Academy Award nominee Maggie Gyllenhaalscreened her new short movie, Flesh Impact, at the Busan Film Festival, where she also talked about her upcoming projects. The short, starring Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn and Dakota Johnson, was commissioned by the Korean luxury car brand Genesis to commemorate Marilyn Monroe‘s 100th birthday. In it, Burstyn and Johnson play the cinematic icon at different stages in her life, with Emmy nominees Peter SarsgaardandSepideh Moafi also appearing.
At the Busan Film Festival’s press conference, Gyllenhaal also talked about her upcoming projects, revealing she has begun to write them and is “in that very exciting place” of not knowing exactly what they will be. During the press conference for Flesh Impact at the Busan Film Festival, Gyllenhaal discussed both her upcoming movies and the creative approach she takes as a writer:
“(I)… kind of have two budding ideas that I’ve started to, begin to write. And I don’t know what they’re about. I mean, I generally do. But I find as I work — and this is true when I was an actress, it’s even true with every film I’ve made as a director — that what they’re really about reveals itself to me as I get a little deeper into it. You know, you start thinking, “Oh, I’m making a monster movie” or whatever it is, and then you think, “Oh, this is why this came to me, this is what I need to learn right now, and why I’m making this at this moment.” And those two projects, those new ones, I’m open and I’m that very exciting place where I’m kinda like, “What is this gonna ultimately be about?” And it feels good.”
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Maggie Gyllenhaal Is All In on Her New Facet as a Director
Currently, Gyllenhaal is fully focused on her directorial career, and she hit a new high with her 2026 slate. In February, she debuted The Bride!, a bold reimagining of the 1935 James Whale movie starring Academy Award winners Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office bomb, although it did cement Gyllenhaal as one of the most original and daring auteurs working right now. With Flesh Impact, the actress turned writer and director shows a new side of her creative mind with a phantasmagoria that is both a love letter to Monroe and an insightful statement on the nature of acting and celebrity. The film screened as part of the festival’s Special Screenings alongside the Monroe classic Bus Stop.
The Bride! is streaming on HBO Max. Stay tuned at Collider for more on what’s next for Gyllenhaal.
Release Date
March 6, 2026
Runtime
126 Minutes
Producers
Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Osnat Handelsman-Keren, Talia Kleinhendler, Maggie Gyllenhaal
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