Concord Originals develops “Wolf at the Door” horror feature

By Tom Whitfield

Concord Originals, BMG’s film and television arm, is developing and producing “Wolf at the Door,” a supernatural gothic horror feature set in 19th-century New Mexico.

Agustina San Martín of Argentina will direct the film. The psychological horror feature “Psyche,” starring Noah Jupe and Isabela Merced, remains in post-production. The announcement identifies Jupe with “A Quiet Place” and Merced with “The Last of Us.”

According to Concord Originals, playwright, poet and screenwriter Marisela Treviño Orta wrote the screenplay from her own play for Concord Theatricals. The play forms part of a trilogy inspired by Latinx mythology and the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

According to Concord Originals’ synopsis, the film follows a young woman close to giving birth to her first child. She foretells the return of a malevolent half-man half-wolf creature, then discovers that another predator has already entrenched itself in her hacienda. Casting is under way, but Concord has named no cast members.

Concord Originals’ Emmy-nominated executive vice president Sophia Dilley produces the film with vice president of development Charles Hopkins. The announcement associates Dilley with HBO’s “Stax: Soulsville, USA” and Hopkins with “Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It.” Quíle Miguel Gomez, Victor Zaraya and Bob Valentine serve as executive producers.

“We’re film executives within a music and theater company, and this is the first play we’ve commissioned and developed entirely in-house. I’m really excited about what this represents and how it demonstrates our team’s ability to go beyond simply packaging and building projects,” Dilley said.

“Wolf at the Door” remains a development project. Concord Originals, founded in 2021, has an eight-person team but has disclosed no budget, filming schedule, release date or cast for the film. The production’s scale and timing remain unverified.

Hopkins framed the project more broadly: “This project encapsulates exactly what Concord Originals is all about: identifying world-class IP under the BMG roof and reimagining it for screen.” The claim sets a high standard. Concord has not explained how it will measure that success or why this stage property offers more screen potential than the thousands of other rights it controls.

BMG’s broader music and theater catalog sits behind those collections, although Concord has published no count of properties ready for film. Concord Theatricals holds 18,000-plus intellectual-property assets, while BMG’s recent acquisition of RKO adds another 5,000-plus. The RKO holdings include Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion” and Fritz Lang’s “The Woman in the Window.”

Dilley said much of RKO’s rich history has not been oversaturated, which makes the library ripe for reinvention and reaching new generations. She called it particularly timely for the industry today.

She also cited RKO’s historical use of contained budgets as a model worth testing now. Concord has not identified which titles it will develop or explained how that model would work.

According to the announcement, San Martín is a protégé of BMG client Lin-Manuel Miranda in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Hopkins said the larger organization can create connections between filmmaking and the company’s music and theater businesses. He expects more shared artist connections, but the announcement gives no example of that network producing a cross-media result.

Concord Originals’ scripted slate also includes:

• “Bleeding Love,” an original movie musical featuring songs by multi-Grammy winner Ryan Tedder.
• A limited-series adaptation of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” with Skydance TV.
• Projects with Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Prods. for Disney+.

What does this change for audiences?

For audiences, the immediate change is limited: no cast, release date, production timetable or distribution plan has been announced for “Wolf at the Door.” The pitch rests on San Martín’s recent “Psyche,” Treviño Orta’s mythic premise and Concord’s proposed cross-media strategy. That strategy is a proposal, not a demonstrated result.

Dilley said one property can generate a film, stage production, album and related content. Concord aims to connect film and television with music and theater, involve artists in a series, bring playwrights into development, and build projects that can span a film, its stage version and an accompanying album.

She also described the aim as guiding copyrights through their full life cycle and keeping artists, iconic legacies and intellectual property in the zeitgeist. Concord has published no target number of cross-media projects, full release slate or revenue model, so the commercial scale of the 360-degree approach remains speculative.

The next test is practical: whether “Wolf at the Door” names its cast, sets a production timetable and announces a release date. If it does, Concord will have advanced its first wholly in-house stage commission toward a screen release; until then, the catalog numbers and cross-media plan describe capacity rather than completed work.