Paramount has locked in a release date for one of the more unexpected remakes on its slate. Parker Finn’s “Possession,” a new take on Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 cult classic, opens in theaters June 11, 2027, the studio confirmed this week, with cast details also coming into focus, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It’s a curious pick for a studio tentpole. The original “Possession” was never a commercial hit — it built its reputation over decades as an unsettling, hard-to-categorize arthouse film, one that earned Isabelle Adjani the Best Actress prize at Cannes for a performance still considered one of the most extreme ever put on screen. Positioning the remake as a summer release rather than tucking it into an October horror slot marks a real shift in how the studio is betting on it, as IndieWire notes.
Callum Turner and Margaret Qualley step into the roles originated by Sam Neill and Adjani, playing Mark and Anna, a married couple in Cold War-era West Berlin whose relationship collapses into something violent and inexplicable, per CBR. Finn, who wrote and directed both “Smile” films, is again working from his own script. Diego Calva, Madeline Brewer, Emory Cohen, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Paul Dano round out the cast, and Robert Pattinson produces alongside Finn, Jonathan Fass, Roy Lee and Andrew Childs, according to Deadline.
Adjani, notably, has already given the project her blessing — including Qualley’s casting specifically — a detail that’s gone some way toward quieting skeptics who assumed she’d want no part of a remake so tied to her own performance, Bloody Disgusting reports.
Not everyone’s convinced, though. Reaction within horror circles has stayed lukewarm since the project was first announced, with plenty of fans still asking why a film this singular needed remaking in the first place, according to Fangoria. Whether that skepticism holds once the film actually screens is a separate question. Finn’s “Smile” opened to similarly mixed pre-release chatter and turned into a genuine hit.
June 11 also lands “Possession” in a crowded weekend — it opens the same day as Universal’s live-action “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” a week after Brie Larson’s “Skeletons” faces off with Lionsgate’s “John Rambo,” and a week before Sony’s animated “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” per Deadline’s release calendar.
The 1981 original is currently streaming on AMC+, where it holds an 87% critics’ score and a 76% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Screen Rant — numbers that suggest whatever cult following it built over 45 years has settled into something closer to consensus. Whether Finn’s version earns the same is, for now, a wait until next June.
