A fire lookout alone at a remote forest outpost finds a damaged sheet of paper listing rules that promise to keep him safe through the night. That is the premise of Look Out, the illustrated horror novella Ben Leonberg will adapt as his follow-up to Good Boy.
Leonberg directs and writes the script with Alex Cannon, his Good Boy co-writer, for Republic Pictures. Variety broke the news on Friday.
AWA and Vertigo Built the Book to Be Adapted
Dan Baillie wrote Look Out, and Tim Bradstreet, whose comics work includes The Punisher and Hellblazer, painted the full-color illustrations that run through it. AWA Studios and Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment published it in May 2025 as the debut title in Future of Fear, a partnership the two companies set up to build horror properties on the page and co-produce the film and television versions. Roy Lee and Andrew Childs produce for Vertigo, with Zach Studin producing for AWA.
In the book, Oscar is recovering from a divorce when he takes the lookout job, and he reads the sheet of rules as a prank by the other lookouts. The first night tells him otherwise.
Leonberg Has Two More Films Already Moving
Ankle Snatcher, an adaptation of a Grady Hendrix short story that Leonberg is writing with Cannon, is set up at Sony. Follow Mode, an original serial killer thriller he wrote and directed for Temple Hill, is in post-production. Good Boy, which iHorror reviewed last year, premiered at SXSW in 2025 and reached theaters that October through IFC Films, with Larry Fessenden and Shane Jensen in the human cast and the family dog, Indy, in the lead.
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