YouTube’s Peacock, Amazon’s Hatter, and a Wish.

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THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• YouTube Premium users will get access to Peacock via a new distribution deal.

• Amazon MGM develops an animated Mad Hatter film directed by Scott Mosier.

• FX orders Wildwood, a New Jersey-set comedy from Derry Girls creator.

• SAG-AFTRA formally opposes the Paramount-Skydance-WBD merger.

• Netflix acquires int’l rights to the first four series in Starz’s Power franchise.

• John Wells (ER/The Pitt) renews his overall deal with Warner Bros. TV.

• Regina Hall joins Dwayne Johnson in Benny Safdie’s film Lizard Music.

• Obsession breakout Michael Johnston in talks to join the next The Mummy film.

• Whoopi Goldberg will star in Netflix’s Women Like Us.

• The TV Academy and NATAS explore reuniting nearly 50 years after separating.

• Obscured Releasing acquires North American rights to SXSW’s Ugly Cry.

• Prime signs a deal with CJ ENM to bring more than 100 Korean titles to India.

• Chinese animated feature All Wishes Come True! tops China box office w/ $112.5M.

Yesterday’s correct answer: Goosebumps. Ryan Gosling starred in a 1996 episode.
43% got it correct. However, Gosling recently appeared in a social video with Elmo.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Peacock is finding a new perch on YouTube. Beginning early next year, YouTube Premium subscribers in the U.S. will gain access to Peacock through a new multi-year partnership with NBCUniversal and Google. The service offers NFL and NBA games and other live sporting events from NBCUniversal, as well as hit reality series like Love Island USA, The Traitors, and The Real Housewives franchise, as well as scripted series like All Her Fault and The Office.

This deal marks Peacock’s largest wholesale distribution agreement to date, coming shortly after the streamer’s first profitable quarter (Q2 2026), during which time it also added 2M paid subs. The move also comes ahead of Comcast gearing up to spin off NBCUniversal over the next year into a separate company.

The price of the new YouTube Peacock Premium bundle has yet to be announced.

Tidbits:

Amazon MGM is developing an animated Mad Hatter film, directed by Scott Mosier (Universal’s 2018 animated The Grinch). No info on the plot of the film as of now, other than the fact that the film will be based on the Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The film will be produced by Aniventure (Prod: Netflix’s Klaus). Nothing beats the original’s very wild, acid-trip style (clip).

Derry Girls but set on the Jersey Shore. FX and 20th Television have won the rights to Wildwood, a comedy series in development from Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee. This will be the BAFTA winner’s first project out of the UK. McGee describes it as a spiritual successor to her coming-of-age Irish series but set in the early 2000s in Wildwood, New Jersey. Turns out the only thing louder than Derry teenagers is a Jersey Shore boardwalk crowd.

Nearly 50 years after splitting into separate organizations, the Television Academy and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) are exploring a potential reunion. The proposed merger would reunite Emmy divisions coast to coast, with all current governors’ terms extended by one year “to ensure continuity in the deliberations.” There is no clear deadline set for a decision.

Mini Tidbits:

SAG-AFTRA is taking a stand against the freshly delayed PSKY-WBD merger. The union’s national board officially adopted a resolution opposing the deal while stopping short of joining the multistate antitrust lawsuit blocking the acquisition.

Starz’s Power will be available on Netflix this Nov. The global streamer just struck a deal with Lionsgate TV and gained the international rights to the first four series of the Power franchise: Power, Power Book II: Ghost, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and Power Book IV: Force.

John Wells (EP: The Pitt) has renewed his overall deal with Warner Bros TV. He has been with Warner Bros for 40 years, producing iconic series like ER and The West Wing. Under the new deal, Wells will continue to develop and produce shows for HBO and HBO Max.

First Look:

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s short film Flesh Impact

• First Look at Dakota Johnson as Marilyn Monroe

• Premiere: Venice

Netflix’s Possible Love

• Dir: Lee Chang-dong

• First Look

• Cast: Sul Kyung-gu (Memoir of a Murderer)

• Premire: Venice/TIFF

• Streaming release: Nov. 6

Trailers:

Prime Video’s The Chosen (S6)

• Trailer

• Release: Nov. 15

ComicBookPros’ Bill Sienkiewicz: That Polish Guy

• Trailer

Release Dates:

Neon’s A Place in Hell

• Dir: Chloe Domont (Fair Play)

• Cast: Michelle Williams, Andrew Scott, Daisy Edgar-Jones

• Release: Dec 25, 2026 → Apr. 23, 2027

CBS Fall Dates:

Survivor (S51)

• Release: Sept. 23

NCIS (S24), NCIS: New York (Series Premiere), NCIS: Origins (S3)

• Release: Oct. 6

George & Mandy’s First Marriage (S3), Eternally Yours (Series Premiere), Elsbeth (S4), Cupertino (Series Premiere)

• Release: Oct. 8

GHOSTS (2 ep Halloween Special)

• Oct. 29

ABC Fall Dates:

Dancing with the Stars (S35), R.J. Decker (S2)

• Release: Sept. 15

Abbott Elementary (S6)

• Release: Oct. 7

9-1-1 (S10), 9-1-1: Nashville (S2), Grey’s Anatomy (S23)

• Release: Oct. 15

Prime Video India’s Vadhandhi - The Mystery of Mani (S2)

• Release Aug. 7

The Traitors (S2)

• Release Aug. 13

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Regina Hall (Scary Movie) joins Dwayne Johnson on Amazon MGM’s family adventure film Lizard Music, directed by Benny Safdie (The Smashing Machine). The film will be a live-action/CGI hybrid film, following a boy (Theo Clark Leber) who stumbles upon a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing music. Dwayne Johnson plays an eccentric 70-year-old man called The Chicken Man, and Hall plays The Chicken Man’s friend and co-worker.

Regina Hall hasn’t really starred in traditional family-oriented films, and luckily this won’t be one! Her sharp comedic timing and energetic screen presence in the Scary Movie films make us think that she could be a strong fit for the film’s eccentric atmosphere.

From girl issues to Mummy issues, Obsession’s Michael Johnston is in talks to join Universal’s next The Mummy movie. Earlier this summer, Johnston’s career did a complete 180, breaking out in Focus Features’ $460M-grossing horror feature Obsession as Bear, an unconfident music store employee whose wish for love triggers a terrifying and deadly obsession.

Johnston’s Bear was selfish, reckless, and far more complicated than your average horror player.

If the casting is made official, Johnston would join Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, both returning to reprise their roles. While there is no word on who he would play, it’s possible that his casting signals this film will tilt a little more into the horror space than previous Weisz/Fraser Mummy films.

The fourth installment will start shooting this fall, scheduled for an Oct. 2027 release.

Netflix and the Obamas’ Higher Ground have formed quite the girl group. EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg, alongside Jenifer Lewis (GOAT), Vanessa Williams (Soul Food), and Vivica A. Fox (Kill Bill) are slated to star in the comedy feature Women Like Us. In the same vein as Peacock’s The Five-Star Weekend, the film follows a recently widowed woman dragged to the Hamptons by her sister and lifelong best friends for a weekend of grief, love, and sisterhood.

The ensemble brings together decades of highly acclaimed work across genres, from the Oscar-nominated The Color Purple to Tarantino’s Kill Bill; this group has a collective star power that should be as much of a draw as the comedy itself. Women Like Us is beginning production this fall in NYC.

Tidbits:

David Oyelowo (Selma) joins indie film Little Five, produced by Anne Hathaway’s production company Somewhere Pictures. The film follows the legendary Little 500 cycling race at Indiana University. Oyelowo plays a former cycling champion who becomes a mentor for the protagonist. Oyelowo played Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma (2015) with a tortured sense of conviction. For a quick dose of his acting, check out his heart-wrenching silent performance, suffering through voicemails in this trailer for The After. He’s going to bring real depth and gravitas to this new role.

From one mother to the next, Crystal Fox (The Big Door Prize) is joining the cast of Hulu’s untitled Cable Guy pilot. Inspired by the 1996 Jim Carrey movie, Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. will lead, with Fox set to play the warm but overprotective mother of Wayans’ character. Fox just recently portrayed Tessa Thompson’s complex and independent mother in Netflix’s hit thriller miniseries His & Hers, with the actress now tasked with channeling her maternal instincts for a comedy series.

Obit:

Prolific choreographer and actress Hope Clarke (Sidney Poitier’s A Piece of Action) has sadly passed away at 85. When she wasn’t dancing, Clarke appeared in several films, including playing the mother of Jeffrey Wright’s Jean-Michel Basquiat in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat (1996).

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Obscured Releasing (Dist: Blue Film) acquires NA rights to the psychological horror comedy Ugly Cry. Emily Robinson (Eighth Grade) directs and stars in the film that follows a young Hollywood actress as she struggles to fulfill impossible beauty standards. The film premiered in SXSW’s Narrative Spotlight section.

Brooklyn-based Story Syndicate (Netflix’s Maternal Instinct) is expanding its scripted team by hiring veteran producer Robin Schwartz as Head of Scripted. The documentary-heavy studio will use Schwartz’s background on series like Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit and HBO’s Sharp Objects to grow the company’s slate of original, non-biographical series.

Prime Video’s India arm signs a multi-year licensing deal with CJ ENM (Prod: Parasite) that brings more than 100 Korean titles to Indian subscribers over the next two years. The new deal includes a slate of 26 new titles and a wide range of library titles, all of which will be available with Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu subtitles. India has become one of the biggest markets when it comes to consuming Korean content, with K-dramas like Queen of Tears and Extraordinary Attorney Woo earning over 600M hours watched on Netflix.

Chinese animated feature All Wishes Come True! (2026) takes over the top position at the Chinese box office, garnering $112.5M over two weekends. The film follows eight mortals who must outsmart mythical deities.

ON THIS DAY

1954. On the Waterfront is released.

Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.

Editor: Gabriel Miller.

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We had a great opportunity to interview four of the top Emmy-nominated directors for this year’s Emmys in collaboration with the DGA.

I had a wonderful time learning how each of them problem-solves on set, works with actors, and plans ambitious shoots with very limited time.

We spoke with:

• Randall Einhorn

  • 2026 Emmy Nomination: Comedy Series - ABC’s Abbott Elementary

  • Lifetime Emmy nominations: 9

  • Total episodes of Abbott Elementary directed: 39

  • Previous shows directed: Fear Factor, Modern Family, many episodes of The Office and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Parks and Rec

• Hanelle M. Culpepper

  • 2026 Emmy Nomination: Drama Series - Hulu’s Paradise

  • Total episodes of Paradise directed: 4

  • Previous shows directed: Criminal Minds, Empire, Quantico, How to Get Away with Murder, Lucifer, Supergirl, Star Trek: Discovery, Westworld, and Matlock

• Alexandria Stapleton

  • 2026 Emmy Nomination: Doc Series - Netflix’s Sean Combs: The Reckoning

  • Lifetime Emmy nominations: 2

  • Directed full 4-part series

  • Previous shows: Senior Producer on CBS's The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, HBO's God Save Texas, and ESPN's The Brittney Griner Story

• Mary Lou Belli

  • 2026 Emmy Nomination: Comedy Series - BET’s The Ms. Pat Show

  • Lifetime Emmy nominations: 4

  • Total episodes of The Ms. Pat Show directed: 23

  • Previous shows directed: Sister, Sister, Monk, Wizards of Waverly Place, Bull, NCIS: New Orleans, Sweet Magnolias, and Elsbeth.

RANDALL EINHORN
Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series

Randall Einhorn is a master planner.

In Ballgame, his episode of Abbott Elementary, he pulled off shooting an episode of the hit comedy during a live Phillies game.

Knowing it would be impossible to get usable dialogue during the game, he had to architect a plan to blend a pre-shoot at the stadium without the crowds with his cast’s live reactions on game day.

It involved 450 extras, multiple cameras, planning 70 to 80 moments in the script where he could whip-pan out of pre-recorded story beats and into the live action of the ballgame and then architecting it in the edit.

And to boot, he was able to deliver it on time because of his seamless, fastidious planning.

There are also some amazing unplanned moments, like Phillies MVP Kyle Schwarber hitting a rare four home runs in the ballgame they filmed live. After the game concluded, Einhorn filmed a scene where Schwarber met the teachers.

Einhorn broke down how he directed Schwarber:

"Yeah, he was full of energy, but my direction to somebody like that is just do what Kyle Schwarber would do and say what Kyle Schwarber would say. I mean, here's the script and use what you would like, but you be you. Don't let me tell you who you are.”

Einhorn’s episode of Abbott Elementary is a testament to ambitious directing.

HANELLE M. CULPEPPER
Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series

Hanelle M. Culpepper is an expert at the relationship of time and cinematic TV. Paradise is a show steeped in flashbacks that also contends with a quantum supercomputer that's predicting the future.

As Culpepper architects these differing realities, she keeps things very grounded with her camera work. One stunning sequence in her episode Exodus involves a complex escalator rescue (indicative of Speed) with a meaty character revelation afterward.

Culpepper stated:

“The elevator sequence requires four different set pieces to create this seamless experience for the audience that keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

She continued:

“I want to give you the spectacle and all the suspense and all the action and thrills, but I really wanted to be grounded in what these people are experiencing and making sure that ultimately that's what my camera captures.”

In one moment in the episode, the main characters Sterling K. Brown and Julianne Nicholson, who have come to despise each other, are thrust together on a short-term mission and share a brief but poignant look of disgust.

Culpepper expanded:

“And one thing that I loved about the theme of my episode and of the show is that it really is also about unity and coming together and two opposite sides, finding that way to work together so that we can all basically survive and win and doing that for the greater good. And that’s something that happens in that scene as well.”

Exodus is one of the rare TV show episodes that looks like it’s out of a blockbuster film. The scale of production is immense, and that’s why it’s so impressive that Culpepper has kept everything so grounded.

ALEXANDRIA STAPLETON
Outstanding Directing For A Documentary/Nonfiction Program

What Alexandria Stapleton has done in Sean Combs' The Reckoning is create a complex, visceral, multifaceted portrait of Combs.

Part of it is her vibrant telling of hip-hop history in the 90s, especially the East vs. West rap battles that would emerge as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac from the West became massive artists whom Biggie and Sean Combs, e.g., Puff Daddy from the East, tried to emulate and master through their own styles.

The Reckoning is also a powerful telling of Sean Combs' story, from his life growing up in a fractured home to his immense confidence, hustler mindset, and the very sharp taste that propelled him to massive heights.

In each interview with Combs’ inner circle, Stapleton is able to pull out these complexities. And this is what is powerful about her technique: she's able to capture the bliss, tragedy, and terror of Combs' life.

It’s doubly impressive because all this was happening during the media circus that occurred during Sean Combs’ arrest:

Stapleton shared:

“It was chaos. And a lot of people were having—just every day was a challenge for them—because the media was just like, relentless.”

She continued:

“So once I would start talking to them, and they would start telling me their story… my goal is to not have the interview only rest in the trauma of what happened. Like, I want to understand the whole, the 360, like experience of being, knowing Sean Combs.”

She continued:

“And I think that honestly, that was probably what made my approach a bit different than everyone else's and potentially what made people feel a little bit comfortable.”

Stapleton’s sacred bond between her and her subjects combined with the live-wire element of when this was directed creates an emotional and propulsive watch. I found it addicting as hell.

MARY LOU BELLI
Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series

Mary Lou Belli has a unique talent for mixing the high-wire hilarious with the heartfelt.

That balance is particularly sharp in her Emmy-nominated episode, Give It a Rest.

Belli explained:

“When you’re doing drama and you infuse comedy, you surprise the audience, and you humanize all the characters. When you do comedy and you add drama, it sort of makes it a little bit more pithy. And that’s what attracted me to The Ms. Pat Show.”

The most hilarious sequence is when Pat’s sister, Denise, offers to do the hair of her nephew’s girlfriend who is 20+ years older than him. It quickly becomes a surreal interrogation scene where Denise becomes imbued with the ability to read the girlfriend’s mind.

Belli stated:

“When you trust your actors and know your actors can achieve that, you don’t have to push as a director. You just go, ‘Let it play.’”

The flip side of the episode is that Pat is very punitive toward her young son, but by the end of the episode she comes to grips with her own mortality and gains empathy.

For Belli, the episode is an exploration of a difficult question:

“Kids screw up, and there’s a real tough balance between tough love and empathy for them and what they’re going through and knowing which way to apply it and when.”

Belli’s real art in this episode is watching the peaks and valleys of scenes move from comedy to drama, making everything feel heightened and honest.

The DGA has made some great gains this year that have contributed to the success of these TV directors.

First, they negotiated the first new credit since the 1970s: the TV Pilot director credit. Moving forward, shows are required to give an on-screen credit to the director of each show’s pilot to underscore the work they do in setting the show’s tone and visual style.

The DGA has also won a concession requiring that directors be kept in the loop for the entire post-production process. This was not always the case, with TV directors often hopping to another studio for a new project.

On AI, they’ve come down pretty hard as well, saying that directors can’t get cut out of the loop if AI is being used by the studios. So, for instance, a studio can’t take away a project from a director and finish it with AI. That’s going to be even more crucial as the technology continues to burgeon.

Thanks to the DGA for all the help orchestrating these interviews!

Written and edited by Gabriel Miller.

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Paramount’s Delay, Ryan Gosling’s Ghost and Netflix’s Nuit.

Let’s go!

If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.

The merger is delayed.

That is, Paramount has hit pause on its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to let the lawsuit brought by the 12 state AGs proceed. Paramount’s new date to close the deal is June 1, 2027.

This is a big setback for Paramount, as whether this deal closes or not, it has just become more expensive for them.

If it closes:

• Paramount will owe WBD $0.25/share every quarter ($650M/quarter) starting September 30, 2026

If it doesn’t close:

• Paramount will owe WBD a $7bn fee

• WBD can force Paramount to pay after June 4th, 2027

The leader, CA Attorney General Rob Bonta, stated:

“Great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy.”

Paramount said:

“Today’s agreement is a significant win because the result is exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence.”

We’re now living in a new timeline. One that feels like an echo of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount, and likely one to get played out countless times in the future as the tectonic plates of the film industry shift between mergers, spinoffs and sales.

For More:

Read the full 12-state lawsuit here.

Here are the full details on Paramount’s plan for Warner Bros.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Ryan Gosling will play Ghost Rider in Shawn Levy’s 2028 Marvel film.

• David Jonsson will star as T’Challa’s son in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther 3.

• Charter’s pay-TV losses fall 74% year over year.

• Netflix adapts Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s autobiographical novel Happy Old Year.

• Sky Yang joins Siân Heder’s adaptation of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

• La La Land in Concert will headline Venice’s Cartier Cinema Club program.

• Filmmaker Chuck Russell, director of The Mask and The Scorpion King, dies at 74.

• Jacques Audiard reunites w/ Netflix for supernatural horror film La Nuit Ravagée.

Friday’s correct answer: 1950s, NBC adapted rainbow logo.
56% got it correct.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Two major casting announcements have come out of Comic-Con:

Ryan Gosling will play Ghost Rider.

Gosling is revving up the flames and riding into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After years of speculation, Gosling will officially play the fiery antihero in a standalone film, reuniting with director Shawn Levy shortly after they wrapped on Star Wars: Starfighter (2027).

Levy famously holds the title of having directed the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time with his Marvel debut Deadpool & Wolverine (2024). While its rating is unknown, the pair’s presumed good chemistry and Gosling’s excitement to trade in his Drive getaway car for a much hotter set of wheels could make for one hell of a movie, coming in 2028. Reveal video.

David Jonsson is the star of Black Panther 3.

• Role: Chadwick Boseman’s character T’Challa’s son

• Dir: Ryan Coogler

• Release: Dec 2028

We could not be more excited for Jonsson. He was the highlight of the new Alien film, Alien: Romulus (2024), and was also astonishing in The Long Walk (2025). Reveal video.

Less major but still boatloads of fun: In Hulu’s Family Guy Halloween special, Kieran Culkin will voice the devil.

Charter, the leading U.S. pay-TV operator, sees losses slow in Q2 2026:

• 12.5M total video customers

  • ↓21K subs since last quarter

On the positive side, Charter reduced its pay-TV losses by 74% year over year, after losing 80K subs in Q2 2025.

Charter Communications’ $34.5bn acquisition of Cox Communications, now the nation’s largest cable and broadband provider, will close by the end of August. The megamerger will take the Cox name and expand cable and internet services nationwide.

Tidbits:

Netflix is working with Brazilian novelist Marcelo Rubens Paiva, whose beautifully tragic childhood story was adapted in the Oscar-winning film I’m Still Here (2025, trailer). Paiva’s 1982 coming-of-age novel Happy Old Year is now being developed into a series by the streamer detailing the life-altering accident that left him tetraplegic by age 20. The news comes just months after Netflix’s newest office opened in Brazil.

Amazon MGM Studios has tapped former Netflix and HBO Max executive Pia Barlow as VP of Original Series Marketing, where she’ll oversee campaigns for the studio’s television slate. The hire, however, has already sparked some legal drama, with WBD now suing Amazon, alleging it unlawfully poached Barlow while she remained under contract.

Renewals:

AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (for S4)

• Season name: Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned

• Trailer

Adult Swim’s President Curtis (for S2)

• Rick and Morty spinoff

Cancellation:

Paramount+’s Crutch (after S1)

• Star: Tracy Morgan

Trailers:

Prime’s Blade Runner 2099

• Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Hunter Schafer

• Trailer

• Release: Nov 25

Ok, another iconic Ridley Scott film made into a series. The world is so iconic that this feels like it may dilute the power of the original. But Yeoh looks tremendous in this, so we’ll give it a shot.

Apple’s Dark Matter (S2)

• Cast: Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly

• Trailer

• Release: Aug 28

Apple’s Neuromancer

• Cast: Callum Turner, Peter Sarsgaard

• Trailer

• Release: Jan 22nd

Apple/Mattel/Skydance’s Matchbox: The Movie

• Cast: John Cena and Jessica Biel

• Trailer

• Release: Oct 9

Prime’s Carrie (series)

• Showrunner: Mike Flanagan

• Trailer

• Release: Oct 7

Prime’s Neagley (S1)

• Reacher spin-off

• Trailer

Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (S3)

• Simon Pegg voices a Balrog

• Trailer

• Release: Nov 11

HBO Max’s Lanterns

• Cast: Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre

• Tr​​ailer

• Release: Aug 16

Hulu’s Futurama (S14)

• Trailer

• Release: Aug 3rd

Release dates:

New Line’s Gladys

• Dir: Zach Cregger

• Weapons prequel

• Release: Sept 8, 2028

New Line’s The Flood

• Dir: Zach Cregger

• Prod: Steven Spielberg

• Release: Nov 11, 2028

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Rooney and Kate Mara are the creepiest of twins in Bucking Fastard.

In the first look clip, we can see them speaking in perfect synchronization during a court case where they explain how they met Orlando Bloom’s character.

There’s a chipperness to the wild co-dependence that these two share, as if some sort of parasitic mind-meld.

The film is based on real-life twins Freda and Greta Chaplin, and you can see that the Maras have done a great job capturing them (Maras, Bucking Fastard trailer) vs. Chaplins clip.

We’ve seen Rooney go wonderfully unhinged in everything from Side Effects to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and Kate Mara’s role of Zoe Barnes in House of Cards becomes more effective as she goes off-kilter.

Director Herzog has brought out their unison in a remarkably haunting way. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival.

The star of Justin Lin’s Last Days, Sky Yang, has just been cast in Siân Heder (dir: CODA)’s new project, ​Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. He will play Sam, a prodigy game designer who suffers from afflictions of the heart and body.

He’s ripe for the role.

In Last Days, he tells his father, a lifelong doctor, to return to his passion for painting as if radiating wisdom. But his character’s proclaimed self-enlightenment is deadly delusional. Watching him canoe full force into certain death is heartbreaking because it makes tangible how lost this kid really is.

Mini Tidbits:

Remember Backyard Baseball? Well, my high school friend Lindsay Barnett is adapting the old 90s game into an animation with voices from Tiffany Haddish and Arturo Castro. There will be 20x 11-minute episodes of Backyard Sports: The Animated Series. Play on!

Robin Givens (CW’s Batwoman) has joined the cast of Prime Video’s Cross for its upcoming third season. In the James Patterson drama series, Givens will star as the overbearingly conservative Senator Mulrooney who keeps her personal problems a closely guarded secret. Production for season three has begun in Toronto.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Filmmaker Chuck Russell has died at 74. Far from a household name, he directed two of my favorite childhood films. They couldn’t be more different:

• The Mask (1994)

• The Scorpion King (2002)

But both films do have something in common: they were the first real films of two superstars: Cameron Diaz and Dwayne Johnson.

Russell’s work in The Mask is of the highest caliber. There’s an electricity to every scene. And the sexual tension between Cameron Diaz and Jim Carrey is titillating.

And, of course, it’s Cameron Diaz’s first on-screen role. She is the electric yet sensitive love interest to Jim Carrey (​iconic entrance scene​). Diaz’s character, which could easily have fallen victim to overly simplified 90s typecasting, is surprisingly layered. And Carrey is in his finest form as a man who believes he’s a superhero and temporarily becomes one.

The Scorpion King was a bit of a childhood obsession of mine. I tried to prove to my parents that it wasn’t violent, only to show them this grisly death scene.

Rest in peace, Chuck.

Mini Tidbits:

Toronto-based New Mountain Films has scooped distribution for House of Hope for North American theatrical and streaming rights. Set in a pacifist Waldorf school in the occupied West Bank, the documentary follows a teaching couple striving to protect their students’ innocence amid escalating regional conflict. The Oscar-qualifying doc won Best International Feature at Hot Docs this past May.

Eli Roth’s The Horror Section is set to produce Burger Night: Luli, Magda, & Lore, an Argentine spinoff feature of Joe Begos’ alien horror Jimmy and Stiggs (2024). The film is set to follow two friends, one of whom believes they were once abducted by aliens.

Blue Bloods TV director Ralph W. Hemecker has sadly died at 65. The longtime writer, producer, and showrunner has a three-decade-spanning career directing episodes of everything from fantasy series Once Upon a Time and The Vampire Diaries to comic book adaptations like The Flash.

Three short updates from the Venice Film Festival and a zombie comedy. Full breakdown here.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Oscar-winning French filmmaker Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) is reuniting with Netflix for a feature adaptation of La Nuit Ravagée, based on Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s acclaimed novel.

While some may argue his 13-time Oscar-nominated film Emilia Pérez already ventured into horror territory, this marks Audiard’s first foray into the genre. Set in the outskirts of 1990s Southern France, the film follows a group of teenagers drawn to an abandoned house, unaware of the supernatural force within that feeds on their trauma and becomes inescapable.

The novel was described as a loving homage to old-school horror works, especially Stephen King. Audiard is an intriguing choice as he shares King’s ability to merge social realism with elements of the fantastical.

Unlike Emilia Pérez (2024, trailer), which was acquired by Netflix following its Cannes premiere, La Nuit Ravagée is expected to premiere directly on the streamer, though production has not yet begun.

Tidbits:

One of the last projects to star the late Eric Dane (Euphoria) is headed to the BBC. Kabul is a Mediawan drama series set against the terrifying environment of Afghanistan in 2021 after American troops withdrew and the Taliban wreaked havoc on the city. The six-part drama lands on the BBC next month.

After a decade at Sony Pictures, Jamie Stevens is stepping down as EVP of Worldwide Consumer Products. During his tenure, Stevens helped greatly expand the studio's IP portfolio, working on iconic brands like Ghostbusters, Jumanji, and The Boys. Stevens’ last day will be the first week of Sept., with no word yet on her replacement.

ON THIS DAY

1922. Norman Lear born in New Haven, Connecticut.

Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.

Editor: Gabriel Miller.

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Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co

La La Land is dancing its way back to Venice. In celebration of its 10th anniversary, La La Land in Concert will headline the 83rd Venice Film Festival’s Cartier Cinema Club program, honoring Damien Chazelle’s six-time Oscar-winning film in the very city where it made its world premiere a decade ago.

Paris-based Luxbox Films has acquired Life of Jorge Luis Borges, the five-and-a-half-hour documentary chronicling the life of the famed Argentine poet from the papers and books he left behind. Filmmaker Mariano Llinás’ epic will premiere in Venice’s Open-Non-Fiction section.

The Pool Films has taken world rights to The Color of the Sun, the directorial debut of photographer Xavier Tera. The coming-of-age drama sees a group of friends’ final summer before graduation interrupted by a new boy from one of the island’s U.S. military bases. The film will premiere in Venice’s Horizon section.

Zombie comedy Grandmonster cracked up the Fantasia Frontières market, winning the top Outpost Award this past weekend. The feature-length directorial debut of filmmaker Vegard Dahle, Grandmonster sees an American dropout unintentionally trigger a zombie outbreak in a Norwegian nursing home, and despite its dark premise, the film was welcomed with big laughs and multiple prizes boosting momentum for the feature ahead of production.

• Bleecker Street’s Hadestown: The Musical

• Independent Film Company’s Motor City

• KVN Productions’ Jana Nayagan

• Neon’s Her Private Hell

• Neon’s Sheep in the Box

Plus, a full breakdown of the top ten at the box office this weekend, including Bleecker Street’s highest opening of all time.

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Universal’s The Odyssey took #1 at the box office for the second weekend in a row with $87M domestic. Internationally, it earned $128M. This brings its worldwide total to $639.6M.

This is the lowest second weekend drop of any of Christopher Nolan’s previous films that got a wide release:

• The Odyssey (2026)

  • $123.5M opening

  • -30% week 2 drop

• Inception (2010)

  • $62.8M opening

  • -32% week 2 drop

• The Prestige (2006)

  • $14.8M opening

  • -35.3% week 2 drop

• Interstellar (2014)

  • $47.5M opening

  • -40.4% week 2 drop

• Batman Begins (2005)

  • $48.7M opening

  • -43.4% week 2 drop

• Oppenheimer (2023)

  • $82.4M opening (vs. The Odyssey’s $123.5M)

  • -43.4% week 2 drop (vs. The Odyssey’s -30%)

• Dunkirk (2017)

  • $50.5M opening

  • -47.3% week 2 drop

• The Dark Knight (2008)

  • $158.4M opening

  • -52.5% week 2 drop

• Insomnia (2002)

  • $20.9M opening

  • -52.5% week 2 drop

• The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

  • $160.9M opening

  • -61.4% week 2 drop

*Following (1999) was released on 1 screen, Memento (2001) maxed out at 531 screens, Tenet (2020) was released during COVID.

On top of that, for a film that opened over $100M, only two other films have posted smaller drops than The Odyssey’s tiny 30% drop: Universal’s Wicked (-27.9%) and Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick (-28.9%).

This is great news for Universal, as The Odyssey, which was budgeted at $250M, will break even by next week.

Here’s the trailer.

Here’s the breakdown of the rest of the top 10:

$10.5M - Moana (Disney)

• $102.3M domestic total

• $228M worldwide

• $250M

• RT: 31% (critics) 89% (audience)

• Week 3

• Trailer

In its third week, Moana took a 41% drop. Not as catastrophic as last week’s 58%. But combined with a series low opening, we now see this won’t come anywhere near recouping theatrically and will lose a lot of money for Disney.

It’s far below the previous incarnations of the film:

• Moana (2016)

  • $144.7M week 3 total (vs. Moana’s $102.3M)

  • $248.8M domestic total

  • $643.3M worldwide

• Moana 2 (2024)

  • $337.4M week 3 total (vs. Moana’s $102.3M)

  • $460.4M domestic total

  • $1.059bn worldwide

As of the current estimates, this will land as Disney’s 2nd lowest-performing live-action remake:

• Snow White (2025)

  • $87.2M domestic total

  • $205.7M worldwide

• Moana (2026)

  • $228M worldwide

• Dumbo (2019)

  • $114.8M domestic total

  • $353.3M worldwide

• Cinderella (2015)

  • $201.2M domestic total

  • $542.2M worldwide

There have been five Disney live-action remakes to crack $1bn at the box office (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lilo & Stitch, and Alice in Wonderland), and this will not be one of them.

This remake came out so soon after the previous Moana film that many have speculated audience fatigue is the root cause. But we believe the fact that it’s a near shot-for-shot remake is the deeper culprit.

$10M - Toy Story 5 (Pixar)

• $448.6M domestic total

• $1.02bn worldwide

• $275M budget

• RT: 92%

• Week 6

• Trailer

This joins the previous two Toy Story films in cracking $1bn at the box office:

• Toy Story 3 (2010)

  • $415M domestic total

  • $1.067bn worldwide

• Toy Story 4 (2019)

  • $434M domestic total

  • $1.073bn worldwide

Toy Story 5 is now the highest-earning domestic Toy Story film of all time.

This comes at a great time for Pixar as they’ve recently undergone significant staff cuts after their last two films underperformed, Hoppers ($389.5M WW on a $150M budget) and Elio ($154M WW on a $300M budget).

$9.7M - Hadestown: The Musical (Bleecker Street’s event cinema division Crosswalk and LD Entertainment)

• RT: 100%

• Week 1

• Trailer

This is Bleecker Street’s event cinema division Crosswalk and LD Entertainment’s highest opening film of all time, not counting inflation. Even beating out their previous highest opening:

• Logan Lucky (2017)

  • $7.6M opening

  • Cast: Daniel Craig, Adam Driver, Channing Tatum

  • Dir: Steven Soderbergh

Hadestown: The Musical is now on par with the highest-opening filmed musical of all time:

• Hamilton (2025)

  • $10.1M opening

  • $20.9M worldwide total

Hadestown has won a Tony and captured many people’s hearts. Massive congrats to the Bleecker Street team.

$9.6M - Minions & Monsters (Universal)

• $155.4M domestic total

• $382M worldwide

• $85M production budget

• RT: 89%

• Week 4

• Trailer

Both of the previous Minions films earned around $1bn at the box office and opened north of $100M. By contrast, this Minions film has fallen short with a $37M opening.

The silver lining is that it fell only 29% in its fourth week.

It will become the lowest-grossing film of the 7 films in the Despicable Me universe, likely well behind:

• Despicable Me (2010)

  • $56.4M opening

  • $251.7M domestic total

  • $544.2M worldwide

Luckily, the series is so popular that Minions & Monsters has already hit theatrical profitability even though it’s a big miss.

$2.6M - The Invite (A24)

• $19.8M domestic total

• $27.4M worldwide

• Picked up by A24 at Sundance for $12M+

• RT: 96%

• Week 5 (third in wide release)

• Trailer

The Sundance buzz, the starry cast (Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz), and the stellar reviews paid off! This title has broken even for A24. Good news as it’ll continue to play theatrically before it moves into ancillary markets.

A24 executed its typical prestige-film strategy here: slowly drip-feeding the film into theaters:

• Week 1 - $54K/screen average (7 screens)

• Week 2 - $25K/screen average (28 screens)

• Week 3 - $3.5K/screen average (1610 screens)

• Week 4 - $1.7K/screen average (2110 screens)

• Week 5 - $1.3K/screen average (2032 screens)

The director is Olivia Wilde, whose previous features all did decently:

• Booksmart (2019)

  • $6.9M opening

  • $22.7M domestic total

  • $25M worldwide

• Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

  • $19.4M opening

  • $45.3M domestic total

  • $87.6M worldwide

It won’t get anywhere close to Don’t Worry Darling, but this is a strong Oscar contender for the acting categories.

$2.6M - Evil Dead Burn (New Line/Warner Bros.)

• $29.2M domestic total

• $63.4M worldwide

• $20M budget

• RT: 72%

• Week 3

• Trailer

In the modern Evil Dead era, this is the lowest-performing:

• Evil Dead (2013)

  • $48.4M week 3 total (vs. Burn’s $29.2M)

  • $54.2M domestic total

  • $97.5M worldwide

• Evil Dead Rise (2023)

  • $54.3M week 3 total (vs. Burn’s $29.2M)

  • $67.2M domestic total

  • $147.1M worldwide

This is disappointing, as many Warner Bros. horror franchises are now earning their series-best box office totals, including 2025’s Final Destination Bloodlines ($317.9M WW) and 2025’s The Conjuring: Last Rites ($499M WW).

However, Evil Dead Burn has already hit profitability.

$2M - Young Washington (Angel)

• $45M domestic total

• $20M budget

• RT: 60%

• Week 4

• Trailer

This is another non-faith-based, feel-good release from Angel Studios. In that sense, Young Washington has already outperformed all of Angel Studios’ recent releases in the non-faith-based category:

• Solo Mio (2026)

  • $26.4M worldwide

• Homestead (2024)

  • $20.8M worldwide total

• The Last Rodeo (2025)

  • $15.2M worldwide total

• Sketch (2025)

  • $10.2M worldwide total

• I Was a Stranger (2024)

  • $2M worldwide total

This is a strong performance for Angel Studios, bolstered by a remarkable cast of Ben Kingsley, Andy Serkis, and Mary-Louise Parker.

Young Washington had a 44% week 4 drop, meaning it will not reach the heights of its top-performing films like Sound of Freedom ($184.2M WW) and David ($87.9M WW).

It will likely just break even by the end of its theatrical run.

$1.6M - Motor City (Independent Film Company)

• $30M budget, picked up by IFC’s RLJE for $3-4M

• RT: 65%

• Week 1

• Trailer

This is a low opening for an action film, especially one that stars action regulars Alan Ritchson and co-star Gerard Butler.

Ritchson is a massive hit on streaming. He stars in Netflix’s War Machine, which is currently their 9th most-viewed film of all time with 140M views. He also leads Amazon’s very popular Reacher series, which has just been renewed for Season 5.

But this is Ritchson’s first film theatrically released where he received top billing. So his popularity has not translated to this opening.

Motor City had a middling per-screen average of $1K/screen across 1600 theaters.

$1.5M - Obsession (Focus Features)

• $261.4M domestic total

• $448.2M worldwide

• $750K budget, picked up by Focus for $15M

• RT: 96%

• Week 11

• Trailer

In its 11th week, Obsession is still in the top ten. Although it will likely drop out in the following weeks.

Obsession is Focus Features’ highest-earning film of all time 2x-ing their previous top-earning films:

• Downton Abbey (2019)

  • $96.9M domestic total

  • $194.7M worldwide

• Coraline (2009)

  • $116.9M domestic total

  • $188.1M worldwide

• Nosferatu (2024)

  • $95.6M domestic total

  • $182M worldwide

It is now the highest-grossing film with a budget below $1M. And the 9th highest-grossing horror film of all time. Not counting inflation (a big caveat), it is the 4th highest-grossing domestic horror film of all time, sitting behind:

• It (2017)

  • $328.8M domestic total

• The Sixth Sense (1999)

  • $293.5M domestic total

• Jaws (1975)

  • $273.6M domestic total

Curry Barker is in a rare category of directors, and it’s his first feature!

Here are the lowest-grossing films of the week:

$13.5K - The Death of Robin Hood (A24)

• $5.3M domestic total

• $6M worldwide

• Cast: Hugh Jackman

• $845 /screen average

• Week 6

• Trailer

$10.7K - The Hole (Big World Pictures)

• $36K domestic total

• $3.6K /screen average

• Re-release of a 1998 film

• Trailer

$5.5K - The Kidnapping of Arabella (Oscilloscope)

• $16.7K domestic total

• $86.2K worldwide

• Premiere: Venice Film Festival

• Winner: Best Actress, Venice’s Orizzonti section

• $1.8K /screen average

• Week 2

• Trailer

KVN Productions’ Jana Nayagan earned $740K in its opening weekend. This had an ok per-screen average of $1.8K/screen across 415 theaters. The film has earned $1.3M domestically.

Neon’s Her Private Hell earned $530K in its opening weekend. This had a low per-screen average of $785/screen across 675 theaters. The film is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) and stars Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton. It premiered at Cannes.

Neon’s Sheep in the Box earned $33.1K in its opening weekend. This had a massive per-screen average of $11.1K/screen across 3 theaters. The film is directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) and premiered at Cannes.

Normally, when you see lineups, they are long lists. What we do that is different is break down the most important titles, and organize them in categories that are more intuitive, so it is easy for you to get the most important information:

• Cover Story that breaks down the top films at the festival… and which films at last year’s Venice festival broke through.

• Venice Industry News, which breaks out top distributors.

• Venice Actor Spotlight, highlighting the top talent at the festival.

• Venice Indie Filmmaker Spotlight, showcasing first and second-time filmmakers.

• Venice International News, showing the top international filmmakers at Venice.

If you know anyone that we mention, we’d appreciate you forwarding it to them.

Below is the full breakdown:

Venice 2026 has films directed by Danny Boyle, Werner Herzog, Jimmy Chin, Martin McDonagh, and Russell Crowe. And films starring Guy Pearce, Kate Mara, John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Robert Pattinson, Rooney Mara, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ellen Burstyn, Pamela Anderson, and Kiefer Sutherland.

In the past 12 years, many of the films at Venice have ended up winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards (Gravity, Birdman, The Shape of Water, Roma, Nomadland), with Roma and Nomadland also winning Venice’s first-place award, the Golden Lion.

Venice 2025 didn’t have any box office breakouts, but many of the films were nominated for Oscars and Emmys:

• Bugonia

  • Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos

  • 4 Oscar Nominations

  • $43.5M worldwide

• Frankenstein

  • 3 Oscars Won (Production Design, Costume Design, HMU)

  • 9 Oscar Nominations

• No Other Choice

  • Didn’t get the Oscar nomination it had hoped for but was critically acclaimed and made $40.2M worldwide

• Ghost Elephants

  • 1 Emmy Nomination (Best Narrator: Herzog)

• The Voice of Hind Rajab

  • 1 Oscar Nomination (Best International Film)

Of course, everyone is hoping for something closer to Venice 2024, which had The Brutalist, Babygirl and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ($452M WW).

Venice 2025 Golden Lion winner, Father Mother Sister Brother, did little business for Mubi domestically, earning $964K. However, it did much better internationally with $7.3M.

Will the Venice 2026 lineup snag an Oscar Best Picture win or at least a nomination?

Here are the highest-profile projects rolling into Venice this year, all in competition, destined for awards/high box office returns. Hopefully, though, they’re just really good cinema!

• Bucking Fastard

  • Dir: Werner Herzog

  • Cast: Kate Mara, Rooney Mara, Orlando Bloom, Domhnall Gleeson

Synopsis:

Jean and Joan Holbrooke are two sisters who are so close they speak in unison, love the same man, and have the same dreams. In search of an imaginary land - where true love is possible - they start digging through an entire mountain range.

Herzog directing the Maras in their first film where they share screen time? Sign us up! There’s a meta-ness about it that fits in with Herzog’s wildly rebellious style. Bloom will play the sisters’ rowdy ex-lover. It was offered a spot at Cannes in a non-competitive category, so Herzog declined.

• Ink

  • Dir: Danny Boyle (Trainspotting)

  • Cast: Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce, Claire Foy

  • Producers: Tessa Ross (Conclave, Carol)

  • US/LATAM Distributor: Netflix

  • EUR Distributor: StudioCanal

Synopsis:

In 1969, as a rising media tycoon acquires the daily newspaper "The Sun," his partnership with editor Larry Lamb turns the paper into Britain's most influential tabloid.

There is a direct line from his movie, about two young newspaper owners, to the modern media landscape. I saw the opening scene at CinemaCon, and Boyle uses a unique cinematic style, so this will be a very dynamic take.

• Wild Horse Nine

  • Dir: Martin McDonagh

  • Cast: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Parker Posey

  • Distributor: Searchlight

  • Trailer

  • Release: Nov 6

Synopsis:

CIA agents Chris and Lee face a trust-testing mission from Santiago to Easter Island during 1973 in Chile.

McDonagh’s absurdist tendencies cut deeper than any other working filmmaker because there is a visceral way in which he melds comedy and drama, where there is almost no difference between the two. Wild Horse Nine, set in a land of odd yet sacred idols, could push his philosophy even further.

• Primetime

  • Dir: Lance Oppenheim (Some Kind of Heaven)

  • Cast: Robert Pattinson

  • Distributor: A24

  • Trailer

  • Release: Nov 6

Synopsis:

In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen (Pattinson) sets out to make television history.

We love this role for Pattinson because it allows him to play in both territories in which he excels: the slimy self-confident protagonist, as demonstrated so well in Tenet (2020) and Good Time (2017), while also delving into the more twisted ethical territory that his recent films occupy like A24’s The Drama, where he must reckon with the newfound information that his soon-to-be wife (Zendaya) is so twisted it may be beyond repair.

• Bunker

  • Dir: Florian Zeller (The Father)

  • Cast: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Stephen Graham, Paul Dano, Patrick Schwarzenegger

  • Distributor: Sony

  • First look

Synopsis:

Follows a married couple of 17 years. The husband is an architect who accepts a controversial project to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire. This decision leads his wife to question their marriage after 17 years together.

Zeller wrote the film for Cruz and Bardem, who have been married 17 years. This marks their 5th film together after Jamón Jamón (1992), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Loving Pablo (2017), and Everybody Knows (2018).

Zeller’s The Father twists Anthony Hopkins’ relationship with his daughter(s) through scenes that both stabilize and destabilize him; it’s brilliant. We look forward to how Zeller mines Bardem and Cruz’s marriage for similar fractures.

Congrats to all the filmmakers.

THE VENICE INDUSTRY NEWS

The narrative is that indie and studio distributors shied away from Venice this year. But we found that wasn’t the case. Last year there were 12 studio films (including A24 and Neon). This year there are 10 studio films.

Warner Bros. is still reeling post-Joker 2, so no films at the festival. They do, however, have two things on HBO; one is Bleecker Street’s Alex Gibney Elon Musk doc, which is heading to HBO after it plays theatrically. And the other is an Italian TV show.

Here’s a breakdown:

Netflix - 2 films in competition

• Ink directed by Danny Boyle

• Possible Love

  • Dir: Lee Chang-dong (Burning starring Steven Yeun)

  • First look

Synopsis:

A story of two married couples — a laid-off worker and his spouse, and a documentary filmmaker and her spouse — crossing paths to film a documentary and facing their different lives and hidden desires.

Disney - 3 films: 2 out-of-competition docs, 1 Venezia Spotlight

• Disney’s Don't Look Back in Anger

  • Dir: Dylan Southern (The Thing With Feathers), Will Lovelace

  • Creator/Writer: Steven Knight

  • Trailer

Synopsis:

Experience the meteoric rise of Oasis through rare footage and untold stories as the band reunites for Oasis Live '25, chronicling their journey from Manchester streets to global rock stardom.

• National Geographic’s Everest: The Other Side

  • Dir: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin (Free Solo, Nyad)

  • First look

Synopsis:

An intimate portrait of two people bound by love, ambition, and the pursuit of the impossible. Elite ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson fell deeply in love while reaching the pinnacle of their sport: Everest's north face.

• ESPN Films’ Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing (Venezia Spotlight)

  • First look

Synopsis:

Rare inside look at Japan's private sumo world. Through one turbulent year, wrestlers at various career stages struggle to survive in this punishing tradition. Beyond the spectacle, true strength lies in spirit, not flesh.

HBO - 1 show, out of competition

• Peccato

  • First look

Synopsis:

Mockumentary comedy series that finds Emanuela Fanelli in the year 2049 (in her 60s), living a hermetic life in a small village. The black comedy series will follow the actress’ career after a mysterious scandal forces her into private life. The series begins at the end and rewinds Fanelli’s life to explore the events of her downfall and isolation.

Searchlight - 1 film

• Wild Horse Nine by Martin McDonagh

Sony - 1 film

• Bunker by Florian Zeller

A24 - 1 film

• Primetime by Lance Oppenheim

Mubi - 1 film out of competition

• My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile

  • Dir: Julia Loktev

  • First look

This is the second part to Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends: Part I, which followed independent journalists in Moscow facing government crackdown as Russia invades Ukraine, capturing their fight for speech amid risks of being branded "foreign agents" and the country's drift towards authoritarianism.

GKIDS - 1 film

• Look Back

  • Dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters)

  • First look

Synopsis:

Fujino, a gifted and determined teenager, is confident in her talent as an aspiring manga artist while the reclusive Kyomoto rarely leaves her room, devoting herself entirely to drawing. Brought together by their shared passion, the two small-town girls pursue their dream of becoming manga artists over the course of thirteen years.

Kore-eda’s cinema is flush with improvised families that make tiny, ruinous moral choices. Kore-eda is a prolific director. Not two months ago, he premiered another film at a major competition: Neon’s Sheep in a Box at Cannes.

VENICE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Kiefer Sutherland goes all killer preacher à la Machine Gun Preacher or The Boondock Saints in an out-of-competition film as the titular character in Father Joe. He plays a man of faith who wages a violent war against Manhattan's criminal underworld, putting him on a collision course with a powerful mob boss (Al Pacino) while guiding a young woman caught between danger and redemption.

We know Sutherland has been trending toward lighter, artier roles recently (Juror #2, They Cloned Tyrone, Melancholia), but sometimes we just want to see him go all Jack Bauer and kick ass.

Written by Luc Besson, so we know we’re in good violent hands.

Tidbits:

One of the most stacked casts is the Out of Competition film Place to Be starring Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi, Pamela Anderson, and Murray Bartlett. The film follows an elderly woman and a middle-aged man who form an unexpected bond during a cross-country journey from Chicago to NY, accompanying a lost racing pigeon back to its home. It is directed by Kornél Mundruczó, who recently got crickets with his Berlin film At the Sea starring Amy Adams. But Mundruczó directed White God, one of the best films of the decade, so if the cast has chemistry, this could be quite profound. Burstyn is also in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s short film, Flesh Impact. First look.

Toni Servillo is the poetically self-indulgent yet eternally lost soul starring in ​The Great Beauty​ (2013). His masterwork can also be seen in director Paolo Sorrentino’s ​The Consequences of Love​ (2004) ​Il Divo​ (2008), and ​The Hand of God​ (2021). He will now play a celebrated illustrator, Daniele Mallarico, who lives in solitude until an unexpected clash with his grandson Mario in the out-of-competition film Scherzetto. First look.

Alba Rohrwacher (La Chimera) stars in the Competition film Un bon petit soldat. She plays a high-performing HR exec who comes across a dicey case with a toxic boss. The Industry’s Molly Wise has called Alba “a timeless beauty” and “her talent for playing commanding characters has been shown, especially as Spartaco in La Chimera.” Oh, and Vincent Lindon (Titane) likely plays the toxic boss. How perfect. First look.

Geoffrey Rush pops up in Venice Competition film Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? The film, which was based on a non-fiction account, follows Allen Nelson, an African American veteran of the Vietnam War, detailing his wartime experiences and the struggles he faced upon returning home. No word on his role, but it looks like he plays a psychologist, holding the weight of Mr. Nelson’s PTSD. First look at the pair.

Mélanie Laurent crops up in the out-of-competition film A Good Lawyer. I don’t think she plays the main character, but the synopsis is a perfect combination of spicy and dicey: Léonard Landry, a flamboyant criminal defense lawyer, overdoses in the middle of the courtroom. After undergoing rehab, he has one week to save his career and prepare for his own trial, reluctantly assisted by a tenacious intern, Noé.

VENICE DOC FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, the dynamic directing duo behind The Truffle Hunters and Gaucho Gaucho, have a doc out of competition in Venice, Burgundy.

Synopsis:

The story of Burgundy’s most extraordinary characters and a celebration of the pleasure that defines their lives.

These two have a way of finding salt-of-the-earth characters that connect us to our primordial roots as a species. This one sounds like it could be very beautiful as well.

One of the Venice docs, Be Brave, uses AI and, according to the synopsis:

Utilizes AI in a provocative and original way, placing the debate over the boundaries between human creativity and technology—and between the real and the artificial—at the heart of the film.

It’s apparently a remarkable journey into the world of a visionary in fashion and global communication. First look.

Mini Tidbits:

Groundbreaking doc filmmaker Barbara Kopple (Harlan County USA, American Dream) is back with Out of Competition doc Union Town. Synopsis: Three separate but interconnected labor stories in and around New York City, focusing on delivery workers including those working for Amazon, UPS, and food-delivery apps, in their fight for higher wages and improved working conditions. First look.

Bleecker Street’s four-hour Alex Gibney Musk documentary plays out of competition. Described as an incisive BTS portrait of Elon Musk, this should give us a peek at the most notable/notorious public figure in recent times. After theaters, it’ll head to HBO.

Watermelon Pictures’ From Ground Zero doc director Ahmed Hassouna is back with Citizen Osama, a film about a former artistic photographer turned war documentarian who struggles to protect his wife and newborn while capturing devastation around him. First look.

Narrative director Sergei Loznitsa, who took his film Two Prosecutors to Cannes Competition last year, is directing the out-of-competition doc Imperium, which centers on the colonial dynamics of the USSR and the quiet resilience of its many peoples. First look.

There’s a 5.5hr bio doc about Jorge Luis Borges (Fictions, Labyrinths) from director Mariano Llinás.

Takashi Miike directs doc Shumei: The Living Legacy of Kabuki. Enough said.

VENICE INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) is writing and directing a gothic mystery titled Company. Set on a cold winter night in 1975, the film follows a mysterious woman named Evelyn who arrived unexpectedly at a holiday gathering and tells an old tale of wary travelers and grisly murders across three timelines.

The cast is stacked: Nick Nolte, Ben Mendelsohn and Scoot McNairy star. With Adelaide Clemens (TIFF’s The Swearing Jar) playing the mysterious woman.

This will be Casey Affleck’s third feature film as director.

While Casey Affleck’s previous two films couldn’t be more different on paper, his ability for intimate atmospheric storytelling shines in both of them. Whether it’s following the unhinged career change of Joaquin Phoenix in I’m Still Here (2010) or painting an apocalyptic world where most of the female population has been wiped out by a deadly disease in Light of My Life (2019).

Affleck is also able to bring out naturalistic performances from his cast (that usually includes himself), often blurring the line between film and reality. I’m Still Here is a perfect example. With actors like Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn, Affleck’s gothic mystery film will surely be a compelling character study.

Acclaimed TV director May el-Toukhy, who crushed out 4 eps of Netflix’s The Crown, is the one woman with a film In Competition this year. It’s called Woman Unknown.

Synopsis:

Marie, a former housekeeper, plans an extravagant dinner party for her engagement to the household’s patriarch. As preparations unfold, hidden aspects of her past begin to surface, threatening to disrupt the celebration.

This has shades of The Reader, but to share any more could be a spoiler. First look.

Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist, The Last Emperor) reaches Venice beyond the grave. He actually has two films at Venice, sort of.

First, he has a story credit on In Competition Film The Echo Chamber from director Andrea Pallaoro.

Synopsis:

A love story in which the boundaries between presence and absence, care and dependency, desire and control blur until they dissolve. Leo and Anne chase one another, brush against each other, lose one another, and seek each other out. They can neither let go nor break free. Ava’s voice echoes through the rooms, traversing time and bringing to the surface what endures—or what can no longer be held back.

Bertolucci wrote the original script, which was later adapted by filmmaker Andrea Pallaoro, who helped with the rewrite. It feels evocative of his work, especially Last Tango in Paris, which, while problematic, plays with relationships and time in a harsh way. Alicia Vikander is the physiotherapist, and she has a love affair with a music producer with a drug addiction. Susan Sarandon is a co-star. First look.

Second, Luca Guadagnino directs a 7.5-hour tribute doc on Bertolucci, Joie de Vivre. Synopsis: A tribute to legendary 20th-century filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, examining his cinema, art, and life. Features interviews with prominent film figures and directors he inspired across generations who share their perspectives.

Mini Tidbits:

Russell Crowe directs What Love Builds, a doc playing out of competition that is 45 years in the making. It’s about his band Indoor Garden Party. It traces their journey but is also very autobiographical. Turns out music has played a big part in Crowe’s life. Actually, the first film Crowe directed was another doc on a band he had called 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. That one came out in 2002 and was called Texas.

Wim Wenders is back with another 3D doc post Pina. It’s From Inside Out: The Architecture of Peter Zumthor. It explores the influential contemporary architect, Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor. The viewers experience the buildings as if they could walk around in them on their own. First look.

Don’t count Paul Schrader out. His film, The Basics of Philosophy, has a stacked cast with Jack Huston, Bill Pullman, and Karl Glusman. I think it’ll play like a more visceral After the Hunt, following Huston as a repressed philosophy professor who descends into guilt and spiritual reckoning. It’s something Schrader has excelled in, with his recent films The Card Counter and Oh, Canada.

Did you know there was an Odyssey film in 2024? That was Bleecker Street’s The Return starring an incredible Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus. There’s a bat shit insane scene where he eats dirt. Okay, I digress. The producer of that film, Roberto Sessa, has a Venice Competition film called Il Fuoco Che ti Porti Dentro (The Fire You Carry Within You). First look.

Gael García Bernal directs Hombre al agua (Man Overboard). Synopsis: Camilo (García Bernal), a Cuban lifeguard, saves Mexican businessman Abel from drowning. Grateful, Abel brings Camilo to Mexico, where he marries Abel's daughter, Juana, and they have a child. But Camilo soon discovers his new life is part of Abel's Machiavellian plan of manipulation and control. There’s kind of a fun irony in this as García Bernal just played one master of the sea, as the titular Magellan. Seems like the sea is getting its revenge. First look.

Fresh off its selection for the Venice Film Festival, Daniel Zvereff’s animated sci-fi odyssey Moonfish has landed international sales with New Europe Film Sales. Led by Lucy Liu (Kill Bill) and Morgan Spector (The Gilded Age), it tells the story of an astronaut who’s lost his only companion on a deep-space mining mission, with his grief slowly beginning to loosen his grip on reality. Moonfish will screen in the Biennale College section.

Walter Fasano, the editor of Call Me By Your Name, has a feature doc, Nino. It centers on Italian composer Nino Rota (The Godfather, 8 1/2). First look.

Saoirse Ronan has a short film in the Orizzonti section called Paper Plane.

VENICE INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Neon’s next horror pickup? L'estranea (The Stranger) has a simple but powerful synopsis:

A mother arrives at her daughter's apartment during a storm to confess a lie that undermines their family's foundation, leading to an unraveling relationship between them.

First look photo.

The film, in competition, isn’t billed as a horror, but director Paolo Strippoli has directed a string of horrors, including Shudder’s recent The Holy Boy (2025), which also played in competition at Venice. He’s mastered the distortion of Gothic Italian interiors for maximum effect (trailer).

Two years in a row, director Ali Asgari has had a film in Venice’s competition. This year it’s Kami nour (A bit of light).

Synopsis:

After being arrested and having his medical practice shut down, an Iranian doctor loses faith in the future and resolves to end his life - but one final day among his family begins to unsettle his decision.

First look.

His films have a stark, ironic quality, almost like an Iranian Woody Allen. His previous film was Divine Comedy (2025), about a bumbling director (trailer).

Mini Tidbits:

RT Features (The Witch, Call Me By Your Name, Paper Tiger) produces Furies from Rami Kodeih. Synopsis: Amidst Lebanon’s real-life, corruption-induced bank crisis – when depositors were and today still are) denied access to their own savings – two women scheme a daring all-night heist to get their own money back and pay for a life-saving surgery. First look.

Best Synopsis of the festival for a sci-fi lover like me is in out-of-competition film No Pain (Nessun Dolore): A sleep phenomenon overtakes an entire town's population. Two boy scouts remain the only ones awake in a world that has fallen asleep.

Rebel of the Neon God director Tsai Ming-liang has an out-of-competition doc, Dust. Synopsis: A wanderer explores San Sebastián, encountering the Comb of the Wind sculpture where waves crash against rocks, an old Basque farmhouse, strangers drinking and smoking, punks in a bar, and the city at dusk—all reflecting Buddhist wisdom.

Another interesting horror that plays a bit like Antonio Campos’ Afterschool (2008) is Oasis, which is in the Orizzonti section. Synopsis: A viral video of a student's threats triggers school violence. Three outcasts flee to a forest where their games turn ritualistic and pain offers relief, until past traumas emerge and their relationships shift. First look.

See the full list of 2026 Venice films here.

Written and edited by Gabriel Miller.

Peacock, IMAX and Ramayana.

Let’s go!

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THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Peacock reports $189M in profit and $1.9bn in revenue.

• IMAX is up for the quarter with $103M in revenue and $15.9M in net income.

• Universal secures the rights to develop Atari games into feature films.

• Rebelle Media and MGM Television acquire Sarah Adams’ When in Rome series.

• A judge extends the order blocking the PSKY WBD merger through August 18.

• Los Angeles on-location production falls 12.7% in Q2.

• Apple TV orders its first dating series.

• Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Laura Linney join rom-com The Joy of Sex.

• Zosia Mamet joins the fifth and final season of HBO’s Industry.

• Rick Kumazawa joins Season 2 of FX’s Shōgun.

• TIFF unveils the lineup for its Primetime Program.

• Bleecker Street acquires concert film George Michael: The Faith Tour.

• Sony acquires global rights to Indian epic Ramayana.

Yesterday’s correct answer: 6x Tony Scott/Jerry Bruckheimer films.
74% got it correct.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Comcast’s Peacock Q2 2026. Here are the stats for the NBCUniversal streamer, plus the difference from last year:

• $1.9bn revenue

  • ↑ 58%

• 48M subs (↑ 2M).

  • Good result after three straight quarters of additions

• $189M profit

  • ↑ from $101M in losses last year

  • First-ever profitable quarter

Co-CEO Mike Cavanagh hedged his bets, stating that profitability had to be judged yearly:

“Managing event-driven churn effectively by bringing users in around major moments and keeping them engaged with the broader content slate.”

E.g., much of the gains are due to FIFA World Cup, NBA Playoffs and Love Island.

The media unit of Peacock’s parent company, Comcast, had a profit of $708M (↑3.7%) and $5.7bn revenue (↑25.3%).

NBCU’s movie and TV studio had $3.04bn in rev (↑ 25%) and $972M theatrical revenue (↑242%). Profit is up 3x to $202M.

This is due to the breakout success of Michael, which they distributed internationally, as well as The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($1.01bn WW) and Obsession ($443.7M WW).

Here are the full Q2 2026 financials.

IMAX Q2 2026. We broke down their numbers and how they stacked up against last year:

• $285M global box office

  • ↑1% overall

  • ↑24% internationally

• $103M revenue

  • ↑12%

• $15.9M Net Income

  • ↑30%

The top earners:

• $69M, Michael

• $42M, The Mandalorian & Grogu

Look, this may get blown out of the water by next quarter as The Odyssey earned $52M in its opening weekend for IMAX; that’s their most ever for a title. We’ll see if that comes close to last year’s top earner, the Chinese film Ne Zha 2, which earned IMAX $190M.

Welcome back to the Golden Age of Arcade Video Games. American Video Gaming company Atari signs a deal with Universal Pictures, giving the studio the right to develop Atari video game IP into feature films. The iconic game properties include Asteroids, Berzerk, Centipede, and Crystal Castles. Longtime Universal exec Matt Reilly and Carl Hampe (Prod: Hellboy) will write the first screenplay from one of the IPs.

Atari was a pioneer in the commercial video game space in the 70s, even controlling 80% of the market with their iconic Atari 2600 home console. We can surely expect an action-adventure film where Atari’s biggest gaming IPs appear as characters and obstacles for the main characters to overcome.

There’s already a really good example of blending nostalgic IP into a single film – Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One (2018) successfully incorporated iconic characters and settings from films like The Shining (1980) and Mobile Suit Gundam into its story.

Maybe we’ll be able to see our main characters sucked into the world of 8-bit games where they must survive through arcades’ most iconic games.

Hollywood’s production comeback is proving slower than hoped. According to FilmLA’s latest report, on-site production in LA dipped slightly in Q2:

4,711 total on-location production days for Q2

• ↓ 12.7% (5,394 SD in Q2 2025)

Television

• 1,607 shoot days

  • ↑ 34% (1,196 SD in Q1 2026)

Feature Films

• 443 shoot days

  • ↓ 19% (553 SD in Q2 2025)

As of right now, 170 projects have been awarded tax credits through the California Film & Tax Credit Program. The new report echoes LA’s “new normal”, a smaller industry that is more heavily supported with state incentives.

Full details here.

EEAAO filmmakers Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s next sci-fi movie gets a confusing new insight from the film’s lead, Matt Damon.

He said:

“The way they pitched it to me was: if The Breakfast Club meets Inception meets an anime film meets an episode of The John Oliver Show that never aired.”

The untitled Universal film will hit theaters Nov. 19, 2027.

Tidbits:

A judge has ordered an additional 2-week temporary restraining order blocking the merging of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. That means the deal cannot close before August 18th. During this time, the court will review the antitrust lawsuit brought by 12 state AGs. Full details here.

Apple TV is making its first dating series, The Last Person on Earth with Esther Perel (Podcast: Where Should We Begin?) as host. In the show, Perel and her team will bring together couples who appear to be complete opposites and send them to one of the world’s most romantic destinations.

Sarah Adams’ bestselling When in Rome romance series is headed to television. Rebelle Media (Hulu’s Tell Me Lies) and MGM Television have secured the adaptation rights, set in Rome, Kentucky. Plot: “Princess of pop” Amelia Rose spontaneously decides to take a vacation to the small city in Kentucky (sort of) inspired by her favorite film, Roman Holiday.

Jeff VanderMeer’s strange worlds are expanding. The Annihilation author’s upcoming four-part book series Strange Architect has been acquired by an American publishing company, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG), in a seven-figure deal. The uncanny mystery series will follow Arthur Bream, a man whose dreams were destroyed when his daughter suddenly went missing, who still spends his remaining years attempting to contact the spirit realm where he believes his daughter is trapped.

Renewal:

Netflix’s Beauty in Black (Renewed for Season 4)

Cancellation:

Apple TV’s The Morning Show (Canceled after Season 5)

Trailers:

Sony Pictures’ Resident Evil

• Dir: Zach Cregger

• Trailer

• Cast: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry

• Release: Sept 18

Paramount’s Ebenezer

• Cast: Johnny Depp, Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint

• Trailer

• Release: Nov 13

Netflix’s Tires S3

• Trailer

• Cast: Shane Gillis, Steve Gerben

• Release: Aug 13

Erotic Drama Brave New Love

• Trailer

• Locarno Premiere: Aug

• US Release: TBD

Scottish Ballet’s These Violent Delights

• Trailer

• Edinburgh Premiere: Aug 14

Ketchup Entertainment’s Coyote vs. ACME

• Trailer

• Cast: Will Forte

• Release: Aug 28

Paramount+’s Avatar: Seven Havens

• Trailer

• Release: Oct 9

Release Dates:

A24’s Primetime

• Cast: Robert Pattinson, Phoebe Bridgers

• Release: Sept 25

Damai Entertainment’s Dear You

• Trailer

• Chinese Release: April 30

• Chinese Box Office: $290M

• Well Go USA acquired US rights, releasing: Sept 4

Artists Equity’s Shot in the Dark

• Trailer

• Subject: U.S. Paralympic Blind Soccer Team

Warner Bros.’ Supergirl

• Digital Release: July 28

Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians S3

• Cast: Walker Scobell, Aryan Simhadri, Leah Sava, Tamara Smart

• Release: Nov 20

Neon’s Artificial

• Dir: Luca Guadagnino

• Cast: Andrew Garfield, Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov

• US Release: Dec 2026

ESPN+’s The Trade with Kelly L. Carter

• Host: Kelly L. Carter

• Guests: John Cena, Marshawn Lynch

• Release: July 29

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

HBO’s Industry brings on old network regular Zosia Mamet (Girls) for its fifth and final season. Mamet will play a motivated fitness influencer turned wellness CEO. Her new role is not far removed from the overly ambitious, career-driven Shoshanna Shapiro, capturing her perfect out-of-touchness across all six seasons of Girls (2012-17). While the Lena Dunham-created HBO dramedy series looked at the growing pains of twenty-somethings, Industry follows the cutthroat careers that come after, making it a natural evolution for Mamet. Production on the last eight episodes will begin in the UK next month.

Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Laura Linney (The Truman Show) join Sharon Maguire’s (Dir: Bridget Jones’s Diary) new love triangle romcom film The Joy of Sex. Based on the 1972 sex manual that became a worldwide hit, the film will follow the incredible story of how the infamous book was born. Sharon Maguire is the mastermind behind one of the most successful love triangle franchises of all time, the Bridget Jones series. She knows how to create heartfelt romantic situations with ingenuity. With Firth, Moore, and Linney at its center, the film feels perfect for an older version of Bridget Jones.

Casting Tidbits:

• Toheeb Jimoh

• The White Lotus’ Natasha Rothwell

• Rick Kumazawa

All these casting tidbits and more here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

The Toronto Film Festival’s 11th annual Primetime Program unveils its upcoming lineup.

The section has shows from Netflix, Amazon, Peacock and A24. Here’s the full breakdown: https://theindustry.co/p/tiff-primetime-program

Sarajevo Film Festival reveals its full lineup of 51 films set to screen in its 32nd edition of the festival. This includes 21 world premieres and 6 international premieres across four competition selections: narrative feature, feature and short documentary, narrative short and student short.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Sony acquires global rights to the most expensive Indian film ever made: Ramayana. The film centers on the ancient tale of Rama, a prince who spends years in exile while his wife Sita is kidnapped by the demon king Ravana.

The film boasts some of the best talent in Hollywood, including the visual effects company DNEG (VFX: The Odyssey, Interstellar) and music from Hans Zimmer.

Nitesh Tiwari directs the project, with Ranbir Kapoor (Animal), Yash (K.G.F. Franchise), and Sai Pallavi (Amaran) starring. The first film is scheduled to be released during Diwali 2026.

The two-part epic Ramayana is speculated to be the most expensive film in Indian cinema history, with producer Namit Malhotra announcing a combined budget of $500M.

The biggest Indian films have been big box office earners; Dhurandhar (2025) made $137.2M WW and RRR (2022) garnered $166.6M. Ramayana is positioned to be a statement project, declaring that Indian cinema can compete with Hollywood in the global event-film space.

Tidbit:

Concert film George Michael: The Faith Tour gets acquired by Bleecker Street. The company’s event cinema division Crosswalk will release the film in North America. Shot during the European leg of the Faith Tour in 1988, the doc film will feature never-before-seen footage of George Michael. Bleecker Street continues expanding its concert film slate, having released Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience (2026), which featured a global K-pop icon in their SoFi Stadium performance.

Mini Tidbits:

Billkin Putthipong Assaratanakul (The Red Envelope) stars in an Untitled Thai Snooker Project. The feature film will be directed by Wattanapong ‘Jack’ Wongwan (Dir: Netflix’s The Believers) and follow the rise of a professional snooker player.

Isabel Davis has been named the director of BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Funds. She will oversee £20M ($26.8M) each year to support independent UK filmmakers.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel set decorator Mary Kate Golding has tragically died.

ON THIS DAY

1998. Saving Private Ryan is released.

Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.

Editor: Gabriel Miller.

Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram

Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co

Program Opening Series:

Netflix’s Below

• Showrunner: Jesse McKeown

• Cast: Josh Hartnett, Charlie Heaton

• Release Oct. 8 (on Netflix)

Synopsis:

When a mysterious sea creature terrorizes a remote town, a fisherman must fight to protect his family, his community, and his way of life.

MGM+’s American Hostage

• Showrunner: Shawn Ryan

• Cast: Jon Hamm, Giovanni Ribisi, Jonathan Tucker

• Release: Fall 2026 (on MGM)

Synopsis:

Fred Heckman, a beloved Indianapolis radio reporter, is thrust into the middle of a life-or-death crisis when hostage-taker, Tony Kiritsis, demands to be interviewed on his popular radio news program.

Amazon MGM Studio’s Carrie

• Showrunner: Mike Flanagan

• Cast: Summer H. Howell, Matthew Lillard. Samantha Sloyan

• Release: Oct. 26 (on Prime Video)

Synopsis:

A sheltered girl with telekinetic powers is bullied, leading to a horrific, bloody incident due to her domineering mother’s influence.

Peacock and A24’s Crystal Lake

• Showrunner: Brad Caleb

• Cast: Linda Cardellini, Bernadette Quigley

• Release: Oct. 15 (on Peacock)

Synopsis:

Prequel series to Friday the 13th, follows a doomed small town where camp counselors come to die.

Crave’s YAGA

• Showrunner: Kat Sandler

• Cast: Hudson Williams, Carrie-Anne Moss, Noah Reid

• Release: Fall 2026 (on AMC+ in U.S.)

Synopsis:

Follows a private investigator probing the disappearance of a young fishery heir, finding himself at odds with a local detective, a charismatic professor, and a labyrinth of enigmatic suspects and ancient magic.

Apple’s Slow Horses (Season 6)

• Showrunner: Mick Herron

• Cast: Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves

• Release: Sept. 16 (on Apple TV)

TIFF will take place Sept. 10-20.

Rick Kumazawa (You) joins FX’s Shōgun S2. No info on his role other than the fact that he will be playing a character named Gaspar. The first season of the Emmy-winning show followed Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) as he fought off the Council of Regents who teamed up against him.

The White Lotus’ Natasha Rothwell is bringing her zen to Hulu’s untitled Cable Guy pilot from Sony Pictures Television. Inspired by the 1996 Jim Carrey movie of the same name, the series is moving forward with Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. set to lead a story exploring the darkly absurd side of male friendship. Rothwell will play the latter’s oddball sister, who lives at home with their parents.

Benny Safdie’s live-action/CGI hybrid film Lizard Music has cast Alicia Silverstone, joining Dwayne Johnson and 10-year-old actor Theo Clark. Adapted from Daniel Pinkwater’s 1976 novel, the story follows a boy who discovers a mysterious broadcast of lizards playing weird music, sending him on a magical adventure with an eccentric old man and his 111-year-old chicken. All character details are under wraps.

Anne Russell, most known for her Broadway appearances in Jerry Herman’s musical Hello, Dolly! and Mame, dies at 103. She also appeared next to Elizabeth Taylor in ABC’s TV film These Old Broads.

• Hot properties: spotlights the week’s authors whose work is being adapted by major studios/production companies, and who have other novels with strong screen potential.

• Bestsellers: the top books from the NY Times and Amazon bestseller lists that are ripe for Film/TV.

• Internet hot properties. With the recent success of A24’s Backrooms and properties such as Siren Head and Cartoon Cat selling to Warner Bros and Sony, internet fables are the fastest-growing IP trend. Here we highlight one of the most intriguing.

• Hidden Gem: a spotlight on an unknown book that could make for a phenomenal film.

HOT PROPERTIES

Book 1: Tim Winton’s Eyrie

Film: Psychological Drama, Climate Thriller

Synopsis:

Tom Keely is a man struggling to accomplish good in an utterly fallen world. Once an ambitious, altruistic environmentalist, Keely now finds himself broke, embroiled in scandal, and struggling to piece together some semblance of a life. From the heights of his urban high-rise apartment, he surveys the wreckage of his life and the world he’s tumbled out of love with. Just before he descends completely into pills and sorrow, a woman from his past and her preternatural grandson appear, perched on the edge of disaster, desperate for help.

A character-driven look at a man who dedicated his life to fighting a righteous battle, and has failed. The anxiety-inducing landscape of climate-ravaged summertime Australia could be pushed into surrealist territory - the environment around the protagonist becoming a threat to them - in the same vein as Synecdoche, New York or Beau is Afraid. However, a more subtle, gentle portrait of Keely as a character would contrast well with the harsh setting of the novel. In this instance, filmmaker Kitty Green would be perfect. Her ability to capture the unease of a landscape is shown in The Royal Hotel, and her grasp of a character’s inner turmoil is proven in The Assistant.

WHY IT’S HOT: Another Winton novel, the science-fiction Juice, is currently being developed into a feature film by Working Title, with Joe Wright (Darkest Hour, Atonement) directing.

Book 2: Harlan Coben’s Six Years

Film: Mystery, Thriller, Romance

Synopsis:

Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for… but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact, everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life - a time he has never gotten over - is turned completely inside out.

One of Coben’s few standalone novels that has not yet received an adaptation, Six Years would be perfect for a mystery thriller feature, and could develop in a variety of ways; a classic unraveling mystery approach like The Girl on the Train or something narratively daring like Memento.

The novel was under option with Hugh Jackman back in 2015, who would have no doubt played the role of Fisher. Imagining this type of actor in the role, Colin Farrell would make an excellent choice, easily playing a broken, rugged man and rediscovering the mystery genre he played so well in True Detective. Another interesting choice would be Domhnall Gleeson (The Paper, Bucking Fastard); his mind-reeling performance in Ex Machina as a man losing his mind when his reality is questioned would lend itself well to Fisher.

WHY IT’S HOT: Netflix has just announced an upcoming series, Myron Bolitar with David E. Kelley (Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Presumed Innocent) writing and producing. Based on the Coben book series of the same name, this shows his older work is still very much attracting interest.

Book 3: John Langan’s House of Windows

Series: Gothic Horror, Thriller, Psychological

Synopsis:

For the last few years, Veronica Croydon has been at the center of scandal, first as the younger woman for whom her famous professor left his wife, and then as the apparent widow of that man. When a writer staying at the same vacation home as Veronica has the chance to hear her story, he jumps at it. What follows takes him to the dark heart of a father’s troubled relationship with his only son, in a story that stretches from the height of Victorian England to post-9/11 America. It is a story that leads inexorably to the looming Belvedere House, the home Veronica shared with her husband, within whose walls a father’s terrible words to his son echo and gain in awful force.

This unique haunted house novel would be perfectly adapted to a series with its era-spanning premise. The gothic tale with a thematic likeness to Lovecraft and Dickens brings to mind the work of Mike Flanagan (Amazon’s Carrie, The Haunting of Hill House) - this series could potentially forge a similar path for a horror director to try their hand at showrunning, such as Nia DaCosta (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Candyman).

WHY IT’S HOT: Langan’s novel The Fisherman, has just been picked up by director David Lowery (The Green Knight) alongside Focus Features to be adapted into a film, with Michael Bay and his company Platinum Dunes.

Book 4: TJ Klune’s Under the Whispering Door

Series: Adult Animated, Contemporary Fantasy, Romance

Synopsis:

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead. But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Under the Whispering Door could be a great adult animation. Many animated shows for adults go the crass, violent route to distance themselves from a perceived “childish” medium (Rick and Morty, Family Guy) - this series could offer a surreal, whimsical show for adults to explore their own thoughts about life and death, similarly to Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel or a grown-up version of Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall.

Plus, this shares a similar story outline to A Christmas Carol, the most recent adaptation of which is Paramount’s Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, releasing this November.

WHY IT’S HOT: TJ Klune’s heartfelt fantasy The House in the Cerulean Sea is being adapted into an animated series by Warner Bros. Animation.

Book 5: Lucy Clarke’s Swimming at Night

Series: Family Drama, Mystery Thriller

Synopsis:

Katie’s world is shattered by the news that her headstrong and bohemian younger sister, Mia, has been found dead at the bottom of a cliff in Bali. The authorities say that Mia jumped - that her death was a suicide.

Although they’d hardly spoken to each other since Mia suddenly left on an around-the-world trip six months earlier, Katie refuses to accept that her sister would have taken her own life. Distraught that they never made peace, Katie leaves her orderly, sheltered life in London behind and embarks on a journey, country by country.

It sounds like the perfect mystery series, but the budget of hopping from country to country would price out many smaller production companies, and dissuade bigger studios from taking the risk. However, by starting the series in London (a UK production company can take advantage of the business tax relief), then refocusing to one location, getting the character of Katie to hunt for clues in one exotic paradise that stole her sister’s heart, things become more doable - especially when taking into account tax incentives of certain territories.

• The Canary Islands: although Spain’s tax rebate for productions is around 30%, it shoots up to 45% - 50% when shooting in the Canary Islands.
  Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma - the list of great locations goes on.
  https://www.ep.com/production-incentives/europe/canaryislands/

• Mauritius: the tropical island offers 30 - 40% tax rebate
  https://www.ep.com/production-incentives/africa-and-middle-east/mauritius/

• Fiji: starting the series in Wellington, NZ rather than London would be a smart swap for Oceanic production companies, who can then shoot in Fiji and make the most of the 20% tax rebate.
  https://www.ep.com/production-incentives/oceania/fiji/

WHY IT’S HOT: Clarke specializes in “destination thrillers.” Her novel The Surf House, which is set in a travelers’ sanctuary in Morocco, has been picked up recently by Netflix. Ed Lilly (Industry, Tell Me Lies) is showrunning.

BESTSELLERS

Book 6: Ann Patchett’s Whistler

Film: Indie father-child relationship drama

(6 weeks on NYT bestseller list)

Synopsis:

When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than a year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.

Described as “beautiful in its simplicity,” Whistler would make a wonderful indie film (swapping out the Met Museum for a more cost-effective location).

The simple yet full-of-meaning style is reminiscent of a handful of indies that nail the complex father-child relationship - and, just like those, the emotional core of this film will be dependent on the strength of the cast:

• Nebraska - Alexander Payne, 2013 (Will Forte and Bruce Dern)

• Somewhere - Sofia Coppola, 2010 (Elle Fanning and Stephen Dorff)

• On the Rocks - Sofia Coppola, 2020 (Rashida Jones and Bill Murray)

As in the novel, the film would need to split its time between two distinct periods in the characters’ lives - which means a double cast. Assuming that the film will spend more time in the present day, those actors will be cast first, then we will work backward.

For present-day Eddie, an actor needs to exude warmth and familial longing, but also have emotional complexity. Alfred Molina (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Remarkably Bright Creatures) would be a great fit - lovable, but serious. Middle-aged Eddie could be played well by John Magaro (The Mastermind, Past Lives), who also imbues these qualities.

It may be a stretch for an indie, but Daphne would be perfectly portrayed by Kate Winslet, with Nell Fisher (Stranger Things, Evil Dead Rise) playing her childhood self. Another talented actor for the role would be Ruth Negga (Preacher), whose ability to play complex characters was proven in Netflix’s Passing.

Book 7: Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden

Film: Character Study, Heartwarming, Inspirational

(#1 on Amazon and NYT bestseller list)

Synopsis:

One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from… or why… His name is Theo. And he asks a lot more questions than he answers.

Theo visits the local coffeehouse, where ninety-two pencil portraits hang on the walls, portraits of the people of Golden done by a local artist. He begins purchasing them, one at a time, and putting them back in the hands of their “rightful owners.” With each exchange, a story is told, a friendship born, and a life altered.

Spending 31 weeks on the NYT bestseller list, it has been described as a word-of-mouth smash hit. This could make a great quirky character-study film like Tim Burton’s Big Fish, or a series with one drawing or character per episode format.

Book 8: Jenny Jackson’s The Shampoo Effect

Series: Raunchy Drama, Rom-Com

(#10 on NYT bestseller list - new this week)

Synopsis:

When writer Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, she falls immediately for its scenic beaches and New England charm – and even harder for Van Whittaker, a gorgeous, fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast.

She meets his friends: Augusta, old money and uptight; Fran, drowning in everyone else’s problems whilst keeping two kids (and an inebriated husband) afloat; and Bailey, who is sexy, confident… and inconveniently pregnant with Van’s child.

Determined nothing will dull the shine of her new romance, Caroline joins the friends as they run wild through Greenhead, drinking on houseboats, gossiping on beaches while their children paddle, and playing risky games.

It seems the fun will last forever – until it doesn’t.

A potential series here would need to strike a balance: the self-aware study of the complexities of modern life and relationships seen in many current series (Apple TV’s Shrinking, Netflix’s The Four Seasons) with the drama-fueled fun of a more bohemian Desperate Housewives. Feel-good watching that understands modern relationships. Not an easy feat, but if accomplished it could be a comfort watch that audiences can still relate to.

INTERNET PROPERTIES

Property 9: 11 Miles

Film: Horror

Originating on Reddit forums like r/nosleep, this urban myth takes the form of a ritual.

Synopsis (pulled from Creepypasta Wiki):

If you complete this challenge, you will find exactly what you seek. But if you attempt this challenge and fail, I cannot say with certainty what will become of you. Do you have something that you truly, relentlessly desire?

The challenger is tasked with going on a nighttime drive. They will see signs of the things they desire - if it is wealth, they will see shimmers of gold in the trees lining the road. This shows the challenge has started. After that, they must drive 11 miles, battling the horrors that emerge both outside and inside their vehicle.

In 2023, Shudder released Elevator Game, which was similarly based on an online ritual. With the recent success of A24’s Backrooms proving audiences’ interest in surreal internet-culture horrors, this property could attract smaller and larger production companies alike - especially as the story can be adapted to all budgets.

The key to its success will be using the confined location of the car to its advantage - much like Locke (2013), which spends its entire runtime in a car with Tom Hardy. Or, for a more horrific comparison, Buried (2010), which sees Ryan Reynolds attempting to escape a coffin 6ft under the earth.

An incredibly talented, charismatic lead - like Hardy and Reynolds - will need to carry the film. The beauty here is the protagonist can be anyone, as long as they have a burning desire. Julia Garner (Inventing Anna) would be my choice - her well-meaning but boundary-stepping alcoholic teacher in Weapons makes her horror’s current queen of complex characters.

HIDDEN GEM

Book 10: Nadia Mikail’s The Cats We Meet Along the Way

Film: Family-Friendly Animation, Road Trip, World Catastrophe

Synopsis:

Charting Aisha and her family on a road trip through the country in search of her estranged sister, June. Set against the backdrop of a world catastrophe, this novel is full of love, healing and hope. Seventeen-year-old Aisha hasn’t seen her sister June for two years. And now that a calamity is about to end the world in nine months’ time, she and her mother decide that it’s time to track her down and mend the hurts of the past. Along with Aisha’s boyfriend, Walter, and his parents (and Fleabag the stray cat), the group takes a road trip through Malaysia in a wildly decorated campervan - to put the past to rest, to come to terms with the present, and to hope for the future.

This book is truly exciting. A blend of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and The Mitchells vs. The Machines, it would make an excellent family-friendly feature that introduces young people to adult emotional themes - much in the way that Pixar favorites have done before (Soul, Inside Out). This story would be a fabulous choice for Pixar, but I can also see this being just right for LAIKA (Coraline, ParaNorman). A LAIKA production would capture the Malaysian countryside in all its intricacy, as Kubo and the Two Strings did with feudal Japan.

See you next week!

Written by Molly Wise.

For consulting and/or advertising opportunities email clarke.scott@theindustry.co

Read more

Tom Cruise’s Day, Glen Powell’s Star, and Stewie.

Let’s go!

If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.

Two massive updates on two massive projects. Both produced by Jerry Bruckheimer:

Tom Cruise will star in Paramount’s Days of Thunder sequel, with Jonathan Levine set to direct.

That would mark the second Tony Scott-directed (Top Gun 1) 80s/90s film to get a Cruise sequel. Days of Thunder (1990) co-starred Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, and Randy Quaid. It’s a NASCAR racing movie and a Tarantino favorite that packs high adrenaline into every scene (trailer). Days of Thunder ($87M WW box office) never reached the iconic level of Top Gun ($357M WW box office), but the action was top-notch.

Levine is an ace in the hole for Paramount. He directed a few Seth Rogen comedies, 50/50 (2011) and Long Shot (2019). But now he’s helmed Mr. Irrelevant starring David Corenswet as the last player picked in the NFL draft. I saw the trailer at CinemaCon and thought it was the most powerful project in Paramount’s lineup.

Levine’s got a real tendency to tell underdog stories, so paired with Bruckheimer, we could imagine an analog to Pitt’s role in F1.

Second project:

Sony is in talks to acquire the new Treasure Island starring Hugh Jackman as Long John Silver, directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Jack Thorne (Adolescence).

That triple threat will likely birth a darker, more psychological tale than the previous dozen film incarnations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel.

For more:

Get our full take on Treasure Island here.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• The WGA seeks a preliminary injunction to block the PSKY WBD merger.

• The European Commission approves the PSKY WBD merger.

• YouTube reports $11.1bn in Q2 ad revenue.

• Apple TV acquires Rebecca Yarros’ upcoming romance novel Peculiar Stars.

• Prime Video develops a series adaptation of graphic novel Stillwater.

• Netflix expands the Parasyte universe with Parasyte: Tamiya.

• Kenneth Branagh joins Paramount+’s Scottish family drama Laird.

• Glen Powell reunites with Linklater to play Lou Gehrig in a Universal biopic.

• Fox expands the voice cast of Family Guy spinoff Stewie.

• TIFF announces 24 projects for its Discovery program.

• Darren Aronofsky’s AI company Primordial Soup raises $11M.

• Casey Affleck will write and direct gothic mystery Company, starring Nick Nolte.

Yesterday’s correct answer: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Louise Fletcher’s Oscar role. 88% got it correct.

The WGA seeks a preliminary injunction, escalating its lawsuit to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. This is a separate lawsuit from the one filed last week by the 12 states and focuses more on the labor impact, like PSKY’s proposed $6bn in “cost savings,” which could mean mass reduction in staff.

Paramount responded:

“We are confident the evidence will demonstrate that this merger is pro-competitive and will expand opportunities for writers and creative talent alike.”

While state AGs and guilds are intent on slowing down the PSKY WBD merger, the story is different across the pond.

The European Commission has approved the merger. They similarly fast-tracked the Paramount Global–Skydance merger, well before the FCC tied the knot. That’s because there are more TV and theatrical competitors in the European market. One caveat: Paramount’s distribution partnership with Universal Pictures in Europe will need to be canceled in the next year.

YouTube Q2 2026 results:

• $11.1bn ad revenue (vs. Netflix’s $12.56bn)

  • ↑ 13% from last year

  • 350M paid subs (including Google)

• 13.4% Total TV Usage (Nielsen)

  • Up from 12.7% last quarter

  • 72% larger share than Netflix

  • 272% larger share than a combined WBD + Paramount

We’re at an interesting inflection point with YouTube and, by proxy, Google. Right now, they haven’t quite mainlined their Gemini AI tools into YouTube, but they’re getting close. We’d love to see a breakdown from these platforms of how much human-generated vs. non-human-generated content is being watched.

Three big adaptations/expansions:

• Apple TV’s Peculiar Stars

• Prime’s Stillwater

• Netflix’s Parasyte TV

Details on all three here.

Mini Tidbits:

Paramount+ orders Scottish drama Laird, created by Jez Butterworth (Showrunner: MobLand) and starring Kenneth Branagh. The series will be an epic family saga that follows the Laird of Castle Drummoch (Branagh) as he tries to protect his ancestral lands from a shady American billionaire. This will be the third Paramount+ series coming from Jez Butterworth, after MobLand and The Agency.

Disney keeps its Mary Poppins IP alive with a doc on Julie Andrews. Giving the film the Midas touch is director R.J. Cutler (Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry). Releasing in 2027. For those wondering, Andrews is alive and well with her latest role in Netflix’s Bridgerton.

Prime Video is developing a feature doc about English singer-songwriter and actress Lily Allen. The doc will paint an intimate portrait of the life and career of Lily Allen, following her growth as a global icon with hits like “Smile” and “LDN”.

Just days after The Deb finally set a release date, director Rebel Wilson has won the defamation case brought by her co-star Charlotte MacInnes, with the Australian Federal Court dismissing the lawsuit. The Deb will get a VOD release Aug. 25.

Trailers:

A24’s Misty Green

• Dir: Chris Rock

• Trailer

• Cast: Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Chris Rock

• Release: Oct

Neon’s It Ends

• Trailer

• Release: Aug 21

Warner Bros.’ Clayface

• Trailer

• Cast: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie

• Release: Oct 23

First Look:

Fable’s AI-generated film Gods Don’t Give Gifts

• Dir: Gossip Goblin

• First Look

• Release: Oct 30

Release Dates:

Amazon MGM’s Ali G: Who Iz I?

• Dir/Star: Sacha Baron Cohen

• Teaser

• Release: Oct 23

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Unmasking A Monster: Aileen Wuornos

• Release: Sept 30

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Benicio Del Toro is put in Protective Custody. That’s the name of a new show he’s starring in for Apple TV. His co-star will be Ben Stiller, and Mike Judge (Silicon Valley, Office Space) will direct.

The show follows a fallen financier facing major fraud allegations who lands in protective custody.

Del Toro in a work by Judge just screams high-strung and zany. Something Del Toro has been excelling in well before he gave a wonderfully maximalist performance in One Battle After Another (clip). See him as Johnny Depp’s drugged-up buddy in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (clip), enough said.

Glen Powell is trading hitmen for pinstripes, set to take on Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig in Richard Linklater’s upcoming biopic.

The new Universal project reunites Powell with the Hit Man (2023) and Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) filmmaker, looking at Gehrig’s extraordinary life from his historic 17-year baseball career to his battle with ALS and ultimately his death in 1941 at age 37.

For such a remarkable life, his story has only been told on film once in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), earning Gary Cooper an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Gehrig, nicknamed “The Iron Horse.”

Universal’s new take will be written by SNL’s youngest-ever staff writer Simon Rich and produced by Lorne Michaels, bringing one of baseball’s most celebrated figures back to the big screen.

Fox’s new Family Guy spinoff, Stewie, expands the voice cast. Aside from Seth MacFarlane in the titular role, they’re bringing in:

• Kenan Thompson (playing Stewie’s new friend with a bad attitude)

• Vanessa Bayer (playing Stewie’s teacher who loves to party)

• Mike Henry (playing a gossipy classmate)

The series, which has been ordered for two seasons, follows Stewie, who is forced to attend a boring school, only to discover a device that can take him anywhere in time and space. Thus making his lessons more interesting. Sounds like it will be a naughty Magic School Bus.

Tidbits:

“I’ve got to do Fred proud.” In a busy July for Tom Holland, the actor shared that production has begun on the upcoming Fred Astaire biopic. Holland shared that he has been spending his time in the dance studio preparing to perform all of Astaire’s dance numbers himself. While he certainly has some massive tap shoes to fill, the film marks a full-circle moment for Holland, who began his career in the titular role in the West End production of Billy Elliot the Musical (clip).

Casting Tidbits:

• Vanessa Marano

• Louis Cancelmi

• Johnny Knoxville

All those casting tidbits here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

The upcoming Toronto Film Festival has announced its Discovery program lineup consisting of 24 new projects from rising filmmakers.

Here are a few that stood out to us:
https://theindustry.co/p/tiff-discovery-2026

Venice Days, the independent sidebar of the Venice International Film Festival, has unveiled the titles for its 23rd edition, the first since the passing of section founder Giorgio Gosetti.

Venice Days Opening Film:

My Notes on Mars

• Dir: Lili Horvát (Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time)

• Cast: Rupert Friend (The Phoenician Scheme)

Synopsis:

A brilliant scientist, Margot, mysteriously disappears while hiking with her husband Sam and friends. She reappears weeks later, changed, and Sam sees it as a chance to rekindle their marriage and rediscover each other.

Venice Days and its Italian-centered companion section, Venice Nights, include 25 world premieres with more than half directed by women.

Venice will run from Sept. 2-12.

TECH SECTION

Darren Aronofsky’s AI company Primordial Soup has raised $11M on its path toward a planned total of $15M.

I ranted last year about this company when they partnered with Google. Here’s the full breakdown.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) is writing and directing a gothic mystery titled Company. Set on a cold winter night in 1975, the film follows a mysterious woman named Evelyn who arrived unexpectedly at a holiday gathering and tells an old tale of wary travelers and grisly murders.

The cast for this film is full of talent, with Nick Nolte (Cape Fear), Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One), Adelaide Clemens (R.J. Decker), and Scoot McNairy (Speak No Evil). This will be Casey Affleck’s third feature film as director.

While Casey Affleck’s previous two films couldn’t be more different on paper, his ability for intimate atmospheric storytelling shines in both of them. Whether it’s following the unhinged career change of Joaquin Phoenix in I’m Still Here (2010) or painting an apocalyptic world where most of the female population has been wiped out by a deadly disease in Light of My Life (2019), Affleck’s films focus on creating a certain mood through their characters rather than following genre tropes.

As an actor-turned-director, he is also able to bring out naturalistic performances from his cast (that usually includes himself), often blurring the line between film and reality. I’m Still Here is a perfect example of how Affleck was able to create an environment where Joaquin Phoenix could fully be in character. With actors like Nick Nolte and Ben Mendelsohn, Affleck’s gothic mystery film will surely be a deep character study.

Vertical picks up The Saviors starring Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler, which premiered this year at SXSW.

Synopsis:

An estranged couple rents out their Airbnb, but soon start to suspect their guests might be plotting something nefarious. As the couple investigates, they rekindle their relationship and discover something stranger than they could have imagined.

Releasing March 26, 2027.

Mini Tidbits:

• British Academy rule changes

• Japanese action star

• France’s National Centre for Cinema

All these tidbits and more here.

ON THIS DAY

1961. Woody Harrelson was born in Midland, Texas.

Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.

Editor: Gabriel Miller.

Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram

Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co

Ahead of the 2027 awards, the British Academy has announced a number of changes regarding eligibility and voting rules. One of the major changes is with the Outstanding British Film category expanding the longlist from 15 films to 20, while retaining its 10 nominations. The 80th BAFTA awards will take place Feb. 21, 2027; see the full list of changes here.

Japanese action star Tak Sakaguchi (Re: Born) will play opposite Iko Uwais (The Raid franchise) in martial arts film Pendekar: Warrior. Set on the dangerous streets of Jakarta, Uwais plays a feared traditional Silat master who is recently released from prison and is forced to fight again when his old neighborhood gets taken over by a crime organization.

France’s National Film Board (CNC) is putting its money where its mouth is. Beginning Jan. 1st, films that fail to meet diversity and representation requirements in key creative positions (at least 40% women) will now receive less public funding in an effort to meet gender targets.

Here are a few that stood out to us:

Discovery’s Opening Film:

Stuffed

• Dir: Theo Rhys (short film Stuffed, 2021)

• Cast: Jodie Comer, Harry Melling (Pillion)

• World Premiere at TIFF

Synopsis:

A taxidermist named Araminta seeks to preserve a human specimen when Bernie volunteers himself. Their unusual arrangement evolves into an unexpected love story.

Purgatory

• Dir: Lindsay Lanzillotta (prod. The Invitation)

• Cast: J.K. Simmons, Abby Elliot (The Bear)

• World Premiere at TIFF

Synopsis:

A 13-year-old girl in 1980s Ontario tries to hold her family together after her mother leaves home to self-actualize.

Drifter

• Dir: Sung Kang (dir: Shaky Shivers)

• Cast: Sung Kang (Fast & Furious franchise), Gregory Cruz (Hell or High Water)

• World Premiere at TIFF

Synopsis:

A lonely custodian discovers purpose and community when he enters the world of competitive drag racing.

TIFF will run from Sept. 10-20.

Full lineup here.

Bride horror comedy Ring Leader will see Vanessa Marano (Switched At Birth) star and sit in the producer’s chair via her production company Calabrian Rhode (Netflix’s The Royal Treatment). Described as Bridesmaids meets Send Help, the film follows a bridesmaid (most likely Marano) trapped in a deadly bachelorette weekend as it heads to Fantasia Film Festival’s Frontières Co-Production Market.

Louis Cancelmi (Bride!) joins Hulu dramedy pilot Chicks, alongside Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who). Set in old Boston, the series follows two estranged half-sisters who decide to commit risky frauds that ironically turns into a bonding experience. Cancelmi plays Danny McKeever, a man who wants to be a big-time con-artist who begins a partnership with the two sisters.

Apple TV is giving book lovers something to get excited about. The studio has preemptively bought the rights to Fourth Wing author Rebecca Yarros’ upcoming standalone novel Peculiar Stars.

The story sees a cyclone strand a young woman on a deserted island with her fiancés relative, where an unexpected romance begins, but the real danger awaits after they’re rescued. Yarros’ Fourth Wing, with the planned five-part series completely owned by Amazon, is one of the most popular books of this decade.

After the recent success of Apple’s limited series adaptation Margo’s Got Money Troubles, it’s inevitable that they’ll get more involved in the literary works game. The search for a writer to adapt the new series is fully underway, with Peculiar Stars hitting shelves Nov. 17.

Amazon Prime is developing a series adaptation of the graphic novel set Stillwater, created by Chip Zdarsky and Ramón K Pérez. The original comic book series follows an ex-con Daniel West as he goes to the small town of Stillwater in search of his inheritance, only to find a community where no one ever ages. Greg Berlanti (Wri: Wrath of the Titans) and Carly Wray (Wri: Westworld) are attached to write and EP the show.

Netflix is expanding the hit Parasyte TV universe with Parasyte: Tamiya, directed by Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho (Dir: Train to Busan). Based on Hitoshi Iwaaki’s best-selling manga, the series follows Ryoko Tamiya – a deadly parasite who takes over the body of a high school teacher – as she tries to decide whether to hunt down or co-exist with humans. Shioli Kutsuna (Deadpool) stars as Tamiya.

We are launching a new weekly IP discovery newsletter we are calling it The IP Scout.

BUT…We want to do something different!

As we all know, our industry is IP hungry. So together with the IP Scout newsletter, we are also launching IP discovery and development analysis consulting.

Here’s what the weekly newsletter will cover:

Each week we will provide analysis of the top ten books that are prime candidates for film adaptation, including:

• Hot Properties spotlights the week’s authors whose work is being adapted by major studios/production companies, and who have other novels with strong screen potential.

• Festival Favorites highlights films at the top festivals based on books, and points to other titles by the same author worthy of adaptation.

• Bestseller List, the top books from the NY Times and Amazon bestseller lists that are ripe for Film/TV.

• Hidden Gem, a spotlight on an unknown book that could make for a phenomenal film.

• Internet hot properties. With the recent success of Backrooms and properties such as Siren Head and Cartoon Cat selling to Warner Bros and Sony, internet fables are the fastest-growing IP trend. Here we highlight one of the most intriguing.

If you have questions about advertising in The IP Scout newsletter or our IP consulting, please email clarke.scott@theindustry.co for more.

The first edition will drop around this time tomorrow.

best

Clarke Scott - CEO, The Industry

Disney lets go, Plan B’s silence and a Dark Objet.

Let’s go!

If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Disney is laying off several hundred employees across Pixar, Nat Geo, and ESPN.

• Sony, Annapurna, and Plan B are adapting bestselling thriller The Silent Patient.

• A-CAP’s Film Finances will acquire CAC Group’s Media Guarantors.

• Amazon MGM officially orders RoboCop series.

• Catherine Zeta-Jones returns to TV in AMC+’s thriller series Kill Jackie.

• Joseph Lee joins Imogen Poots in Prime Video’s Sex Criminals.

• June Squibb cast in COVID-era indie dramedy Turn the Lights Back On.

• Will Forte in talks to join Kenneth Branagh in A24’s buddy comedy Goblin.

• Corey Stoll and Ralph Ineson cast in Apple TV’s Monsterverse series.

• TIFF Platform expands to 12 films and gains a new pathway to Oscars.

• Ava DuVernay’s 14th will close NYFF.

• Quiver picks up Bella Ramsey-led coming-of-age dramedy Sunny Dancer.

• Oscilloscope acquires North American rights to Locarno selection Objet a.

• Moses Bwayo directs Kenyan refugee-camp soccer doc Champions of Nowhere.

Yesterday’s correct answer: Moonraker, not a Norman Jewison film.
71% got it correct.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Disney isn’t the happiest place on Earth for a few hundred employees, who are being laid off across:

• Pixar (≈150 cuts)

  • Production and operations

• Nat Geo

  • On the Disney Entertainment Television side

• ESPN

  • On-air talent

  • Layoffs connected to ESPN’s acquisition of NFL Network

• ABC

The Pixar cuts are happening as Toy Story 5 is set to hit $1bn by next weekend, and in the aftermath of two back-to-back films that underperformed, Hoppers ($389.5M WW on a $150M budget) and Elio ($154M WW on a $300M budget).

This past April, Disney let go 1000 staffers amid new CEO Josh D’Amaro’s streamlining push.

At the same time, Disney signed a deal with Kraft Heinz (yes, the ketchup). So we now expect to see more product placement across Disney film and TV. Splat!

Sony Pictures, Annapurna (American Hustle), and Brad Pitt’s Plan B (F1) are finally bringing Alex Michaelides’ bestselling psychological thriller The Silent Patient to the screen, adapting one of modern fiction’s most unforgettable mysteries.

The novel follows Alicia Berenson, a celebrated painter who murders her husband and then falls completely silent, refusing to utter another word. Her motives are unknown; the story is a blend of Hitchcockian suspense with a complex unreliable narrator that quickly shot Michaelides’ novel into a global phenomenon.

From Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us to the upcoming Fanning sisters-led adaptation of The Nightingale, Sony Pictures is steadily building a reputation for high-profile literary adaptations.

The merger is complete! Ok, not the PSKY WBD ordeal, but from two goliath film guarantors working in completion bonds:

• A-CAP’s Film Finances (sister company: STX Entertainment)

  • Films: Fargo, Black Swan, Pulp Fiction, The Whale

Will acquire:

• CAC Group’s Media Guarantors

  • Films: Roofman, Over Your Dead Body

Media Guarantors founder Fred Milstein will serve as CEO. Film Finances President Greg Trattner will take over as Executive Chairman of the merged companies, which are now controlled under A-CAP.

Mini Tidbits:

FOX One got a big FIFA boost. They gained 2.8M sign-ups in June. Many records were broken during the five-week run of the World Cup, with the final match between Spain and Argentina reaching 62.8M viewers in the US on Fox and Telemundo.

The DGA has officially set the timeline for its 2027 awards season, with the 79th Annual DGA Awards set for Jan. 30, 2027. See the full schedule here.

Amazon MGM officially orders the RoboCop remake series. More here.

Ryan Reynolds confirms that another Deadpool film is in the works at Marvel Studios.

Avengers: Doomsday already earned $16.5M in advance ticket sales after the first day of availability.

Trailers:

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day

• Final Trailer

• Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Mark Ruffalo

• Release: July 31

IFC’s The Stunt Driver

• Trailer

• Cast: Jay Baruchel, Ben Foster, Ed Helms

• Release: Sept 25

HBO Max’s Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Seattle Seahawks

• Trailer

• Release: Aug 4

Universal Pictures’ Other Mommy

• Trailer

• Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass

• Release: Oct 9

Disney+’s Camp Rock 3

• Trailer

• Cast: Joe Jonas, Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas

• Release: Aug 14

First Look:

Bleecker Street’s Tender Loving Care

• Dir: Mike Leigh

• First Look

• Release: Dec 4

Release Dates:

Disney+’s UK 20/20

• Release: July 30

Bleecker Street’s HADESTOWN: THE MUSICAL

• Release: July 24

Universal Pictures’ Snoop

• Dir: Craig Brewer (Song Sung Blue)

• Prod: Snoop Dogg, Brian Grazer

• Release: Aug 6, 2027

Production Wrapped:

Indie Thriller Runaway

• Cast: Josh Duhamel, Summer H. Howell, James Franco

• Filming dates: June 22, 2026 – July 20, 2026.

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Catherine Zeta-Jones (Wednesday) is returning to the small screen in AMC+’s Kill Jackie, a series adaptation of Aidan Truhen’s thriller The Price You Pay. Zeta-Jones will play Jackie Price, a wealthy woman traveling the world and mastering the art of exploiting tax loopholes to stay afloat after fleeing her dangerous past as an international cocaine dealer.

The role recalls her iconic Oscar-winning turn as the glamorous, fiery, and resourceful Velma Kelly in Chicago (2002), a woman who, despite spending time behind bars, always managed to land on her feet and come out on top.

This time, however, Zeta-Jones is on the other side of the chase: instead of outsmarting the justice system after the fact, she’s evading both law enforcement and a relentless team of hitmen tasked with killing her.

Fremantle is handling sales, with Kill Jackie airing on Prime Video in Europe.

Joseph Lee (Netflix’s Beef S1) joins the cast of Amazon Prime Video’s Sex Criminals. Based on the comic book of the same name, the show will follow Suze (Imogen Poots) and Jon (John Reynolds), who discover that they can stop time while having sex and decide to rob a bank.

Lee will play Detective Franklin, an investigator who also has the ability to stop time.

In Beef, we saw Lee as a rich stay-at-home husband who was lovable but suffocatingly oblivious, and we can’t deny the fact that seeing him get robbed was one of the most interesting sequences of the show. It’d be a fun reversal to see him as a charismatic antagonist leading the chase. His physical presence and charisma tell us that he can ace the part.

Oscar-nominated legend June Squibb isn’t slowing down. The Eleanor the Great actress is joining Alex Borstein in the indie dramedy Turn the Lights Back On, a story inspired by the real-life experiences of families during the COVID era.

Described as being in the vein of Little Miss Sunshine, Squibb headlined her own indie dramedy last year in Scarlett Johansson’s Cannes-premiering directorial debut Eleanor the Great (2025).

While each is completely different, Eleanor carried a similar balance of lighthearted humor with serious grief, with Squibb as the titular 90-something woman who unknowingly convinces a support group she was a Holocaust survivor.

Filming on Turn the Lights Back On is expected to begin later this year.

Tidbit:

The Four Seasons’ Will Forte is in talks to join the cast of A24’s Goblin, an offbeat buddy comedy joining Skyler Gisondo and Kenneth Branagh, the latter providing the voice of the titular green critter. Forte’s role is unknown, but after eight seasons on SNL, The Last Man on Earth actor has experienced his fair share of puppetry. Despite not knowing how he’ll play a part in the absurd hijinks expected to come from a goblin-human friendship, his knack for eccentric, over-the-top comedy with genuine heart makes him a perfect fit for Goblin.

Actress Kaylee Hottle, most known for her performance as Jia from Godzilla vs. Kong films, has tragically died at 18. Her big break came in 2021 in Godzilla vs. Kong when she played Jia, a small girl and Skull Island native who could communicate with King Kong through sign language. Her performance conveyed both compassion and emotional depth. Rest in Peace, Kaylee.

Casting Tidbits:

• AnnaSophia Robb

• Corey Stoll

• Ed Harris

All those and more here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

TIFF Platform, the only juried competition program at the Toronto International Film Festival, has expanded to 12 films (see them all here).

Under the new rules of the 99th Oscars, TIFF Platform was also selected as one of the six international film festivals that grant its winner eligibility to enter the Best International Feature Film race, even if the films are not chosen as the country’s official submission. This could mean that films not selected by their countries’ national selection committees can still have a pathway into the category. It does not mean that the film will receive an automatic nomination.

Most notable films in this year’s slate include Sundance Short Film Grand Jury Prize-winning director Amanda Kernell’s Brace Your Heart and Berlinale FIPRESCI Prize-winning director Ferit Karahan’s Djinn Wedding. Miwa Nishikawa’s Children Untold will open.

NYFF will close with Ava DuVernay’s (Selma, Origin) new doc 14th. This will explore the Equal Protection and Citizenship Clauses. DuVernay’s ability to weave history and politics into compelling cinema is no small feat, with 14th a clear continuation of the conversations she began through her filmography over a decade ago. Streaming on Netflix this fall.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Quiver (distributor: Cleaner starring Daisy Ridley) picks up North American rights for Sunny Dancer, starring Bella Ramsey, Neil Patrick Harris and Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer).

The coming-of-age dramedy follows Ivy, a teen in cancer remission, reluctantly attending a summer camp.

First launching at Cannes 2024, Sunny Dancer is a deeply personal coming-of-age comedy romance reminiscent of director George Jaques' debut film Black Dog (2023), a reflective road trip story between two teenage boys who build an unlikely friendship.

Sunny Dancer is getting a theatrical release later this year. Here’s the trailer.

Oscilloscope picks up North American rights to Objet a starring Louis Hofmann (Dark).

Synopsis:

Follows two hand surgeons with differing desires, before one suffers an accident that forces her to slow down.

The film will premiere at Locarno.

Tidbit:

There have been some crazy incidents on Grey’s Anatomy, but nothing quite like a body swap. Morenike Joela Evans (dir. Grey’s Anatomy, iCarly) is directing the feature film Switch, a romcom following a black woman and white man who switch bodies and must spend a week in each other’s lives. The twice Emmy-nominated director joins the gender-swap comedy just ahead of filming.

Mini Tidbits:

• Woody Harrelson’s doc

• Black Bear

• Richard M. Rawlings Jr. RIP

All those tidbits here.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Moses Bwayo, co-director of Nat Geo’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, which plays like a Ugandan version of Navalny, is directing a new film.

Champions of Nowhere is a doc that centers on a Kenyan soccer league that springs up in a refugee camp.

Bwayo feels uniquely suited for this; he’s able to find hope in the grimmest of places. This is part of a 3-picture deal from Pierce Capital Entertainment (EP: The Brutalist, The Wizard of the Kremlin) and FilmCrew Media (Nawi).

Mini Tidbit:

All3Media International’s Sales Manager of Finished Programs, Jonathan Hughes, is exiting the company. He is now joining ITV Studios (Prod Co: The Chase) as the Vice President, Germany and Benelux Sales.

ON THIS DAY

1934. Louise Fletcher born in Birmingham, Alabama.

Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.

Editor: Gabriel Miller.

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Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co

Heather Phillips, who’d been working on a freelance basis for Black Bear (prod co: Train Dreams, Sing Sing), now takes a full-time role as the Head of Publicity. Bianca Parkes will join the company as head of marketing.

From Charlie’s Angels to Gilmore Girls, cinematographer Richard M. Rawlings Jr. has died at 82. A third-generation cinematographer, Rawlings got his start as a messenger at Warner Bros, years later scoring his first Emmy nomination for the CBS Western series Paradise (1988-91), going on to work another three decades in television.

Two actors who have played Marvel villains before, Corey Stoll (Ant-Man) and Ralph Ineson (The Fantastic Four: First Steps), join Apple TV’s Monsterverse series. The show will follow the story of Colonel Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), who was on a secret mission to stop the Soviets from unleashing a new titan to destroy the U.S. during the Cold War.

Ed Harris (The Abyss) is returning to Paramount+’s Dutton Ranch S2. Harris said in an interview after filming season 1 that he was ready to leave the show because he felt his character was being underutilized. Now, with the new showrunner Benjamin Cavell (Wri: SEAL Team), Harris has returned to the show.

James Wan will direct key episodes of this series, which hails from his company Blumhouse Atomic Monster. Along with building upon the premise of the original film of a cyborg cop who’s part man, part machine, the show will debut a new cyborg lawman named Marc Skyle, who starts off not as a police officer but as a soldier. Peter Ocko (EP: Lodge 49) is the showrunner.

Paul Verhoeven’s OG 1987 film explored corporate control, media saturation, and technological advancement. This message feels all the more relevant now with AI mainlined into modern life (you catch Apple’s keynote?!).

The boardroom scene in the original film, where a killing machine malfunctions, resulting in shooting down an innocent person, is a segment that can give us a glimpse of what Wan’s dystopia could be. Wan’s horror background makes him the perfect fit to portray the futuristic world. Not only does RoboCop have the potential to be a sci-fi action series with horror elements, but there are also possibilities of body horror and psychological horror.