Indonesia’s ‘Zona Merah’ Gets Feature Film: Luna Maya Stars & Produces as Cameras Roll April 7
Screenplay Films has greenlit a feature film adaptation of Zona Merah, Indonesia’s breakout zombie-horror series. Production runs April–May 2026, kicking off April 7. Directors Sidharta Tata and Fajar Martha Santosa co-helm the project. Luna Maya joins as both lead actress and executive producer, alongside returning cast members Aghniny Haque, Andri Mashadi, Lukman Sardi, Maria Theodore, and Devano Danendra.
The announcement signals more than a single IP expansion — it is the clearest indicator yet that Indonesian genre producers are treating streaming-born local franchises as launchpads for theatrical sequels with international ambitions, a playbook now firmly in motion at Screenplay Films.
What is ‘Zona Merah’ and why does the film matter?
Zona Merah — known in English as Red Zone — is an eight-episode Indonesian action-horror series that premiered on the Vidio streaming platform on November 8, 2024. Set in the fictional city of Rimbalaya, it follows a woman named Maya who races to find her missing sister as a “living corpse” outbreak spreads across the city, threatening to turn the entire municipality into a quarantine zone.
The series became one of the four highest-rated Indonesian thriller series of 2024, and its pre-release teaser organically amassed over 520,000 views on X within 11 days — a remarkable benchmark for a local genre property in a market where the zombie format had never been seriously tested before.
Crucially, the series was not a supernatural horror entry in the traditional Indonesian mould. Creators Tata and Santosa deliberately blended action, thriller, drama, and black comedy, while rooting the outbreak mythology in Javanese folklore — specifically the “Cawan Hantu,” a locally recognised flower with a legendary link to death and disease. The result was a zombie property that felt uniquely Indonesian rather than derivative of Korean or Hollywood templates.
Who is directing and writing the feature?
The film reunites the original creative team. Sidharta Tata, who created and helmed the series, returns as both co-director and screenwriter. His creative partner Fajar Martha Santosa co-directs and oversees broader development — a division of labour designed to solve the specific structural challenge of condensing episodic, multi-strand storytelling into a single cohesive theatrical feature.
“‘Zona Merah’ already has a strong foundation in its world-building and storytelling from the series. With the film, we aim to elevate everything to the next level — emotionally, in terms of conflict scale, and in the overall visual experience. We want audiences to feel unsafe in their cinema seats — darker and more unsettling than anything we’ve created before.”
Santosa’s mandate — “bringing greater cohesion to the story as it moves from series to feature format” — is a specific and deliberate production choice. Rather than simply cutting down the series into a highlights reel, the film is being engineered as a dramatically escalated standalone entry, with heightened stakes and intensified pacing calibrated for a cinema audience.
Who is in the cast — and what is Luna Maya’s dual role?
Luna Maya is the headline addition to the franchise and brings a rare dual function: she stars in the film as a new character while simultaneously serving as executive producer, giving her a direct stake in both the creative and commercial outcome of the project.
“As an executive producer, I see ‘Zona Merah’ as having tremendous potential — not only creatively, but also in terms of its positioning within the industry. This is an important step in bringing a local IP to the next level, both in production scale and audience reach.”
| Actor | Status |
|---|---|
| Aghniny Haque | Returningseries |
| Andri Mashadi | Returningseries |
| Maria Theodore | Returningseries |
| Devano Danendra | Returningseries |
| Lukman Sardi | Returningseries |
| Luna Maya | New addition+ exec producer |
| Bryan Domani | New additionfilm |
| Shindy Huang | New additionfilm |
| Myesha Lin | New additionfilm |
| Derby Romero | New additionfilm |
What is the story of the ‘Zona Merah’ film?
The feature expands on the world of Rimbalaya, pushing its zombie-survival premise into more extreme territory. According to the production, survival against the “living dead” — or mayit in Javanese, the terminology the series deliberately chose over “zombie” — becomes a more desperate and relentless proposition than the series allowed.
The fictional city’s outbreak mythology is rooted in the “Cawan Hantu” flower and draws on the real-world case of the Langkat Regent, an Indonesian official infamously exposed for allegedly keeping people imprisoned — an element of true crime that the creators have said inspired their corrupt-governor storyline. The film will introduce new characters entering this world, deepening its ensemble structure beyond what was possible in the series format.
What does this mean for Indonesian horror’s global standing?
Screenplay Films is the same studio behind The Queen of Black Magic (2019), which achieved a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes and landed a Shudder release in North America, and May the Devil Take You Too (2020), also distributed internationally via Shudder. The studio has therefore established a consistent pipeline from locally acclaimed horror to global genre streaming platforms. The Zona Merah feature is the next logical step in that trajectory — and the first time the studio is scaling a streaming-native IP into theatrical, rather than originating in cinema first.
The series’ decision to reframe the zombie as mayit — grounding the undead in Indonesian folk tradition rather than Romero-era tropes — was widely noted by genre commentators as a significant differentiator. That cultural specificity is precisely what has allowed Indonesian horror to break into international markets dominated by South Korean and American genre content. The film adaptation, with a larger production scale and a strengthened cast, is positioned to carry that argument further.
- The teaser for the original series generated 520,000 organic views on X within 11 days of posting — without paid amplification.Audience signal
- Zona Merah ranked among the top four Indonesian thriller series by ratings in 2024.Performance
- Screenplay Films has a proven track record of Indonesian horror landing on Shudder, the global horror streaming platform owned by AMC Networks.Distribution precedent
- The film’s casting of Luna Maya, one of Indonesia’s most commercially bankable stars, signals a deliberate uplift in commercial profile.Strategy
- Cameras roll on April 7, 2026, with production scheduled to wrap by end of May — an ambitious but focused schedule.Production
What is Screenplay Films’ track record in horror?
Screenplay Films has become Indonesia’s most internationally visible horror producer. Its key titles include The Queen of Black Magic (2019) — directed by Kimo Stamboel from a Joko Anwar screenplay — which secured a North American Shudder premiere and a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, and May the Devil Take You Too (2020), which debuted on Shudder on Halloween of that year. Both films are examples of the studio’s formula: high-craft genre filmmaking rooted in Indonesian mythology, scaled for international horror audiences.
Zona Merah represents a meaningful evolution of that formula: instead of standalone films, the studio is now operating a serialised IP first, then expanding into theatrical — a model that mirrors the franchise strategies of major global streamers.
Key facts at a glance
- Official title: Zona Merah: The Movie (working title based on IMDB listing)
- Studio: Screenplay Films
- Directors: Sidharta Tata, Fajar Martha Santosa
- Screenwriter: Sidharta Tata
- Executive producer / star: Luna Maya
- Production dates: April 7 – May 2026
- Source material: Zona Merah (Vidio, 8 episodes, 2024)
- English title: Red Zone
- Genre: Action, horror, thriller (zombie survival)
Lewis Calvert Founder & Editor, BriefLedger
Lewis founded BriefLedger and has six years of experience covering film, TV, and entertainment news. He leads the site’s Movies and TV sections and runs the news desk — always with a straight-talking British take.
