Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg in 2013 Image by Getty/ Dimitrios Kambouris/Staff

By PJ Grisar June 10, 2019

Director Steven Spielberg is partnering with longtime film executive Jeffrey Katzenberg’s forthcoming streaming service, Quibi, for a smartphone horror story you can watch only in the witching hour.

Defying the advice of sleep experts — who caution us to avoid our phones’ pesky blue light in the hours leading up to sleep — the multi-chapter series, which has the vaguely Cinemax-sounding working title of “Spielberg’s After Dark,” will only appear to viewers at the chimes of midnight, Variety reports.

“Steven Spielberg came in, and said, ‘I have a super scary story I want to do,’” Katzenberg said at the Banff World Media Festival in Canada on June 9. “He’s writing it himself. He hasn’t [written anything for a while] so getting him to write something is fantastic.”

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Katzenberg’s Quibi streaming platform (short for “quick bites,” as all the entertainment is designed to be between seven to 10 minutes long) has boasted A-List talent and high-profile backers since Katzenberg announced the mobile-exclusive project in 2017 under the name “NewTV.” But Spielberg’s after-midnight-only conceit is unique and could help set Quibi apart in a crowded field of streamable content.

To restrict when audiences stream the show, Katzenberg and his CEO Meg Whitman had their engineers use a cell phone’s ability to track the sunrise in its given area to prompt viewers with a clock ticking down the hours till a midnight screening. Per Variety, the clock fades when the sun comes up and the show does too, only reappearing the next night.

Quibi’s launch is slated for April 2020 with a two-week free trial and eight “super premium” offerings. We don’t yet know if Spielberg’s spooky series will be available day one, but we anticipate the show will provide us with a lot of sleepless nights.

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at [email protected].

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