The found footage genre just got a terrifying update from the people who invented it. Film Bridge International has grabbed the sales rights for The Influencer Project, a new thriller from Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale, the architects behind The Blair Witch Project. This isn't just another shaky-cam exercise; it is a 100-minute descent into digital paranoia based on the actual stalking events suffered by star Chiara King.
FROM THE WOODS TO THE WEB
Sánchez and Hale are pivoting hard from the supernatural dread of the Black Hills to the cold reality of a DM slide. The duo executive produced this Danish co-production between Hades Films and Point Neuf, bringing their specific brand of immersive terror to a story set in Copenhagen. They are betting that the modern horror world has shifted. As they stated in their announcement, fear is no longer a supernatural force in the woods — it is the constant presence of social media and the strangers who access your life. It is a sharp evolution for the filmmakers, moving from folklore to a very modern kind of monster.
THE MARKETING GAMBLE
The rollout strategy here is as bold as the premise. The producers are explicitly looking to replicate the theatrical success Markiplier found with Iron Lung, leveraging King's massive social media following to drive butts into seats. With over 1 million followers on Instagram, King isn't just the lead; she is the marketing engine. Variance has already locked in a U.S. Theatrical release for this September, suggesting the studio believes this influencer-to-box-office pipeline is the future of indie distribution. It is a high-stakes test of whether online clout converts to ticket sales for a thriller.
BEHIND THE LENS
While the Blair Witch legends are handling production, the directorial reins belong to Mike Nybroe. He is directing and producing King, who plays a version of herself named Chiara, in this post-production feature. The supporting production team includes Alex Hertzberg and Ahmet Zappa, who serves as a producer. The film aims to blur the lines between King's real-life beauty and fashion persona and the fiction on screen, asking what happens when the curated life becomes a hunting ground.
THE VERDICT
Found footage lives or dies by the commitment to the bit, and basing the script on King's actual trauma adds a layer of intensity that fiction rarely achieves. If Nybroe can capture the claustrophobia of being watched by the entire world, this could be the wake-up call the genre needs. The question isn't whether the scares work, but whether the audience can handle the reality behind them.