DuBow Media Distribution (DMD) has acquired all rights in North and South America to six Asian genre films from the Los Angeles sales, financing and distribution company EST N8, Deadline reported on 12 November during the American Film Market. Two horror films from Indonesia’s MD Pictures lead the package: Kimo Stamboel’s Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino The Prequel and Awi Suryadi’s Danur: The Last Chapter. Releases will roll out through 2027.
The rights cover theatrical, home entertainment and digital. No price or minimum guarantee was disclosed. What the deal does settle is the route: one buyer for every window across two continents.
Key facts
- Buyer: DuBow Media Distribution (DMD); seller: EST N8; territories: North and South America; all rights; releases through 2027
- Lead titles: Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino The Prequel (Kimo Stamboel) and Danur: The Last Chapter (Awi Suryadi), both produced by Manoj Punjabi’s MD Pictures
- Also in the package: The Hole (Indonesia), Dear Stranger (Japan–Taiwan–US), 30 Minutes (South Korea) and The Caretakers (Philippines)
- Danur: The Last Chapter has 3,619,565 admissions, the most for any Indonesian film released in 2026, according to filmindonesia.or.id
- Janur Ireng drew 1,346,569 admissions, a little over a quarter of the 4,891,469 for its 2023 predecessor Sewu Dino
The films
Janur Ireng goes back to the origins of the curse in Sewu Dino, Stamboel’s 2023 horror film, which was Indonesia’s most-watched release that year. MD Pictures opened the prequel at home on 24 December 2025. EST N8 took worldwide rights outside Indonesia and Taiwan in February, Variety reported at the time, and the film had its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin.
Danur: The Last Chapter closes the series adapted from Risa Saraswati’s bestselling books about a woman who sees ghosts. It opened on 18 March 2026, at the start of the Eid holiday that brings Indonesia’s busiest cinema weeks, and Deadline puts the franchise’s combined admissions at 11 million.
Hanung Bramantyo’s occult thriller The Hole premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Tetsuya Mariko’s Dear Stranger, a Japan–Taiwan–US co-production shot in New York, stars Hidetoshi Nishijima of Drive My Car and Gwei Lun-Mei and screened at Busan in 2025. William Inhyuk Hyoung’s 30 Minutes is a Korean time-loop thriller, and The Caretakers is a Philippine folk horror starring Iza Calzado and Dimples Romana.
What the admissions show
Danur: The Last Chapter tops the 2026 table on filmindonesia.or.id, the national film database, though narrowly: Jangan Buang Ibu has 3,386,353 and Ghost in the Cell 3,376,865.
Janur Ireng passed 1 million admissions on its 12th day, IDN Times reported, and finished on 1,346,569, 13th among the database’s 2025 releases. That is a sound commercial result, but barely more than a quarter of Sewu Dino’s 4,891,469, which still ranks 11th among Indonesian films since 2007. Deadline’s description of both films as among the country’s biggest recent hits holds for Danur; for Janur Ireng, it rests on the franchise more than on the prequel’s own numbers.
MD Pictures’ record explains why buyers keep coming back: KKN di Desa Penari (2022) is third on the all-time list with 10,061,033 admissions, and Pabrik Gula (Sugar Factory, 2025), which EST N8 sold to Shudder, has 4,726,760.
The companies
MD Pictures, founded by Punjabi, calls itself Indonesia’s largest film studio and was the first film company listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. EST N8 joins EST Studios, founded in 2022 by Jaeson Ma and Eric Tu to represent Asian content, with N8, an independent studio based in Bangkok. Jan Paul Villanueva, its executive vice-president of acquisitions and global distribution, brokered the deal with Cathy Ni and Shams Pasha. Across the table was Jonathan DuBow, DMD’s vice-president of global sales, acquisitions and co-productions, who joined from Cinema Management Group.
DMD is run by Ken DuBow, who has spent four decades in distribution, including senior roles at MGM/UA, Disney and First Look Studios.
Other AFM deals this week include Lionsgate’s purchase of the Hungarian series Rise of the Raven and the launch of Attend, a marketplace for booking independent films into US cinemas. At home, Laut Bercerita passed 1 million admissions in 11 days this month. More on the genre is on our Indonesian horror page.
Release dates, the split between cinema and streaming, and any Latin American sub-distributors have not been announced.
Our reading
The package follows the pattern independent buyers now prefer for Asian genre films: one deal, many territories, and a proven local hit at the front to carry the rest. Danur: The Last Chapter brings the box-office proof. Janur Ireng brings the better-known name abroad, since the Sewu Dino brand and Stamboel’s earlier work already reach genre audiences, as its Fantastic Fest slot showed.
What the announcement leaves open is scale. All-rights deals of this kind tend to mean short cinema runs and a longer life on genre streaming services. The evidence to watch is the 2027 calendar: how many US screens DMD books for Janur Ireng, and whether either Indonesian title reaches cinemas in Latin America at all.
Sources
- Deadline, EST N8 closes six-title Americas deal with DuBow Media (12 November 2026)
- Variety, Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino lands worldwide deal with EST N8 (16 February 2026)
- filmindonesia.or.id, admissions for Indonesian films released in 2026
- filmindonesia.or.id, admissions for Indonesian films released in 2025
- filmindonesia.or.id, all-time admissions table for Indonesian films, 2007–2026
- IDN Times, Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino The Prequel reaches 1 million admissions on day 12
- MD Entertainment, Danur: The Last Chapter gala premiere and 18 March 2026 release
- Variety, Nishijima Hidetoshi, Gwei Lun-Mei and Mariko Tetsuya on Busan title Dear Stranger (2025)