Mime is in active development. No production start or release date has been announced.