Cristin Milioti in ‘Buddy’.Credit: Roadside Attractions

What if instead of giving great big hugs, Barney the purple dinosaur was committing murder? 

That was the basic premise the folks at BoulderLight Pictures (the studio behind films including Weapons, Companion, and Friendship) pitched to Casper Kelly, creator of the surreal, viral sensation Too Many Cooks. With the rising popularity of the so-called “mascot horror” genre, which turns cartoon characters or theme park mascots into nightmare fuel (think Five Nights at Freddy’s or Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey), the lovable, singing, purple T. rex seemed ripe for a twisted parody. And Kelly, an Adult Swim veteran with a talent for exploring nostalgia’s darker edges, seemed like the perfect guy for the job. 

But when he first heard the idea, the filmmaker admits, he was skeptical. “BoulderLight was interested in doing a Barney-type horror movie, and I wasn’t so sure,” he tells Entertainment Weekly for our 2026 Comic-Con preview. “There are a lot of those sorts of mascot horror movies.”

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