Robert Pattinson’s Time, Alan Ritchson’s Reach, and Cheese.

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Robert Pattinson doesn’t mind wading into slippery moral territory.

He’s now taking on the role of Chris Hansen, most famous for hosting Dateline’s To Catch a Predator (2004-2007) series, which outed child predators live on TV.

The dicey morality of that show was recently explored in Paramount+’s doc Predators (2025), which ultimately showed how these accused child predators were ensnared by a TV show designed for drama at the expense of their mental and physical health. At one point, the doc shows us a man caught by Hansen, who, instead of surrendering to the authorities, ends his own life.

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.

Recently, he starred in A24’s The Drama, where he must reckon with the newfound information that his soon-to-be wife (Zendaya) has a past so twisted it may be beyond repair. Previously, Pattinson was paired with Jennifer Lawrence in Mubi’s Die My Love (2025), where he was confounded by her violent postpartum depression, moving from an equally wild partner to a disenchanted caretaker.

To see Pattinson move from self-confident to morally corrupt is a beautiful arc that bridges the emotional territory of his iconic performances. We can’t wait to see what he delivers.

For More:

A24’s Primetime trailer.

Paramount+’s Predators trailer.

A 6-minute quasi-trailer for Dateline’s original To Catch a Predator show.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Alan Ritchson signs three-year first-look TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios.

• David E. Kelley adapts book Nightshade as HBO Max series Welcome to Catalina.

• Amazon MGM sets Michael Bublé and Drew Scott hockey docuseries.

• Matthew Perry’s former assistant gets 3.5 years in prison.

• Curry Barker (dir: Obsession) fields eight-figure offers for his next original film.

• Ted Danson cast as Elizabeth Banks’ father in Apple’s new comedy series.

• Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie casts Willa Dunn as Nellie Oleson.

• Amazon MGM greenlights three AI series.

• Tribeca premieres AI-produced feature Dreams of Violets.

• Mk2 picks up sci-fi feature Two Sleepy People.

• Greenwich Entertainment acquires Plan B’s micro-budget film Olmo.

• Willa acquires Take Me Home, which premiered at Sundance.

• Obscured Releasing picks up cheese-competition doc The Big Cheese.

• AF México acquires remake rights to Italian hit Follemente.

Yesterday’s correct answer: 2002, the year Focus Features was founded.
42% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Alan Ritchson (Reacher) signs a three-year first-look TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios. Under the new deal, Ritchson and his production company, Dancing Skeleton, will develop new projects for Prime Video.

Ritchson has been building an ongoing relationship with Amazon MGM as the titular character Jack Reacher for 3 seasons in Prime Video’s Reacher, with the fourth season set to premiere later this year. Season 3 of the show garnered more than 54M global viewers in its first 19 days of release, setting a record for the most-watched returning season of television on Prime Video.

Ritchson is also a producer and a star in two Amazon MGM films, the Christmas movie The Man With the Bag starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and an untitled Vietnam War film.

Prime’s biggest series all seem to tilt toward action from The Boys, to The Rings of Power to Fallout to Reacher, so doubling down on Ritchson is smart business.

Tidbits:

Big Little Lies and L.A. Law creator David E. Kelley is adapting bestseller Nightshade into a series inspired by yet another Michael Connelly crime novel for HBO Max. Titled Welcome To Catalina, the series is centered on an exiled former country sheriff whose slow-moving, quiet work on Catalina Island is interrupted when a lifeless body is found in the harbor. The development news comes amid filming for the fifth and final season of Kelley and Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer.

Amazon MGM Studios recruits Grammy-winning artist Michael Bublé and Property Brothers’ reality realtor Drew Scott for the docuseries Hometown Giants. The six-part series will follow the two stars as new part-owners of their childhood’s local hockey team, the Vancouver Giants. In similar Welcome to Wrexham fashion, the docuseries will explore its two dedicated star owners and a team overflowing with potential, this time set in the competitive world of Canadian junior hockey.

Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison (he faced up to 15 years). Iwamasa stopped seeing Perry in his callous pursuit of profit. Read more about Perry’s incredible life and battle with addiction here: https://theindustry.co/p/matthew-perry-sylvester-stallone-a-cactus

Mini Tidbit:

Curry Barker (Dir: Obsession) is getting 8-figure offers for his next movie that he hasn’t even pitched yet. Studios have gone as far as offering $10M for Barker’s next original film. And that tracks as Obsession has already made $80M on a $1M budget.

The Jim Henson Company, formerly known as Muppets, Inc., hires Shirley Bowers as VP of Global Distribution.

Private investment firm Advaya Capital completes a deal to buy Box Office Data firm Comscore Movies. They paid $70M.

Byron Allen closes major purchase: 52% of BuzzFeed for $120M. He will become the majority shareholder and the CEO.

Howard Storm, the director of legendary sitcoms of the 70s and the 80s, dies at 94. Storm’s extraordinary career included ABC’s Mork & Mindy, which was Robin Williams’ big break, as well as episodes of Full House, Rhoda, ALF, and Valerie.

Renewals:

Prime Video’s The Rings of Power (renewed for S4)

• Filming: 2027

Toho’s cult anime Dorohedoro (renewed for S3)

Trailers:

Sony Pictures Classics’ Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

• Trailer

• Cast: Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, John Slattery

• Release: July 10

Prime Video’s Groundswell

• Trailer

• Cast: Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson

• Release: June 5

Mubi’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

• Dir: Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow)

• Trailer

• Cast: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson

• Release: Aug 7

Universal Pictures’ Disclosure Day

• Dir: Steven Spielberg

• Trailer

• Release: June 12

Action Thriller Citizen Vigilante

• Dir: Uwe Boll

• Trailer

• Cast: Armie Hammer

• Release: June 19

Netflix’s Enola Holmes 3

• Trailer

• Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Louis Partridge, Himesh Patel, Henry Cavill

• Release: July 1

Tandem Pictures’ Test

• Trailer

• Release: TBD

Disney+’s X-Men ‘97 S2

• Trailer

• Release: July 1

First Look:

HBO’s The White Lotus S4

• First Look at Cannes scene

• Cast: Chloe Bennet, Ben Kingsley, Vincent Cassel, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Charlie Davis

Apple’s Last Seen

• First look

• Release: Sept 19

Release Dates:

Penny Lane’s Owl doc Wild Inside

• Cast: Flaco, the Eagle-Owl

• U.S. Premiere: July 29

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Ted Danson is beginning to learn his way around a retirement community. Apple TV’s next comedy series cast the Cheers actor to play divorcée Elizabeth Banks’ father, whose retirement sexcapades get in the way of her second act for herself and her kids.

In the recently renewed Netflix comedy A Man on the Inside, Danson plays a retired professor who goes undercover at a retirement community as a favor for a private investigator.

The untitled Apple series has not yet begun production.

Mini Tidbits:

Adam Godley (Elliot in Breaking Bad) has Conviction. Godley joins the cast of Hulu’s Conviction, a legal drama starring Elisabeth Moss from creator David Shore (House). No word on Godley’s role, but he had a fragile stiffness as the billionaire in Breaking Bad that was iconic.

It wouldn’t be Laura Ingalls Wilder’s story if a pestering Nellie Oleson wasn’t over her shoulder. The second season of Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie reboot casts Willa Dunn (Only Murders in the Building) as Nellie, the spoiled playground bully who, beneath her mean-girl persona, yearns for true friendship. S1 premieres on Netflix this July.

A$AP Rocky, who’s had quite a year acting in a pair of A24 films (Highest 2 Lowest and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), is getting Tribeca X’s Filmmaker of the Year Award.

Two obits:

Charles Cioffi, best known for his performance as Tom Cruise’s dad in All the Right Moves (1983) and Lt. Vic Androzzi in the original Shaft (1971), dies at 90. He also made appearances in TV shows like Days of Our Lives, The A-Team, The X-Files, NYPD Blue, and Hawaii Five-0.

French actor Pierre Deny (Tomorrow Is Ours), known for his role on Netflix’s Emily in Paris, has died at 69 from his battle with ALS. Deny appeared as the scene-stealing fashion boss Louis de Léon, a recurring antagonist in the drama’s third and fourth seasons.

TECH SECTION

AI film is flooding the zone. Today, three big announcements:

First, Amazon MGM and Amazon Web Services greenlit 3x AI series, including Cupcake & Friends from BuzzFeed Studios. Full details here.

Second, the Tribeca Film Festival is premiering the first fully AI-produced feature, Dreams of Violets (trailer), EP’d by Tom Rogers (former Pres: NBC Cable).

Third, Artlist, the stock footage site, is serving as the production company on an AI horror film, Terrarium, produced by Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity).

Luckily, if any of these end up on YouTube, they’ll be labeled as AI creations.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Mk2’s Iron Lung play. French sales rep mk2 (which had 7 films at Cannes, including Grand Prix winner Minotaur), just picked up European rights for Two Sleepy People.

Synopsis:

Two office colleagues become spouses each night, only to return as strangers when morning comes.

It’s almost like a dream-like version of Groundhog Day by way of Severance. Incredibly, the film was made for $100K by digital creators Baron Ryan (2.9M TikTok followers) and Caroline Grossman (294K IG followers).

We’ve been seeing massive success for digital creators turned filmmakers recently:

• Iron Lung

  • Dir: Markiplier (38.6M YT subs)

  • $40.9M domestic total

  • $50M worldwide

  • $3-4M budget

• Club Kid

  • Dir: Jordan Fistman (823K IG followers)

  • Sold to A24 at Cannes for $17M

• Backrooms

  • Dir: Kane Parsons (3.1M YT subs)

  • A24 film that is tracking to open at $40M

We wish mk2 the best of luck for this sci-fi mind-bender.

Three acquisitions:

Plan B’s first micro-budget film Olmo just got picked up by Greenwich Entertainment for North American rights. When the film premiered at TIFF we did a deep-dive interview with the director, Fernando Eimbcke (​Duck Season​) and Plan B co-president Jeremy Kleiner: https://theindustry.co/p/plan-b-a-gem

Olmo premieres August 7.

Willa (dist: The Voice of Hind Rajab) acquired rights to the Sundance premiering Take Me Home, Liz Sargent’s feature debut. The film follows Korean adoptee Anna who while caring for her aging parents experiences in their Florida suburb experiences a sweltering heat wave that changes everything. Willa is planning a fall theatrical run.

Indie distributor Obscured Releasing (Endless Cookie) has picked up North American rights to The Big Cheese. The film follows an underdog American team that competes for first place at France’s Cheese Olympics. It plays like a heartfelt cheese version of those old Food Network chocolate sculpture competitions (trailer). Releasing in August.

International tidbits:

• AF México’s remake

• Warp Films (Prod Co: Netflix’s Adolescence) new hire

• All3Media exec retires

All those tidbits and more here.

ON THIS DAY

1976. Taxi Driver wins the Palme d'Or.

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

AF México acquires the remake rights to Follemente (2025, Trailer), one of the highest-grossing Italian films of 2025, with more than $21M. The Mexican adaptation will be titled Love and Mind, following two people as they try to impress each other on their first dates while the different personalities living in their brains fight for control. Imagine Inside Out (2015) for adults.

Warp Films (Prod Co: Netflix’s Adolescence) appointed Peter Balm as their Managing Director. Balm joined the company in 2012 and most recently was the commercial director. In his new role, he will be in charge of Warp Films’ commercial strategy and operations.

Australian sales exec Julie Dowding is retiring after a decade at All3Media (Prod Co: UK Shameless). She was most recently a Senior VP of the company’s Australia and New Zealand division. Micah Hewson, the former ITV Studios exec, will take over the Australian duties.

Global Constellation (sales rep: Jim Queen) picks up international sales on The Long Haul. The film will premiere at Tribeca and stars 3x Emmy winner Margo Martindale as a long-haul trucker who’s been running from a dark truth for decades.

Focus Features’ Obsession, Cooper Hoffman’s TV and Quaid goes West.

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THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Focus Features’ Obsession jumps 39% in its second weekend.

• Patrick Paolini named Tegna CEO.

• Oscar-winning costume designer Albert Wolsky (Grease) dies at 95.

• Skywild Pictures options Tom Ryan’s adult mystery The Treasure Hunters Club.

• Crave options Penelope Douglas’ dark romance Five Brothers after Heated Rivalry.

• Cooper Hoffman makes TV debut in Hulu drama pilot Durango.

• Cuba Gooding Jr. boards Hong Kong-Philippine action thriller Lotus.

• Brian Geraghty joins Matt Ross’ crime thriller Kockroach.

• Ray Mendoza casts Sam Worthington and Jack Quaid in Blood on the Promontory.

• Osmosis Global acquires documentary Stan Lee: The Final Years.

• Veep writers Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci set to pen Paddington 4.

• WestEnd Films secures global deals for Maisie Williams thriller Ignition.

• Netflix launches first Brazilian medical drama Med starring Clara Moneke.

Last correct answer: Marty first film to win Palme d’Or.
14% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Focus Features’ Obsession pays off big time. The film, which they acquired for $15M out of TIFF, in what was a major strategy shift took a massive 39% week 2 INCREASE at the box office this past weekend.

This is almost unheard of, only matched by Sound of Freedom (2023).

For a horror film, it tops the genre’s previous top three’s smallest week 2 drops in the 2020s:

• Sinners (2025)

  • 6% week 2 drop

  • $48M opening

  • $45M 2nd weekend

  • $280M domestic total

  • $370.3M worldwide

• Get Out (2017)

  • 15% week 2 drop

  • $33.4M opening

  • $176.2M domestic total

  • $255.8M worldwide

• Smile (2022)

  • 18% week 2 drop

  • $22.6M opening

  • $105.9M domestic total

  • $217.4M worldwide

This puts director Curry Barker in a rare category of horror directors, one that is already seeing him take on iconic IP like A24’s new Texas Chainsaw Massacre film. He may be the next Zach Cregger, Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, or Jordan Peele.

Tidbits:

The Oscar-winning costume designer, Albert Wolsky, has died at 95. From the gritty, Bob Fosse-inspired dancewear in All That Jazz (1979) to the iconic, skin-tight pants and leather jackets in Grease (1978), Wolsky’s versatile career spanned five decades, reaching far beyond the movie musical to acclaimed dramas like Sophie’s Choice (1983) and Revolutionary Road (2008). His costumes became as memorable as the performances themselves, and he will be very missed.

Patrick Paolini is the new CEO of Tegna (value: $3.2bn, with 64 local stations). Right now a judge has blocked the Nexstar-Tegna merger while antitrust issues are reviewed. And for good reason, Nexstar’s value is $6.3bn with 200 local stations. If approved by the FCC, the combined companies would own 80% of local stations across the US.

Keep This to Yourself author Tom Ryan’s The Treasure Hunters Club is being optioned for a series by Toronto’s Skywild Pictures (Our Little Secret). Ryan’s first detour from YA to an adult murder mystery that sees three strangers who come together in a remote seaside town to uncover lost pirate treasure. Ryan’s Our Little Secret and The Affinities are also being adapted.

Canada’s Crave, the streaming service behind Heated Rivalry, has optioned its next series adaptation of dark romance Five Brothers from author Penelope Douglas. The story follows one woman who discovers the steamy secrets of the mysterious five Jaeger brothers.

Renewal:

CBC’s Saint-Pierre (Renewed for S3)

Trailer:

Netflix’s Calabasas Confidential

• Trailer

• Release: May 29

Premiere Date:

Paramount+’s All the Queen’s Men S5

• Premiere Date: June 10

Paramount+’s Ruthless S6

• Wri: Tyler Perry

• Cast: Melissa L. Williams, Matt Cedeño, Lenny Thomas, Yvonne Senat Jones

• Premiere Date: June 30

Christopher Nolan: Grand Designs

• Nolan retrospective at TIFF showing all his films on 35mm and 70mm

• Dates: July 8-Aug. 20

• Trailer

Netflix’s Sacrifice (just acquired)

• Premiere: TIFF 2025

• Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans, Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel

• Release Date: TBD

Netflix also recently scooped another less-than-stellar reviewed festival film with an A-list cast, In the Hand of Dante (Premiere: Venice).

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Cooper Hoffman is headed to Hulu. The Long Walk actor is making his television debut in the drama pilot Durango, from writer Eliza Clark (FX’s Y: The Last Man), 20th Television, and Media Res.

A love story following two Gen Z drifters on the run from the cops after a string of terribly impulsive decisions, Hoffman will play Mikey, a street-savvy former snowboarding legend who not only falls for the new girl in town but is brought into all the trouble she brings.

We’ve seen Hoffman portray a young man caught somewhere between charm and their own self-destruction before, like in his breakout role in the Best Picture-nominated Licorice Pizza (2021), as the fast-talking, overly ambitious hustling teenager Gary Valentine. These two limerence-stricken, reckless young men feel close to the same kind of unpredictable chaos Hoffman plays really well with.

There is no word yet on who else will star in Durango.

Tidbits:

Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire) boards Hong Kong-Philippine action thriller Lotus. No detail on the plot, but the production will run from September through October in Manila. It has been a while since Gooding Jr. has been in an action thriller role, but he may have a spark of the intensity and grit he showed earlier in his career with Judgment Night (1993, trailer).

Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker) joins the cast of Matt Ross’ (Dir: Captain Fantastic starring Viggo Mortensen) thriller Kockroach. Based on William Lashner’s novel of the same name, the film follows an outsider who rises through New York’s criminal underworld. Geraghty joins a star-studded cast including Chris Hemsworth, Taron Egerton, and Rachel Sennott.

Mini Tidbit:

Kate Mansi is exiting ABC’s General Hospital. After three years in the role of Kristina Corinthos Davis and even directing two episodes of the show, she has made the decision to leave the show at the end of her current contract.

Apple TV’s Off Weeks casts Tony Award nominee Tom Francis (Broadway’s Sunset Blvd.) to star as Richard Gere’s son in the new limited series. The drama follows Ben Stiller’s stressed divorcee character who begins to fall for a woman (Jessica Chastain) during the off weeks where he doesn’t have his children.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Ray Mendoza (Co-dir: A24’s Warfare) has found his troops.

He has cast Sam Worthington, Jai Courtney (A Good Day to Die Hard), and Jack Quaid in his western drama, Blood on the Promontory. The film follows five convicts shackled together by foot as they try to escape through the mountains following a train robbery.

In Warfare, Mendoza took 20+ actors, some of whom seemed most at ease with lighter films (Will Poulter, Kit Connor, etc.), and turned them into more grounded, precise fighting machines. And then dragged them through hell to test their mettle.

No word on the exact roles for Worthington, Courtney, and Quaid. But the casting of Quaid here is exciting, given that Quaid is trying to further cement himself as an action hero post-The Boys with Novocaine. If Mendoza captures that same level of raw realism and camaraderie he brought to Warfare, this transforms Quaid, giving him a level of machismo intensity vs. his usual skittishness.

The Final Years of a Marvel Legend. Osmosis Global (Distributor: We Will Dance Again) acquires the rights to the documentary Stan Lee: The Final Years, which tells the tumultuous story of Lee’s final years.

Told through his longtime assistant Jon Bolerjack, the feature doc is a wild portrait of how Lee was taken advantage of in his last years by various people who wanted to take control of his care and his estate. Using footage Bolerjack shot before Lee’s death in 2018, the film raised nearly $85,000 on Kickstarter when it was announced in March 2025.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

The writing masterminds behind HBO’s Veep, Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci, are set to pen the highly anticipated Paddington 4.

Besides feeling like a warm hug for 120 minutes, the franchise has grossed over $800M worldwide. Featuring a large ensemble cast of English greats like Hugh Bonneville and Julie Walters, endlessly lovable and critically untouchable, Paddington has become one of the most beloved family IPs around.

Blackwell and Iannucci both share a specific dry sense of European humor that, paired with Paddington’s signature slapstick and sincerity, would make them a strong fit for the franchise.

StudioCanal announced the next installment at CinemaCon last month, with no word yet on what Paddington’s next adventure will be.

Tidbit:

WestEnd Films (sales rep: Green Room) has secured multiple global deals for the Cannes-launched thriller Ignition, starring Maisie Williams (GoT). Some of the sales include Signature Entertainment (Couture) for the U.K. and Twelve Oaks (Palm Springs) in Spain. Sharing the screen with BAFTA nominee Rory Kinnear (No Time to Die), the film follows Williams as a woman unwittingly drawn into a terrifying terrorist plot.

Mini Tidbits:

Accent Aigu Entertainment (Prod Co: Heated Rivalry) undergoes structural changes. Company co-founders Jacob Tierney (Showrunner: Heated Rivalry) will switch his role to Chief Creative Officer, and Brendan Brady (Producer: Heated Rivalry) will take on the role of CEO.

Netflix is launching its first Brazilian medical drama, Med. Clara Moneke (Vai na Fé) will star in the series, which will follow a groucp of young doctors working in a busy university hospital. Netflix recently opened a new Brazil HQ this January.

Park Seo-ham (Our Universe) and Kim Ji-yeon (The Haunted Palace) to lead a Rakuten Viki series, Dive Into You. The series will follow a woman who is thrown back in time after a near-fatal incident and finds herself body-swapped with her twin brother. The fantasy romcom will be produced by Dexter Pictures (Prod Co: Head Over Heels) and Rakuten Viki.

ON THIS DAY

2005. Madagascar 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

Here’s our breakdown, broken into categories:

• Best Films

• Best Performances

• Films Pushing Boundaries

Enjoy!

BEST FILMS

Our top film of Cannes 2026 is All of a Sudden (Neon).

• Dir: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car).

• Trailer

It is a profound 3hr+ meditation on how to use art to reform thoughts and ideas. To keep pace with the slowest person. To let the outside in.

It revolves around a Japanese playwright and a director of a nursing home whose discourse allows the status quo of that retirement community to move to an enlightened level of humanity. Hamaguchi’s meditative pace allows his carefully constructed ideas to seep in and fill up your soul.

Fatherland (Mubi)

• Dir: Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War).

• Clip

It’s a stark, powerful rendition of a father and daughter (Hanns Zischler as Thomas Mann and Sandra Hüller) as they journey across post-war Germany, trying to spiritually rebuild what has crumbled.

La Gradiva (1-2 Special)

• Dir: Marine Atlan (cinematographer: Girl in the Snow)

• Winner: Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize

• Clip

The film follows a group of high school students on the verge of being accepted or rejected by college, embarking on a school trip to the ruins of Pompeii. Some students see themselves as great legends, while others see themselves as pure trash. But what makes this fascinating is the stories they tell themselves, which distort and twist as the Pompeii legend comes into play. And how these students tear each other apart if only to keep from exploding.

Club Kid (A24)

• Dir/Star: Jordan Firstman (directorial debut)

• Acquired for $17M

Firstman plays a burned-out party promoter who's had the same night over and over for a decade. The existential crisis is gnawing at his soul. But a decade ago, he had one night when he made a real connection, and that comes back to haunt him and teach him a grand lesson. It’s charming, hilarious, and resonant.

Two other pieces of solid cinema:

James Gray’s Paper Tiger. Adam Driver and Miles Teller play brothers trying to make a quick buck, which gets them deeply involved with the Russian mafia. Scarlett Johansson internalizes the fear, disappointment, and rage in her family in a way that boils up within her in the most profound and distressing ways.

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur. It is a taut, astonishing tale of a man trying to protect two kingdoms: home and company. Hanging over the entire thing is a blind sense of duty blanketing everything, which adds a wonderful absurdity.

BEST PERFORMANCES

Léa Seydoux turned in two sensational performances in Neon’s The Unknown, which plays like a French auteurist Freaky Friday. It’s strange, hard to follow, but anchored by Seydoux going mad over a unique type of body dysmorphia.

And in Gentle Monster, Seydoux anchors a very troubling film about a wife who retreats after learning something unthinkable about her husband. The scene where she confronts him is held much too late in the film, but Seydoux is able to draw from deep wells of emotional power and is piercing. Clip.

Rami Malek is sensational in Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love. He has warped his entire physicality for this role. In the opening, Malek tries to get into a comfortable reading position in bed, and the way he twists and contorts his body shows that this is not an easy world for him to find comfort. Watching Malek later lose his grip on reality is startling. Clip.

Talha Akdogan, who plays Barry Keoghan’s son in Butterfly Jam (Directors’ Fortnight), gives a breakout performance. Akdogan is a teenager growing up with a father whose refusal to grow up sparks his own maturity. Watching Akdogan’s eyes subtly fall as Keoghan makes a fool of himself carried much of the film's emotional weight.

FILMS PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Her Private Hell (Neon)

• Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn

• Teaser

As startlingly cinematic as Blade Runner, if it were drained of plot and doused in neon.

Hope (Neon)

• Dir: Na Hong-jin (dir: The Chaser, The Yellow Sea).

• Teaser

A hardcore action film with aliens. With a larger message on species extinction and immigration. There’s a micro and macro story being played out that twists the POV in a complicated way, showing that the grotesque humanoid aliens have the most heart of anyone on screen.

Parallel Tales

• Dir/Wri: Asghar Farhadi (2x Oscar winner for A Separation and The Salesman)

• Trailer

This is a twisting tale of a dying writer who takes in a thief who steals her identity. It’s delightful in its narrative construction, with us seeing how a fiction informs a reality that then becomes a distorted mirror. Like the twisted, indie version of Stranger Than Fiction.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Mubi)

• Dir: Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow)

• Trailer

It follows an indie filmmaker (Hannah Einbinder) whose sexual frustrations are explored by embracing the genre tropes of horror films. Gillian Anderson plays a Norma Desmond-like, burnt-out scream girl. The film manages to find emotional resonance in the oddest, yet most familiar of places.

Written and edited by Gabriel Miller.

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Cannes’ Coward, Warner’s Winner and an Iron Boy.

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

As the Cannes festival draws to a close, I’m headed back to NYC early to catch Daniel Radcliffe in his final performance of Every Brilliant Thing

So, without further ado, here’s my biggest takeaway from the festival.

Filmmakers love telling stories about artists, and it’s not a bad thing.

In 3 of the official selection films, the main character is a filmmaker:

• Sony Pictures Classics’ Bitter Christmas - Dir: Pedro Almodóvar

• Gentle Monster - Star: Léa Seydoux (her character’s husband is a documentarian)

• The Beloved - Star: Javier Bardem

If you expand that out to artists, you include 6 more official selection films:

• Neon’s The Unknown (photographer)

• Neon’s All of a Sudden (theater director)

• The Man I Love (performance artist)

• Garance (actress)

• Fatherland (writer)

• Parallel Tales (novelist)

That’s 40% of the Official Selection of artists.

Plus, shout out to Mubi’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (which opened Un Certain Regard), which also had the main character as a filmmaker.

The most glorious example is All of a Sudden, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) - deep dive on why it’s my favorite film of the festival here.

But I’ve just seen one of the final films to premiere in Cannes’ Official Selection, Coward, which sees live performance art used as an escapist cure to the horrors of war. The characters in the film use it as a linchpin for their own relationship. And whether that romance is its own escapist fantasy is the question at the heart of the film.

More From Cannes:

La Bola Negra from directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, also, in Competition, is the new Palme d’Or frontrunner. The film has a great lead cast of Glenn Close, Penélope Cruz, and Julio Torres.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Bill Lawrence and Warner Bros. TV adapt alien-abduction romance novel.

• Kerry Washington stars in and EPs Hulu thriller series What Remains.

• Lionsgate reports $906M Q4 revenue, with film division revenue up 23%.

• Courtney A. Kemp signs exclusive Apple TV overall deal.

• Julianne Moore leads Higher Ground’s untitled Netflix mother-daughter comedy.

• Kyle Gallner reunites w/ Strange Darling director JT Mollner for Sony horror.

• Sadie Soverall joins Brady Corbet’s occult epic The Origin of the World.

• Harry Melling joins HBO’s Task Season 2 as a hot-headed DEA agent.

• Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning wins Directors’ Fortnight award.

• Sony Pictures Classics picks up Cannes animated title Iron Boy.

• 20th Century adapts Choose Your Own Adventure w/ Radio Silence directing.

• Supriya Pathak Kapur makes directorial debut w/ Toronto Market title Our Story.

• LuckyChap’s Irish famine thriller Bad Bridgets lands at Netflix.

Yesterday’s correct answer: 2 Night at the Museum films feature Rami Malek.
49% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Book Adaptations:

Ted Lasso creator Bill Lawrence and Warner Bros. Television are adapting Steven Rowley’s novel Take Me With You into a series. Lawrence is coming off HBO’s touching and hilarious dramedy Rooster. Rowley’s freshly published story follows a longtime couple whose stagnant relationship is thrown into chaos when one of them is seemingly abducted by aliens, taking the Bill Lawrence TV universe into sci-fi territory for the first time.

Hulu is moving forward on a series adaptation of thriller What Remains, with Kerry Washington on board to star and EP. The story follows a detective and a devoted wife who is reeling from the guilt of killing a disturbed man in the line of duty. In her post-Scandal TV career, Washington has appeared in numerous book adaptations, consistently playing women haunted by the choices they were forced to make. From Imperfect Women to Little Fires Everywhere.

2026 is looking up for Lionsgate. Here are the Q4 2026 numbers, plus the change from last year:

• $906M total revenue

  • ↑ 4.7%

• $651.9M total film division revenue

  • ↑ 23%

• $30.5M total TV division revenue

  • ↓ 25%

• $70.2M profit

  • Up from $3.6M loss

Thanks to their strong IP library and well-performing titles, Lionsgate’s next quarter only sees more growth, beginning with Michael on track to pass $300M domestically this weekend and become the first biopic to gross $1bn worldwide.

Full breakdown here.

Mini Tidbits:

Courtney A. Kemp (Showrunner: Starz’s Power) signs an Overall Deal with Apple TV. Under the new deal, Kemp and her company End of Episode will develop and create a series exclusively for Apple TV. Kemp has a long streak of success in television, including an Emmy nomination for her writing in CBS’s The Good Wife and her new series, Netflix’s Nemesis, which garnered more than 7M viewers in its opening week.

She’s been to Paris, to Rome, to Greece, and now we’ll be saying goodbye to Emily in Paris officially ending with its upcoming sixth season on Netflix.

Trailers:

Bleecker Street’s Victorian Psycho

• Trailer

• Cast: Maika Monroe

• Premiere: Cannes Un Certain Regard

HBO’s Earth, Wind & Fire

• Trailer

• Dir: Questlove (Summer of Soul…)

• This year’s opening night film at Tribeca

First Look:

Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil

• Poster 1

• Poster 2

• Release: Sept 18

Constantin Film’s Into the Deep Blue

• First Look

• Cast: Damian Hardung (Maxton Hall), Sara Waisglass (Ginny & Georgia)

• North.five.six is handling worldwide sales at Cannes

Release Dates:

Lionsgate’s Day Drinker

• Cast: Johnny Depp, Madelyn Cline, Penélope Cruz

• Dir: Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer)

• Release: Mar 26, 2027

Lionsgate’s The Resurrection of the Christ

• Dir: Mel Gibson

• Release Date: May 6, 2027 (Ascension Day)

The Resurrection of the Christ Part Two

• Release: May 25, 2028

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Julianne Moore is back as a panicking mother.

Julianne Moore will star in Netflix’s untitled comedy film, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s company Higher Ground. The film is being described as a multi-generational story in the same vein as Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), following a paranoid mother (Moore) whose daughter receives a cross-country promotion, forcing her to try to find a romantic partner to make her stay.

While Moore has frequently played mother characters, her roles are much deeper than they look. In May December (2023), she played a mother who was previously a sex offender who had sex with a 13-year-old. In When You Finish Saving the World (2022), she played a highly controlling mother who had a contentious relationship with her son.

We would love to see her panic and control in something lighter.

Tidbits:

A Strange Darling reunion. Actor Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling, Smile) is attached to director JT Mollner’s next horror, Sony Pictures’ Skeletons, from producer J.J. Abrams. Joining Oscar winner Brie Larson, the film is told from the perspective of a young boy who slowly begins to discover his parents are hiding a disturbing secret. Mollner likes to play with perspective, in his psychological thriller Strange Darling (2023), where Gallner played “the Demon”, a masochistic, eerie figure whose performance only became richer and more compelling as the film revealed who he truly was. Skeletons feels like a strong follow-up for both the director and Gallner.

Brady Corbet’s buzzy new epic The Origin of the World casts English actress Sadie Soverall (Every Year After) who joins its A-list headliners Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, and Selena Gomez. Soverall played the posh girlfriend to Jacob Elordi’s character in Saltburn. The film is about “American mysticism and the history of the occult,” with shooting beginning this September.

Harry Melling (Pillion) joins the cast of HBO’s Task S2. The show follows a reluctant task force FBI chief who hunts down a group of thieves in a Philadelphia suburb. Melling will play a hot-headed DEA agent working for Eddie Barnes (Mahershala Ali), directly going up against FBI agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo). Melling has made a reputation for melancholy, serene roles through his performances in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) and Pillion (2025). We are excited to see Melling go up against Mark Ruffalo.

Casting Tidbits:

• Dev Patel

• Amita Rao

• Jason Alexander

All those tidbits and more here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

The BAFTA-nominated indie director Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning has won the audience award at Cannes for Directors’ Fortnight. The film follows five childhood friends who have all hit 30 and are faced with the realities of their lives. The script is adapted by Irish playwright and Small Things Like These (2024) scribe Enda Walsh. Developed by BBC Film, Barnard’s longtime producing partner Tracy O’Riordan of Moonspun Films is also behind this feature.

Two Cannes US distributor pickups:

La Gradiva

• Dist: 1-2 Special (A Poet) for North America

• Dir: Marine Atlan (cinematographer The Girl in the Snow)

• Winner of best film at this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week

Synopsis:

A group of high school students sets off on a school trip to discover the ruins of Pompeii. They are seized by a sense of vertigo. They allow themselves to be overwhelmed by desire and anger, until they surrender completely.

Iron Boy

• Dir: Louis Clichy (animator on WALL•E)

• Premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes

• Dist: Sony Pictures Classics for North and Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia

Synopsis:

Christophe, a 10-year-old boy with balance issues navigates life in an orthopedic brace while his struggling family farm faces modernization. Torn between independence and mending ties with his distant father, he weighs his future.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

We’re letting the audience choose how the movie ends. 20th Century Studios is making a film adaptation of Choose Your Own Adventure with Radio Silence (Prod Co: Ready or Not franchise). Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Dirs: Ready or Not) are set to direct the script written by Tom Bissell (Wri: Andor).

Choose Your Own Adventure was a hit literary series of “gamebooks” in the late 20th century, in which readers could decide how the story ends.

That just seems like a cozy fit. The first Ready or Not film has a card drawing sequence early on that determines the random fate of all the characters much akin to these books.

There have been many efforts to experiment with this “active” storytelling, most notably with Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) that allowed its viewers to select how the main character would act in each narrative crossroad. We don’t yet know how Radio Silence will implement the key element of Choose Your Own Adventure to the screen. How will they pull it off?!

Indian actor Supriya Pathak Kapur makes her directorial debut with the loosely biographical film Our Story. The film will follow three women across three generations of the Pathak Kapur family. The script was co-written with her daughter Sanah Kapur. Our Story hits the TIFF Market in September.

LuckyChap’s Irish thriller Bad Bridgets has made its way to Netflix. Starring CODA’s Emilia Jones and Irish actress Alison Oliver (Saltburn), the drama is set in famine-ravaged 19th century Ireland following two sisters’ perilous journey to New York and the mayhem that awaits them there. From BAFTA-winning director Rich Peppiatt (Kneecap) the film is expected to drop on the streamer mid 2027.

New Indonesian drama Gasigogi finds its director in Miracle in Cell No.7 filmmaker Lee Hwan-kyung. The film is an intimate father and son story made for audiences to “understand the silence of their parents before it’s too late.” From Falcon Pictures (Indonesia dist. Sentimental Value), filming will begin this summer.

ON THIS DAY

2011. The Tree of Life wins the Palme d’Or.

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

Kelli Berglund (Heels) stars in Hulu’s new Prison Break series. The show will follow a soldier-turned-corrections officer who takes a job at one of the deadliest prisons in America. Berglund will play Cheyenne, a female inmate. Elgin James (Showrunner: BBC’s The Outlaws) serves as showrunner, EP, and director of the pilot.

Amita Rao (FX’s Adults) stars in horror-comedy mockumentary See Bot Run. The film follows the underpaid workers of a tech company on the day of their AI product launch, only to find out that their invention begins to turn against them. Rao will play Deena, an overenthusiastic intern at the tech startup.

A new pilot from Young Sheldon producer David Bickel adds a TV comedy veteran, Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), to the cast. In To Life (clip), Alexander will play a mental health professional who recommends microdosing mushrooms to his anxiety-ridden patient whose hallucinogenic side effects don’t go away.

HBO’s highly anticipated pilot, How To Survive Without Me, adds to its lengthy ensemble, none other than series lead Ray Romano’s son Joe, who will make his TV acting debut as a younger version of his dad’s character.

Jason Clarke may join Michael Mann’s Heat 2. We’ll have more details if this confirms.

Rami Malek’s Love, Michael Bay’s Fury, and Skyward.

Let’s go!

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

Rami Malek blew me away in The Man I Love. This is the Ira Sachs film that debuted at Cannes last night.

He plays Jimmy, a star in the local NYC 1980s musical theater scene. The entire performance reminded me of this Blade Runner quote:

“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

Malek has warped his entire physicality for this role. The film opens with him trying to get into a comfortable reading position in bed. And the way he twists and contorts his body communicates not just his queerness but also that this is not an easy world for him to find comfort.

The trick of the film is that we open with him on a high note; he’s in fine form, commanding a room with his lively over-the-top imitations (John Wayne, women, and a granny - clip below).

But we know something is lurking, as Malek’s boyfriend, played by Tom Sturridge, knows that this creative mania can only last so long.

Watching Malek later lose his grip on reality in a way we haven’t quite witnessed is startling. He pushes so hard to keep his identity as a performer, but it’s as if he’s shown up to the wrong play; the cue mismatches betray that he’s losing his mind.

Malek has always been good at this type of work. His breakout, of course, was Mr. Robot, where he became disconnected from reality as a sort of technological paranoia that turned out to be true.

In The Man I Love, this turn is more tragic and more profound.

For More:

Clip of Malek in the film.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Universal taps Michael Bay for military rescue thriller Operation Epic Fury.

• Ryan Condal extends exclusive HBO deal through 2029.

• David Fincher’s Cliff Booth Netflix movie gets two-week global IMAX run.

• Matt Damon eyed to replace Ryan Gosling in Daniels’ Universal sci-fi comedy.

• Renate Reinsve joins Mia Hansen-Løve’s biopic If Love Should Die.

• Quinta Brunson develops Betty Boop feature w/ Fleischer Studios.

• Ciarán Hinds joins Amazon motorcycle racing drama Isle of Man.

• Nicholas Braun cast in Ruben Östlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down.

• Leos Carax sets dystopian Jenna Ortega feature Lily May B.

• Tomorrow Studios adapts Brandon Sanderson sci-fi novel Skyward.

• Media Res promotes Christina Malach to President of Scripted Series.

• BBC develops new Hercule Poirot series for late 2027.

Yesterday’s correct answer: 4 actors played Jobs (Kutcher, Fassbender, Wyle, Long).
45% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

The newest Michael Bay big-budget movie is a heroic true story ripped straight from the headlines. The director is set to helm a Universal Pictures film based on the high-risk U.S. military rescue mission “Operation Epic Fury” that was planned to save two American pilots after their jet was shot down in Iran.

The film is perfectly tailored to the Pearl Harbor director’s sensibilities. Bay is commonly associated with hyper-patriotic military spectacle, oversized action, and sensory-overload heroism; the movie’s plot will follow the upcoming book by Mitchell Zuckoff hitting shelves next year.

Bay’s last collaboration with Universal was for the high-stakes Jake Gyllenhaal-led Ambulance (2022), with his newest military epic in the works as part of the Bay’s production deal with the studio.

Tidbit:

Ryan Condal (Wri/Showrunner: HBO’s House of the Dragon) renews his exclusive deal with HBO through 2029. Condal served as a co-showrunner for the first season of HBO’s hit show and has been the only showrunner for the past 2 seasons. The series has garnered more than 25M average cross-platform viewers per episode. Seems like HBO is believing in Condal to expand their Game of Thrones universe, with Condal EPing A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as well.

Mini Tidbit:

Cliff Booth in IMAX. Netflix has announced that David Fincher’s Cliff Booth movie will get a two-week global IMAX run beginning Thanksgiving week before premiering on the streamer Dec. 23.

The owners of the Lord of the Rings IP, Embracer Group, are putting the rights of the LOTR and Tomb Raider franchises under a newly formed Fellowship Entertainment in Stockholm.

Renewals:

Apple TV’s Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars for S2

• E.P: Gordon Ramsay’s Studio Ramsay

Trailers:

Netflix’s Little Brother

• Trailer

• Cast: John Cena, Eric André

• Dir: Matt Spicer (Ingrid Goes West)

• Release: June 26

First look:

Onward and Sideways

• First Look

• Cast: Laura Linney, Rhys Ifans (House of the Dragon)

• Dir: John Madden (Shakespeare in Love)

• U.K. Dist: BBC One

Release dates:

Blood Moon Rite 8

• Vietnamese comedy

• Release: May 22nd

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Matt Damon is going to get goofy.

The Everything Everywhere All at Once directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s newest film, described as a “fun sci-fi action comedy” from Universal Pictures, is now eyeing Damon to replace Ryan Gosling.

Prior to Damon, Jack Black was also named for the part, and while I wouldn’t initially put these three in the same category, they’re each capable of elevated performances rooted in comedy, still filled with the depth and complexity the Daniels look for.

Set across both the ‘80s and the present day, The Daniels said the film involves “global warming, time travel, and a possible superhero angle.” Speaking with Daniel Kwan at SXSW, he told me it was actually an anti-time-travel movie.

Production is expected to begin this summer in LA and premiere Nov 2027.

Renate Reinsve is quietly becoming the actress everyone wants to work with.

Fresh off her Oscar nomination for leading Joachim Trier’s beautiful Sentimental Value, Reinsve is teaming up with acclaimed French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve for If Love Should Die, a biopic about pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft.

Set on the eve of the French Revolution, the film will focus on the final 12 years of Wollstonecraft’s life and her journey to becoming one of the Enlightenment’s most radical thinkers.

The film continues Hansen-Løve’s pattern of ambitious but self-destructive women (Goodbye First Love), a dynamic that quite seamlessly aligns with the roles Reinsve likes to take on. Drawn to romanticizing messy women, she has a knack for making her characters feel honest.

Reinsve’s next film is A24’s Backrooms, which is already tracking a massive opening weekend.

If Love Should Die will pick up cameras this summer in Europe, with MUBI attached to produce and co-finance.

Boop! Quinta Brunson is set to star as the iconic Betty Boop in a feature film she is developing with her banner Fifth Chance Productions, Fleischer Studios, and Mark Fleischer, grandson of Betty Boop creator Max Fleischer.

Brunson’s ABC comedy Abbott Elementary practically revived the modern mockumentary genre, solidifying the Emmy winner as not only a sharp writer but one of Hollywood’s funniest leading ladies. Brunson has a natural ability to make optimism feel funny instead of naive, possessing a bubbly warmth that completely embodies who Betty Boop is.

Tidbits:

Oscar-nominated Belfast actor Ciarán Hinds is the newest addition to Amazon Studios' Isle of Man, a drama following an iconic motorcycle race starring Channing Tatum and Eve Hewson. A commanding character, from Game of Thrones to There Will Be Blood, Hinds has a gritty, weathered demeanor in every role he takes on, so while character details are being kept under wraps, he feels perfectly suited for a grounded racing drama. Production is beginning this week.

The anticipated 13th season of American Horror Story has just added to its ensemble with two returnees. John Carroll Lynch (Ballard) and Mat Fraser (Gangs of London) both starred in the series’ Freak Show back in 2015 and will now be joining franchise regulars Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, and Jessica Lange for the next installment.

Nicholas Braun has been cast in The Entertainment System Is Down from Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund. His highly anticipated nightmare airplane film with an already stacked cast (Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst).

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

Vaneast Pictures’ romantic period film, Prisoners of Paradise, gets North American distribution with Vantage Media (The Poet). The film stars Ellie Bamber (Nocturnal Animals) as a young woman sent to live under her uncle's guardianship, who finds unexpected love with a local laborer. Vantage has set the film for an August release.

Cannes Market addition:

Controllers

• Int. Sales Rep: Myriad Pictures (This Tempting Madness)

• Prod: Cassian Elwes with Elevated Films (Dead Man’s Wire)

Synopsis:

Follows two sisters isolated on a remote farm after an outbreak, raised to fear Controllers who can manipulate through touch, whose world unravels when a stranger arrives.

Full list of Cannes market films here.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

French filmmaker Leos Carax’s next feature, Lily May B is an end-of-the-world, dream-like drama with Jenna Ortega to star.

Synopsis:

Follows a little girl, a young woman, and a young boy, each holding a heavy secret, who meet in a dystopian world and ride a motorcycle through empty cities and forests, searching for their identities.

The synopsis has me giddy. If you’ve seen The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) or Holy Motors (2012), you know that Carax can inject a dark surrealism into seemingly normal settings. This is a wild inversion; he’s actually going to start with a dystopia. No question, this will lead to us seeing the many parallels to our world. I can’t wait to see his interpretation of this.

I believe the best film of the 2010s was his magnum opus, the Cannes premiering Holy Motors (2012, trailer). It takes Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” to its oddest and most maximalist dimensions.

Filming on Lily May B begins next spring.

The producers behind Netflix’s One Piece, Tomorrow Studios, are set to adapt Skyward, the bestselling sci-fi novel from author Brandon Sanderson. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. creator Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen will write the pilot of the adventure story centered on a dangerous planet where mysterious alien forces threaten humanity.

The Morning Show’s Media Res has just promoted Christina Malach to President of Scripted Series. Joining in 2023 as SVP of Development, Malach has overseen the development of Netflix’s Enigma Variations and her most recent venture, the hit Peacock miniseries The Miniature Wife. She will take on her new role within the indie studio’s leadership team immediately.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

BBC is in the works on a Hercule Poirot series. This is the famed detective from the Agatha Christie novels. Three or more seasons are already in the works with an initial release date of late 2027. Mammoth Screen (And Then There Were None) serves as the prod co.

Yves Montmayeur (Dir: The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Maddin, Best Documentary Winner for 2015 Venice Film Festival) is making Twist & Shoot Mister Suzuki, a documentary examining the life of Japanese cult filmmaker Suzuki Seijun (Dir: Branded to Kill)

Beach House Pictures (Singaporean Film Company) announces two new documentaries, Panda School and Secret Weapons of China’s First Emperor. Panda School follows a cohort of giant panda cubs at a conservation facility in China, narrated by comedian and actor Jimmy O. Yang (Interior Chinatown). Secret Weapons of China’s First Emperor follows how Qin Shi Huang, the emperor of Qin China, rose to power using military innovations.

ON THIS DAY

1990. Wild at Heart wins the Palme d’Or.

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

Apple’s Got Money Troubles, Warner Bros.’ Rattles, and a Bishop.

Let’s go!

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

I sat down with Eva Anderson, the writer, EP, and co-showrunner on Apple TV+’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

The series follows Elle Fanning as a college student whose path to becoming a writer gets derailed as she encounters major money troubles and turns to OnlyFans modeling.

Anderson shared how her show resists easy cliches:

“This is never going to be a show about somebody who’s like a superstar OnlyFans model. That’s not mostly because I don’t think Margo cares about that. She doesn’t want to get super rich. She just wants to like be a weird, creative freak and get by…”

While the opening of the series centers on how her artistic passion becomes a trap, there are larger forces at work. Not just artistic expression, but genetic as well.

Anderson explained:

“If you don’t get the full formula, some of her decisions can seem kind of nuts and unrelatable. But once you’re like, oh, this is her mom (Michelle Pfeiffer). Oh, and this is her dad (Nick Offerman). Okay. I feel like she kind of clicks into place in a way that makes Elle’s performance completely make sense.”

And while Fanning is to a degree bound to biological mirroring, we watch in wonder as she forges a better life for her child.

For More:

Full interview with Eva Anderson + trailer.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Warner Bros.’ Clockwork lands Park Chan-wook’s Brigands of Rattlecreek.

• Netflix taps Philip Barantini to remake Steve McQueen’s The Getaway.

• John Ottman sets Billy Joel biopic Billy & Me.

• Netflix signs creative partnership w/ Super Mario Bros. directors.

• Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions develops series adaptation of 4MK novels.

• Warner Bros. moves forward on Rick and Morty movie.

• Warner Bros. production EVP Kevin McCormick exits studio role.

• ABC orders Texas-set Grey’s Anatomy spinoff.

• Rhea Seehorn joins Gavin O’Connor’s homeless prodigy drama Running.

• Snoop Dogg stars in boxing drama The Faith of Long Beach.

• Michael Chiklis joins Amazon MGM culinary thriller Tyrant.

• Francesca Scorsese joins S2 of Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

• Jennifer Beals joins Amazon thriller series Bishop, w/ Joel Kinnaman starring.

• Briarcliff Entertainment acquires SXSW comedy Drag (prod: Danny DeVito).

• Alfonso Herrera signs directing and EP deal with Sony Pictures Television.

I’ve just gotten out of Cannes official selection Minotaur, from Andrey Zvyagintsev, who wrote and directed Leviathan (Cannes, Best Screenplay, 2014). It is a taught, astonishing tale of a man trying to protect two kingdoms: home and company. Hanging over the entire thing is a blind sense of duty blanketing everything, that adds a wonderful absurdism. It is one of the stronger films at this year’s festival.

Yesterday’s correct answer: Pusher - Nicolas Winding Refn’s first feature.
54% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

While sitting comfortably as the President of the Cannes jury, director Park Chan-wook’s upcoming western, Brigands of Rattlecreek, has sold to Warner Bros. specialty label Clockwork for North America.

The buzzy film boasts a star-studded lineup of Matthew McConaughey, Austin Butler, Pedro Pascal, and Chinese actor Tang Wei (Decision to Leave), following a small-town sheriff and a doctor seeking revenge on a wild group of bandits. A master of both melodramatic violence and darkly poetic storytelling, it will be fascinating to see the western genre through the eyes of The Handmaiden director.

Clockwork’s only other project is the (also high-profile) follow-up feature from Anora helmer, Sean Baker’s Ti Amo!

Filming on Brigands of Rattlecreek is expected to start early in 2027.

Netflix’s Getaway. Philip Barantini (Dir: Netflix’s Adolescence) is remaking Steve McQueen's classic action film The Getaway (1972, trailer) for Netflix. The original film follows a paroled bank robber and his loyal wife who must outrun both corrupt lawmen and dangerous hitmen as they flee their way to cross the border into Mexico with a satchel of stolen cash. Peter Craig (Wri: The Batman) will write the script and produce the film.

The level of craftsmanship in Netflix’s Adolescence for their intricate police sequences has awed millions of viewers all over the world. While we followed the police in the series, we would love to see a version where the audience follows bank robbers as they try to escape from the police and hitmen. The reversal could result in something more morally chaotic – a ride we would love to join on.

Billy and Me, but hold the Billy. Oscar-winning editor John Ottman (Bohemian Rhapsody) is set to direct a biopic exploring the formative years of New York legend and “Piano Man” singer Billy Joel. The film is set to be told through the eyes of his first manager, Irwin Mazur, spanning the late ‘60s until Joel signed his breakout Columbia Records deal in 1972.

Joel, however, is not on board. The singer has publicly pushed back against the project, with his representative stating that the filmmakers:

“Do not possess Billy Joel’s life rights and will not be able to secure the music rights required.”

The film follows last year’s Tribeca opening night documentary, HBO’s And So It Goes (trailer), a two-part exploration with exclusive interviews with the singer and an extensive look at his six-decade-long career.

Tidbits:

The TV screen can no longer contain the chaos. Warner Bros. is moving forward on a Rick and Morty movie with one of the show’s key directors, Jacob Hair, attached to helm the feature-length project. Hair has directed some of the series’ most beloved episodes (“The Vat of Acid Episode”, “Rickmurai Jack”), becoming one of the strongest creatives behind the scifi madness alongside show creator Dan Harmon. The news comes ahead of the Emmy-winning show’s ninth season launching on Adult Swim next weekend.

Netflix signs creative partnership with Super Mario Bros. directors, Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath. The deal will see the duo develop both animated series and films for Netflix. Jelenic and Horvath have a long resume in directing animated films. They gained attention for their creative animation in Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans Go! and its spinoff film Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018). They recently reached a multi-million dollar success with The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026), which earned more than $2bn worldwide.

Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions is developing a series adaptation of J.D. Barker’s 4MK thriller series. Barker’s novel follows Detective Sam Porter as he hunts the Four Monkey Killer, a serial murderer who has been terrorizing the city for years. The show will draw from Barker’s original trilogy (The Fourth Monkey, The Fifth to Die, The Sixth Wicked Child) as well as the recently announced prequel trilogy. Channing Powell (Showrunner: Tales of the Walking Dead) will showrun, write, and EP the show alongside Stallone.

Mini Tidbits:

Veteran Warner Bros. EVP of Production Kevin McCormick (Saturday Night Fever) is leaving the studio to take on a producer deal on the lot. His first project is the WB reboot of The Bodyguard, along with a number of studio-to-stage adaptations like Crazy Rich Asians and A Star Is Born.

Grey’s Anatomy in Texas. ABC just ordered a spinoff of its hit series Grey’s Anatomy, co-created by the original series’ creator, Shonda Rhimes. The show is being described as an edgy drama about a team at a rural West Texas medical center. Meg Marinis (Showrunner: Grey’s Anatomy) and Ellen Pompeo (EP: Grey’s Anatomy) will also EP the new series.

Head of the Television Literary Department Felicia Prinz is leaving LA-based talent agency Verve to be a partner at Range Studios (The Lincoln Lawyer). Some clients joining Prinz include Ransom Canyon show creator April Blair and The Bold Type creator Sarah Watson. Prinz is set to be replaced at Verve by TV talent agent Chris Noriega.

Trailers:

Paramount+’s The Agency

• Trailer

• Cast: Michael Fassbender, Jodie Turner-Smith

• Release: June 21

Starz’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan S5

• Trailer

• Release: June 12

HBO’S Bring Me the Beauties

• Trailer

• Docuseries on male supermodel Hoyt Richards

• Release: June 1

Comedy Central’s South Park S29

• Teaser

• Release: Sept 16

Production Dates:

20th Century Studios’ King Conan

• Dir: Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible)

• Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Conan the Barbarian)

• Shooting: 2027

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Rhea Seehorn has found her next Apple project. Not long after taking home a Golden Globe for leading Vince Gilligan’s ambitious Apple sci-fi series Pluribus, Seehorn has joined the cast of Running.

From director Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant), the film follows a homeless high school prodigy attempting to use his gifts for greatness as he runs away from his family and his past.

While Seehorn’s part is unknown, there’s a creative DNA here similar to her breakout role as Kim Wexler on Gilligan’s Better Call Saul. Smart and sure of herself, Wexler was able to let her guard down around the lovable but skeevy Saul, recognizing both his destructive impulses and undeniable talent. That same dynamic, empathy in the face of inconspicuous potential, would fit well in Running, with Seehorn as a patient character able to see past flaws and understand what someone could become.

Tidbits:

Snoop Dogg stars in boxing drama The Faith of Long Beach, alongside Brandon Perea (Nope). Written and directed by Eric Amadio (Snowfall), the film follows a street fighter raised in a Long Beach group home who tries to find a career in professional boxing. No info on Snoop’s role yet, but we would love to see him as a mentor figure for this struggling boxer. Snoop Dogg has played a washed-up NFL superstar sentenced to community service coaching a youth football group in Prime Video’s The Underdoggs (Trailer). We hope to see the same playful yet sincere energy in this new drama.

Amazon casting tidbits:

• Michael Chiklis

• Francesca Scorsese

• Jennifer Beals

All three here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

Three films join the Cannes Market, including one starring Melissa Leo. More details on those films + the rest of the movies at the Market here.

Cinetic is having a busy couple of weeks. The New York-based Cinetic Media (Fjord) has worldwide sales rights to Freefall, a documentary following two of the world’s “most celebrated aerial daredevils”. The doc marks a reunion between Cinetic and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story’s Passion Pictures.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Briarcliff Entertainment’s newest pickup is very Briarcliff (The Apprentice). The studio has acquired distribution rights to SXSW heist thriller-comedy Drag starring Lizzy Caplan, John Stamos, and Lucy DeVito (Leaves of Grass).

Blending crime with comedy chaos, it’s the exact type of edgy, mid-budget adult genre fare that most would pass on, but the studio has built its brand around.

The feature directorial debut of Disney Channel actor Raviv Ullman (Phil of the Future), the film follows two estranged sisters who attempt a simple home burglary that spirals into a nightmarish ordeal and a race to escape, unpacking endless layers of sibling rivalry. It’s absurdist then nightmarish and we totally dug it when we saw the premiere at SXSW.

We even interviewed producer Danny DeVito and daughter Lucy about the film. Check that out here.

Mini Tidbits:

Indie distributor Sox Entertainment (Judy Justice) has picked up the rights to Stronger Than You Think, a documentary telling the inspiring story of Paralympic swimmer Ali Truwit. The film will look closely at the 2024 Paris Games, where Truwit won two silver medals less than a year after losing half her leg in a shark attack.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Romanian filmmaker Constantin Popescu (Dir: Pororoca) is directing the first two features in a new franchise, Birds of the Soul. The film will be set in the Carpathian Mountains in 1917, following a remote village haunted by wartime paranoia and supernatural forces. The new franchise will be launched by Just Entertainment (Distributor: Inspector Gadget) and AiMation.

The premise strongly reminds us of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), a historical film set during wartime, but it blends mythical elements into its story. Popescu is well-known for bringing a certain level of realism and atmosphere to his work, and we are looking forward to seeing how he will collide the very real terrors of war with the supernatural.

Mini Tidbit:

Ozark actor Alfonso Herrera has signed on to a behind-the-camera deal with Sony Pictures Television to direct and executive produce future series. With an extensive background in both English and Spanish-language TV, Herrera will have a focus on building up the Latin American slate for SPT.

ON THIS DAY

1908. James Stewart born in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

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

In more Amazon casting news, the anticipated second season of Mr. and Mrs. Smith has cast Francesca Scorsese in a recurring role. After building a name for herself outside of her father’s shadow with her viral social media following, Scorsese has recently begun acting in projects like the HBO miniseries We Are Who We Are and the new Netflix movie Roommates. Season two has just started production in L.A.

Jennifer Beals, known for Paramount+’s The L Word, is also moving over to Amazon, joining the cast of the upcoming thriller series Bishop. Alongside Joel Kinnaman as a brilliant but troubled homicide detective, Beals will play a psychologist within San Francisco’s Police Department. An exact release date has yet to be announced.

Here’s the synopsis:

A young mother (Elle Fanning) struggles to make ends meet. When her estranged father (Nick Offerman) offers help, she starts an OnlyFans account using his advice from pro wrestling. Though successful, she wonders if Internet fame comes at too high a cost.

The cast is sensational, including Fanning, Offerman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Greg Kinnear.

In this wide-ranging interview, she shares how she went from a writer's assistant for the 2004 Billy Crystal-hosted Academy Awards to a co-showrunner with David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies, Presumed Innocent, Nine Perfect Strangers, Love & Death).

She details, how her and the writing team got to know the characters they would write, and how they choose where to diverge from the book based on the casting choices they made.

Here’s the trailer for Margo’s Got Money Troubles:

Now available on Apple TV. It has just been greenlit for Season 2.

Cannes’ Neon, 20th Century’s Persona, and Gable.

Let’s go!

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

Cannes is about 2/3rds finished, with about 8 of the 22 films in the official selection still left to premiere. The one film to look out for: Minotaur, which is debuting in just a few hours. It’s supposed to be one of the best at the festival. That film hails from Andrey Zvyagintsev, who wrote and directed Leviathan (Cannes, Best Screenplay, 2014) and Loveless (Cannes Jury Prize, 2017).

So far, All of a Sudden is still the strongest film at the festival. Elsewhere, Léa Seydoux turned in two sensational performances in Neon’s The Unknown, which plays like a French auteurist Freaky Friday. It’s strange, hard to follow, but anchored by Seydoux going mad over a unique type of body dysmorphia. And in Gentle Monster, Seydoux anchors a very troubling film about a wife who retreats after learning something unthinkable about her husband. The scene where she confronts him is held much too late in the film, but Seydoux is able to draw from deep wells of emotional power and is piercing.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell, playing Out of Competition, is as startlingly cinematic as Blade Runner, if it were drained of plot and doused in neon. It’s alluring and stupefying, with the closest parallels to his film Only God Forgives (2013). The actors, Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton, are connected to a deeper story that is never portrayed on screen but makes their glances, fright, and mischievousness all the more compelling.

Also, Netflix has made its first buy, meaning its first awards-ready pickup with In Wave. They grabbed the worldwide rights (outside of France) to the Cannes Critics’ Week opener, an animated romance film led by Stephanie Hsu (EEAAO) and BAFTA winner Will Sharpe (A Real Pain). From director Phuong Mai Nguyen (dir. short Chez moi), the film is based on the graphic novel of the same name, an emotional coming-of-age story about young love and navigating tragedy set against a beautiful ocean backdrop.

For More:

Neon’s Her Private Hell Teaser. Release: July 24.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• 20th Century Studios lands seven-figure thriller Persona, w/ Paul Feig directing.

• New Line/WB sets David Derrick Jr. and Josh Aoshima to direct Hello Kitty.

• Disney+ developing Ella Enchanted prequel series, w/ Anne Hathaway EPing.

• FX orders Very Young Frankenstein, w/ Zach Galifianakis starring.

• Marvel names Brad Winderbaum Head of Marvel TV, Animation, and Comics.

• Paramount hires Google vet Barak Turovsky as EVP of Consumer AI.

• Sony Pictures Television acquires majority stake in Alex Baskin’s 32 Flavors.

• Danielle Brooks leads Apple TV+ soul food comedy American Comfort.

• Leslie Bibb and Ben Foster join Olympic wrestling drama Gable.

• Tony Hale joins Nancy Meyers’ untitled Warner Bros. ensemble.

• Amazon lands international rights to Cannes Market Pumping Black in $20M+ deal.

• Paulina García’s feature directing debut is The Passion According to Carmen.

• Greenwich Entertainment acquires U.S. rights to Xu Zao’s Berlin title Light Pillar.

• Juanjo Giménez sets supernatural romance Pínkala as his next feature.

• Studiocanal signs 3-year English-language distribution deal with Sun Africa.

Yesterday’s correct answer: Babel - Iñárritu told Blanchett and Pitt take 1 was shit.
37% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

20th Century Studios wins a competitive auction for Persona, based on a novella from CW series Arrow EP Marc Guggenheim. Though the concept is under wraps, the deal is said to be seven figures. Paul Feig (Dir: The Housemaid) is attached to direct. The film is said to be a modern thriller resembling Fatal Attraction (1987, Trailer). This is the second seven-figure contract for Guggenheim, along with Netflix feature film An Innocent Girl starring Kerry Washington (Django Unchained), James Marsden (Sonic the Hedgehog franchise), and Colman Domingo (Sing Sing).

The success of Lionsgate’s The Housemaid (2025) has made director Feig and the sexual thriller genre a hot buy now, with that film hitting $367M worldwide on a $35M budget. We hope to see the same secrets and obsession in this new 20th Century film.

Tidbits:

Hello Kitty’s big-screen animated debut is officially moving forward with New Line Cinema and Warner Bros announcing the official directors. Moana 2 helmer David Derrick Jr. and on-the-rise director Josh Aoshima, best known for Netflix’s animated monster movie Ultraman: Rising (2024), are set to bring the adorable cat to life through their overall deals with Warner Bros. Animation. While not much is known of the plot, it’ll follow Hello Kitty and all of her Sanrio friends going on adventures, hitting theaters in the summer of 2028.

A Very Young Frankenstein. FX has just ordered the series Very Young Frankenstein, inspired by the classic comedy Young Frankenstein (1974, Trailer). The show will follow a brilliant neurosurgeon as he inherits his grandfather’s Transylvanian estate, ultimately leading him to reanimate a corpse. Zach Galifianakis, Dolly Wells (Dracula), and Spencer House (Tell Me Lies) will star in the series. Taika Waititi (Dir: Thor: Ragnarok), Stefani Robinson, and Garrett Basch – the trio from FX comedy series What We Do in the Shadows – will EP the show.

Disney+ is developing a series adaptation of the cult classic fairytale movie Ella Enchanted (2004). The original film saw a young Anne Hathaway as the cursed Ella of Frell forced to obey every command, with the actress now set to executive produce the upcoming prequel series. Ilana Wolpert (Anyone But You) and Ben Schwartz (Dead Boy Detectives) will write and serve as co-showrunners.

Marvel announces Brad Winderbaum as Head of Marvel Television, Animation, Comics & Franchise. He will oversee the creative direction of Marvel’s publishing as well as its global branding efforts. He joined the Marvel Universe during the production of Iron Man (2008) and was the EP for Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Winderbaum will replace Dan Buckley as the Head of Marvel Television, positioning him as one of the possible successors to Kevin Feige should Feige eventually step down.

Mini Tidbits:

Paramount hired former Google executive Barak Turovsky as EVP of Consumer AI. Turovsky has worked as the Head of Product at Google for 11 years. He will now oversee the growing AI and machine learning teams for Paramount+ and Pluto TV.

Bravo, SPT! Sony Pictures Television has acquired a majority stake in Alex Baskin’s 32 Flavors (The Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules), the production company responsible for some of Bravo’s biggest hits.

Jafar Panahi has been summoned to an Iranian court hearing for his Palme d’Or-winning film It Was Just an Accident (2025). He’s a hero for what he’s doing.

Acquisitions:

Fox’s Baywatch (reboot)

• Sky buys for UK/Ireland

Trailers:

HBO/DC Studios’ Lanterns

• Teaser

• Cast: Aaron Pierre

• Release: Aug 16

Madman Entertainment’s The Fox

• Teaser

• Cast: Emily Browning, Jai Courtney

• Release: Oct. 29

• Premiering at Sydney Film Festival

Prime Video UK’s Clarkson’s Farm S5

• Trailer

• Release: June 3

Netflix’s Room to Move

• Trailer

• Dir: Alexander Hammer (dir: HBO’s Expecting Amy)

• Prod: Amy Schumer

• Premiered at Tribeca (2025)

• Release: May 27

Release Dates:

Brainstorm Media’s The Floaters

• Cast: Jackie Tohn

• Release: July 10

Disney+ and Hulu’s Adventure Time: Side Quests

• Prod: Cartoon Network Studios (Adventure Time)

• Release: June 29

Comedy Central’s South Park (S29)

• Release: Sept 16th

Amazon MGM Studios’ Vibe

• Indian Action Comedy

• Release: Sept 18

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Apple TV+ is cooking up a new soul food restaurant comedy series, with the Oscar nominee Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple) set to star.

American Comfort (working title) from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris, Oprah Winfrey, and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment (HBO’s Divorce), is inspired by the life of legendary Harlem restaurateur Melba Wilson, who became embedded in the cultural fabric of the community through her mind-blowing cooking.

Brooks first broke out as a scene-stealing heart of the Orange Is the New Black ensemble, carrying that same commanding warmth into powerhouse performances like in The Color Purple (2023) remake and the Depression-era set The Piano Lesson (2024), while casually mixing in box-office smashing sidequests like The Minecraft Movie (2025).

Underrated and underutilized, Brooks can balance both a comedic energy with real, genuine emotional depth, making her a great fit for a heartfelt series about food, family, and community.

Tidbits:

Gable, the extraordinary true story of an Olympic underdog, has added actors to star opposite Peaky Blinders’ Finn Cole in the titular role. The White Lotus’ Leslie Bibb and Ben Foster, in unknown roles, are joining the drama that will look at gold medal-winning wrestler Dan Gable, who overcame an unthinkable family tragedy to become one of the most dominant athletes in the world at the height of the Cold War.

The queen of rom-coms, Nancy Meyers, has expanded the cast of her upcoming untitled Warner Bros. film. Veep’s Tony Hale is set to join an overflowing ensemble led by Penêlope Cruz, Kieran Culkin, Jude Law, and Owen Wilson with a primarily under wraps logline. Hale has become Hollywood’s go-to for neurotic, wacky sidekicks; even his Toy Story character Forky is an anxious wreck, so it’s safe to assume he’ll bring that energy to Meyers’ universe.

Netflix’s wishes came true! Bette Midler will lend her voice to the streamer’s reimagined Cinderella movie, Steps, as the Fairy Godmother. She joins a female ensemble of Ali Wong, Amanda Seyfried, and Stephanie Hsu that sees the Fairy Godmother’s wand get stolen from Cinderella’s evil stepsister. The animated fairytale feature is scheduled to be released before the end of the year.

Casting Tidbits:

• Laura Linney

• Rob Delaney

• Fernanda Torres

All those juicy casting tidbits and more here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

Amazon is full speed ahead on Pumping Black, securing international rights to the psychological thriller in a more than $20M deal, the biggest so far at Cannes Market.

Led by Jonathan Bailey and Natalie Portman, the film is in the same vein as the latter’s Black Swan, following an aging-out professional cyclist who is manipulated by a power-hungry doctor. From Fresh (2022) director Mimi Cave, Anton (Fuze) will continue handling sales and financing.

Production is set to begin this fall.

Two new Cannes Market projects, including one with Cara Delevingne, John Boyega + a sale. Full breakdown here, along with the rest of the projects in the Cannes Market.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Paulina García (Berlinale Silver Bear winner for Gloria) is directing her first feature, The Passion According to Carmen. The film will follow a journalist named Carmen, whose life appears happy on the surface, with a husband and a 20-year-old daughter. But when she is attacked at a feminist protest, she receives an unexpected awakening that turns her towards a more sensual and liberated worldview.

Marina Loyola (Rara) is co-writing the film, and she will also star in the feature. García and Loyola launched a new production company, Cautiva, which will focus more on femme-focused original content. Though the cast is not fully formed, talks are going on with renowned Latin actors to complete the cast.

Greenwich Entertainment (The Critic) has scooped up the U.S. distribution rights to the Berlin title Light Pillar, the debut feature from Chinese director Xu Zao. The film mixes 2D animation and live-action sequences following a down-and-out film studio janitor who retreats into a virtual world and finds love. The deal was negotiated by sales agent Cercamon (Omaha) at Cannes.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Palme d’Or-winning Spanish director Juanjo Giménez is gearing up to begin shooting his next feature, Pínkala. From Spain’s Frida Films (Titanic Ocean), the supernatural love story is centered on a lonely man who has the extraordinary ability of reading people’s minds, until he meets the one person capable of truly connecting with him.

Giménez’s Cannes short Timecode (2016, trailer) not only won big at the festival, but went on to earn an Academy Award nomination, with his new full-length, English-language film a passion project he’s been quietly working on for over a decade. Madrid-based BTeam Pictures (Spain dist. Sirat) will be handling national distribution.

Studiocanal and Sun Africa Group (SAG) sign a 3-year deal. SAG will distribute all of Studiocanal’s top English-language films, including:

• Pressure

• Full Phil

• Ink (Dir: Danny Boyle)

ON THIS DAY

1989. Do the Right Thing premieres at Cannes.

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

Rob Delaney (FX’s Dying for Sex) joins the untitled Apple TV comedy show, starring Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games franchise). The show will follow a woman fresh off a divorce, setting out to secure a living for herself and her kids. No info on his role. The show will be written and EPed by Liz Heidens (Wri: Will Trent) and Matt Ward (EP: Best Medicine).

Disney+’s hit Korean superhero show Moving Season 2 starts production. Many of the original cast, including Ryu Seung-ryong, Han Hyo-joo, and Zo In-sung (Hope), are set to return. The show follows three high school students whose lives turn upside down when they realize they are superheroes, being hunted down by a secret government organization.

Tom Kane, the voice actor behind Master Yoda in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Professor Utonium on The Powerpuff Girls, dies at 64. His voice performance as Woodhouse in FX’s Archer, Lord Monkey Fist in Kim Possible, and Magneto and Ultron in various Marvel projects left a mark on the childhood memories of many viewers. He will be missed.

HBO’s Harry Potter series is losing a Weasley, with young actress Gracie Cochrane exiting the show ahead of its Christmas Day premiere. The role of Ginny Weasley will be recast for the second season.

Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) is ready for a hug. The Oscar-nominated actress has been cast in Barbara Paz’s debut feature Cuddle. Torres will play an immigrant woman who meets a professional cuddler (Willem Dafoe) who offers platonic comfort to strangers craving connection.

Neon’s Hope, Sam Raimi’s Magic and Turpentine.

Let’s go!

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

The Cannes Official Selection has presented two films that are polar opposites yet stunningly beautiful. And they’re both from Neon.

The first is All of a Sudden, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car). It is a profound 3.5hr meditation on how to use art to reform thoughts and ideas. To keep pace with the slowest person. To let the outside in.

It revolves around a Japanese playwright and a director of a nursing home whose discourse allows the status quo of that retirement community to move to an enlightened level of humanity. Hamaguchi’s meditative pace allows his carefully constructed ideas to seep in and fill up your soul. It’s the best film I’ve seen at the festival.

The second film is Hope from Na Hong-jin (dir: The Chaser, The Yellow Sea). It’s a hardcore action film with aliens. With a larger message on species extinction and immigration. There’s a micro and macro story being played out that twists the POV in a complicated way, showing that the grotesque humanoid aliens have the most heart of anyone on screen.

The action scenes twist us through the post-apocalyptic streets and forest-scapes of a town called Hope, where we follow a police officer and some mercenaries as they band together to protect against a literal alien invasion.

The festival is a little over halfway done, and there are more films to be seen, but these two will resonate well beyond their release dates.

For More:

Hope trailer.

All of a Sudden non-English trailer.

A24 has just acquired the buzziest film at Cannes this year from Un Certain Regard: Jordan Fistman’s directorial debut Club Kid.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Sam Raimi to direct Magic remake for Lionsgate.

• Cate Blanchett joins Brady Corbet’s epic The Origin of the World.

• James Franco boards Vietnam-set John Rambo prequel with Noah Centineo.

• Claire Denis developing serial-killer horror film The Soap Maker.

• Kenneth Lonergan returns with ensemble drama Tomorrow is a Drag.

• Keanu Reeves joins voice cast of stop-motion revenge film Hidari.

• Bill Camp joins thriller Turpentine with Melissa McCarthy.

• Freddie Highmore & David Shore team in bank-robber drama I’m Not Here To Hurt You.

• See-Saw Films signs $50M financing partnership with Entourage Ventures.

• Fifth Season and HarbourView Equity Partners strike indie film financing pact.

• Charles Randolph adapting Muppets in Moscow.

Friday’s correct answer: 3 films Will Smith starred in during his time on Fresh Prince. 48% got it right.

Box office quick hit:

• #1: Michael has a minuscule drop of 31% in its 4th week, rocketing it to #1 at the box office with $26.1M domestic. It has now hit $703.9M worldwide.

• #2: The Devil Wears Prada 2 is now at $546.2M worldwide (overtaking the first film’s worldwide total, counting inflation).

• #3: Focus Features’ Obsession opens with a fantastic $16.1M.

• #9: Black Bear’s In the Grey directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill underperforms with a $3M domestic opening.

• #10: Amazon’s Is God Is slightly underperforms with a $2.2M domestic opening.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Sam Raimi and the possessed right hand. Raimi will direct Lionsgate’s modern adaptation of William Goldman’s novel Magic. You may remember that book because it was turned into a cult horror classic, Magic (1978, Trailer). The original film follows a mentally unstable ventriloquist, Corky (Anthony Hopkins), as he finds sudden fame by using a dummy called Fats, only for the dummy to take on a manipulative life of its own and drive him to commit murder.

The director and material are perfect for each other. Raimi rose to fame with horror comedy films that blended shocking violence with gleeful absurdity like Evil Dead II (1987) and Drag Me to Hell (2009). The charm of those movies was that they never took themselves too seriously. After all, Raimi is no stranger to possessed body parts – Ash Williams in Evil Dead II had to cut off his own right hand before it killed him. Maybe we’ll see the same “Man vs. Hand” horror for the ventriloquist in Magic.

Raimi’s last film, survival horror-comedy Send Help (2026), earned $96M worldwide at the box office. It seems like he wants to keep the momentum going, reuniting with the same writers, Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, for the new psychological thriller.

Mini Tidbits:

Sony Pictures Entertainment’s SVP of Corporate Communications, Stacy Weitz is stepping down from the television division after a decade with the studio. Her focus was on international production, global distribution, and the Game Show group (Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune).

Two obits:

Documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, best known for films that humanized marginalized individuals, dies at 65. His work, like Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse (2013) and Finding Normal (2007), sheds light on mental illness and police brutality.

Tony Seiniger, often known as “The Godfather of Movie Advertising”, dies at 87. He was a movie marketer and a poster designer, having created the posters for many classic cinema icons like Jaws (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), and Mean Streets (1973).

Clips:

Mubi’s Coward

• Cannes Competition Title

• Dir: Lukas Dhont (Close)

• Clip

Trailer:

YouTube’s Don’t Suck S2

• Cast: Jeff Hiller

• Release: June 4

• Trailer

Release Dates:

Markiplier’s Iron Lung

• YouTube Release: May 31

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Brady Corbet’s next film is 4 hours, spans 150 years, and is rumored to be shot on 65mm film. Few actors could anchor something that huge quite like two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett.

In Corbet’s mysterious epic The Origin of the World (unofficial title), Blanchett joins Selena Gomez in an “X-rated feature that spans from the 19th century into the present day.”

Corbet’s films operate on an overwhelming scale, which Blanchett is more than capable of taking on. From the massive mythical world of The Lord of the Rings to her mesmerizing performance in Tár (2022, scene), a smaller, more intimate film built around a character so intricate and dynamic that she completely consumes every frame.

She gives off an old-Hollywood screen presence that Corbet seems drawn to (in fact, she played Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator). The film could be a reunion with her Black Bag co-star Michael Fassbender, who is in talks to join.

Filming is set to start this summer in Portugal.

Jaime King is going full chaos. The Pearl Harbor (2001) actress is set to star and produce in Darlene, a dark comedy feature from Pet Sematary (1989) director Mary Lambert.

In her first leading part since Hulu’s Code Name Banshee (2022), King will take on the titular role, a trailer park influencer whose obsession with internet fame sends her into a spiral of murder and Southern-fried chaos alongside a wackier-than-usual Natasha Lyonne.

The high-octane satire is set to begin production this summer in Louisiana.

Tidbits:

Scarlett Johansson steals the stage in James Gray's family drama that morphs into a thriller in Neon’s Paper Tiger. The film just premiered at Cannes in the official selection (1 of 2 US films). Plot: Adam Driver and Miles Teller play brothers trying to make a quick buck, which gets them deeply involved with the Russian mafia. Scarlett Johansson internalizes her fear, disappointment, and rage in a way that boils up within her in the most profound and distressing ways, as if she bears the emotional brunt of much of what her husband and her brother-in-law do. Releasing this fall.

James Franco (The Interview) joins the cast of the Rambo prequel film John Rambo, directed by Jalmari Helander (Sisu). The film will feature Rambo (Noah Centineo) in his earlier days, before the events of the first movie, as he fights his way through the jungles of Vietnam. Franco is said to have a small role in the film, though not specified.

Mini Tidbits:

Keanu Reeves to lead the voice cast of Japanese Stop-Motion animation Hidari. Based on the Proof of Concept short by director Masashi Kawamura, the film will follow an artisan who loses his father figure, his fiancée, and his right arm – setting him on a path for vengeance. The original short garnered close to 5M views on YouTube since its release.

Bill Camp (The Night Of) joins thriller feature Turpentine, alongside Melissa McCarthy and Connor Storrie (Heated Rivalry). The film will follow a son who hires friends to rob his own parents to pay off a bookie. Craig Zobel (HBO’s The Penguin) will direct the feature with Rian Johnson’s production company, T-Street, to produce.

Jay Huguley (The Walking Dead) joins Amazon MGM’s Ally Clark. The show will follow an investigator who tries to get to the bottom of her friend’s death by looking into a dangerous global conglomerate. Viola Davis leads the series alongside Huguley.

Freddie Highmore (The Good Doctor) and David Shore (creator: The Good Doctor) are teaming up for Sony Pictures Television’s I’m Not Here To Hurt You. The show will follow the true story of a man who became known as “Ireland’s most polite bank robber”.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

Seven more projects launch at the Cannes Market. Including those starring Russell Crowe and Colman Domingo. Full breakdown here.

Non Cannes sales rep pickups:

The Beast

• U.S. Sales: Aura Entertainment (Hungry)

• Dir: Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2)

• Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Joel Kinnaman (Suicide Squad)

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Famed French director Claire Denis (Chocolat) is working on the scariest new film, and you’ll never believe the title. The Soap Maker is inspired by the true story of an Italian serial killer, Leonarda Cianciulli, who used chemicals to dispose of her victims into soaps, candles, and cookies for the people in her community.

In the same vein as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en (music to my ears). Denis is coming off the TIFF-premiering The Fence (2025), a West African thriller also centered on death but in a colonial setting, told like a ghost story. The Soap Maker brings Denis back to cannibalistic erotic horror, just like her 2001 film Trouble Every Day (trailer), where lovers had the urge to literally devour each other.

CAA is currently packaging.

Oscar-winning director Kenneth Lonergan (Dir: Manchester By the Sea) is directing his first film in 10 years, Tomorrow is a Drag, starring Aubrey Plaza, Adam Driver, Vanessa Kirby (The Fantastic Four: First Steps), and Matthew Broderick.

No info on the plot of the film, but the star-studded ensemble cast is enough to keep us anticipating. Lonergan’s films are characterized by rawness and devastating realism – something we would love to see from Plaza and Kirby, who have mainly been doing genre characters in recent years.

Tidbits:

Moby continues to EP a bold slate of indie films. His latest is Welcome Space Brothers, which is also EP’d by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, & Elijah Wood. The film centers on the Unarius Academy of Science, an extraterrestrial channeling spiritual school/cult in California in the 1970s. This picks up on the trend of Moby EPing films that involve oddball micro communities, with his previous being the Sundance film The Incomer starring Domhnall Gleeson, recently picked up by Sumerian Pictures. Check out the wacky and wonderful poster for Welcome Space Brothers here.

Fifth Season and HarbourView Equity Partners make a multi-picture financing pact. The deal will help Fifth Season finance a variety of indie projects, including A24’s action film The Peasant, directed by and starring Dev Patel (Monkey Man). Also included in the slate is thriller Nightwatching, starring Mila Kunis and Clancy Brown (The Penguin).

Indie powerhouse See-Saw Films (The King’s Speech) has signed a multi-year production and financing partnership with Paris-based investment firm Entourage Ventures. The Mediawan-owned British-Australian studio will have more financial flexibility with Entourage investing up to $50M in equity over the next three years across its future feature slate.

Tidbits:

• The Muppets are going to Russia

• Horror film, Bokshi

• Kino Lorber doc pick-up The Story of Documentary Film

All those tidbits and more here.

ON THIS DAY

2001. Shrek debuts.

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

With Randolph attached to the project, we would love to see him take a dark-comedy take on the Muppets that recounts how one of the most silly and popular children’s TV shows made its way into Russia. We would love to see how the production team of Sesame Street had to deal with bombings, political violence, assassinations, and a military takeover of the production office.

Mini Tidbits:

Kino Lorber has locked in North American distribution for The Story of Documentary Film, a 16-part film that looks at the history of nonfiction cinema around the globe. Mark Cousins’ groundbreaking film has been making the festival rounds, earlier this year premiering at Sundance, shortly after at Berlinale, with chapters 6 and 7 most recently playing at Cannes Classics. Dogwoof also sold the film to Madman in Australia, IWonder in Italy, and Filmin in Spain.

Wild Duck Productions (Barcelona-based Distributor) acquires rights to Indian folk horror Bokshi. The film follows a troubled teen who follows a history teacher on a trek to an ancient site called “The Navel”, where strange things start to happen. The film is aiming for a Halloween theatrical release.

French founder of tech company Mirakl, Adrien Nussenbaum, is launching Palatio Films, a new production company making its Cannes debut with WWII title When Night Falls. From actor turned director Daniel Auteuil, the film is the first in a series of history-centered projects a part of Palatio’s upcoming slate.

Will Smith’s Supermax, Amazon MGM’s Gold, and a Big Fix.

Let’s go!

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Cannes Day 3 premiered Mubi’s Fatherland from director Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War), which some critics have felt was emotionally stilted. It’s a stark, powerful rendition of a father and daughter (Thomas Mann and Sandra Hüller) as they journey across post-war Germany, trying to spiritually rebuild what has crumbled. Clip.

The second In Competition film to premiere was Parallel Tales from director, writer Asghar Farhadi (2x Oscar winner for A Separation and The Salesman), starring Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel, and Catherine Deneuve.

Farhadi’s films tend to withhold the inciting incident until 40 minutes into the film, which creates a powerful dramatic effect. This is a twisting tale of a dying writer who takes in a thief who steals her identity. It’s delightful in its narrative construction. And is like the twisted, indie version of Stranger Than Fiction.

Isabelle Huppert is wonderful, but the breakout star is Adam Bessa, who has more screentime than anyone else.

Day 4 of Cannes will world premiere All of a Sudden, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) and Gentle Monster from sales rep mk2, starring Léa Seydoux.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Amazon MGM acquires Will Smith’s Supermax from Miramax for $70M.

• Versant posts $1.69bn in Q1 revenue.

• Paramount programming exec Keith Cox exits.

• Nina Gold will cast the next James Bond.

• Netflix and Archewell develop war memoir No Way Out, w/ Matt Charman writing.

• HBO’s Roosters becomes its most-watched debut comedy series in over 15 years.

• Jodie Comer leads HBO kidnapping thriller The Chain.

• Natalie Dormer joins Netflix’s FIFA match-fixing thriller The Big Fix.

• Netflix acquires four festival docs, including Room to Move & Free Leonard Peltier.

• Ruben Östlund making-of doc, Ruben tracks The Entertainment System Is Down.

• Fifth Season acquires rights to Corey Stoll and Julia Stiles thriller Recap.

• Catherine Breillat and Lone Scherfig line up new Cannes Market projects.

• Michelle Yeoh EPs Thai Muay Thai action drama Nak Muay.

Wednesday’s correct answer: Mimic the film Guillermo del Toro disowns.
54% got it right.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Will Smith’s new film is going straight to streaming.

Smith will star in Amazon MGM’s action thriller Supermax, directed by David Gordon Green (Halloween sequel franchise). Amazon MGM bought the film from Miramax for $70M. If Miramax had held onto it, they would have almost certainly released it theatrically (as they’re co-owned by Paramount).

If Amazon puts it directly on Prime, it would be a bit of an odd move given that they’re aiming for 15 films released theatrically/year and had one of the buzzier slates at CinemaCon. Also, Smith’s last onscreen performance was Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024), which hit $404M worldwide. That had a baked-in audience, though, and Amazon may not believe this is worth spending the money on a theatrical campaign.

Creatively, that’s odd too, as in Supermax, Smith will be playing an FBI agent investigating a murder that has taken place in the world’s most secure prison. Smith’s most iconic (and highest-grossing) characters are in law enforcement, from Agent J in the Men in Black franchise to Mike Lowrey in Bad Boys.

This will be Smith’s first role in an original film since the incident at the Oscars.

Versant’s Quarter One earnings:

• $1.69bn Total Revenue

  • ↓ 1.1%

• $286M Net Income

  • ↓ 22.1%

• $704M Adjusted EBITDA

  • ↓ 7%

• $192M Platforms Revenue

  • ↑ 9.5%

• $368M Advertising Revenue

  • ↓ 7.3%

Versant Media Group is made up of NBCUniversal’s cable television networks, like the USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, SYFY, and the Golf Channel.

Following the separation from Comcast back in January, this quarter marks the first full earnings report from Versant as an independent public company.

Tidbits:

In the wake of the Skydance merger, Paramount’s Keith Cox (greenlit Yellowstone) exits. He is a top programming executive behind brands like the Paramount Network, Showtime/MTV, and TV Land. After 20 years with the company, Cox is currently in negotiations to join his former boss, Chris McCarthy, at NBCUniversal. He will finish out the month at Paramount.

The hunt for 007 begins. Nina Gold, the casting director for HBO’s Game of Thrones series and films like Les Misérables (2012) and Conclave (2024), is in charge of choosing the next James Bond. Gold will work closely with director Denis Villeneuve (Dir: Dune) for the search. Gold has a reputation for choosing authentic and grounded actors, sometimes making decisions that are unexpected. Though it is too early for speculation, we are excited to see who Gold would bring to the table.

As part of their partnership, Netflix and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell (With Love, Meghan) are developing a feature on war memoir No Way Out: The Searing True Story of Men Under Siege. The Oscar-nominated Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies) is writing the adaptation, telling the story of a group of British soldiers sent to hold a district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province during the war.

Mini Tidbits:

The first season of HBO’s Steve Carell-led feel-good show Roosters has just become the most-watched debut comedy series for the prestige TV network in more than 15 years. The last to hit this marker in under 90 days of its premiere were the dramedy Hung (2009) and Sex and the City (1998).

Doctor Who’s coming to AMC+. Beginning June 11, AMC+ will stream all 13 seasons of the BBC’s revived Doctor Who TV series.

Emmy-winning TV producer Sarah Caplan (Lost) has died after a three-year-long battle with Alzheimer’s. From Alias to her more recent role as co-executive producer of Apple’s The Morning Show spent over 30 years working in prestige television.

Greenlit:

CBS Studios’ family adventure series The Emperor’s Stone

• Airing on France Télévisions in France, ZDF in Germany, and Rai in Italy.

Renewals:

Sky’s Prisoner for S2

• Showrunner: Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies)

Nickelodeon’s PAW Patrol for S14, S15

• + Spinoff series Rubble & Crew for S5, S6

Clip:

I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning

• Clip

• Dir: Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant)

• Premiering at Cannes

Trailer:

Hulu’s The Season

• Trailer

• From Crazy Rich Asians studio SK Global

• Release: June 17

Release Dates:

Dua Lipa (Live From Mexico)

• Concert film accompanying upcoming album

• Release: May 22

Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty S9

• Release: May 24

• Streaming on Hulu and HBO Max June 15

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Jodie Comer loves to play a woman under pressure.

The 28 Years Later actress has boarded HBO’s new limited series The Chain, based on Adrian McKinty’s bestselling novel of the same name. It’s a really horrific story centered on Comer as a mother who’s trapped inside a brutal kidnapping ring where saving her own child means abducting someone else’s.

The panic-driven premise feels like a perfect match for Comer, whose Emmy-winning breakout role as the emotionally erratic, dangerously impulsive, but sharp-thinking assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve (2018-22) showcased her ability to make even the most unthinkable choices feel desperately necessary.

Lost creator Damon Lindelof is on board as showrunner.

Emmy winner Brit Lower (Severance) and Oscar nominee Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value) are rounding out the cast for Zero K, a feature adaptation from Michael Almereyda (Marjorie Prime).

The dramatic sci-fi follows a tech billionaire (played by Peter Sarsgaard) preparing his dying wife (Lilleaas) for cryonic preservation in an advanced medical facility while his estranged son (played by Caleb Landry Jones) searches for stability with a woman raising a young son (Lower).

Production is ongoing in São Paulo, Brazil.

Tidbits:

Game of Thrones and Hunger Games star Natalie Dormer is the newest addition to Netflix’s thriller feature The Big Fix. Joining Riz Ahmed and Netflix regular Mark Wahlberg, the film follows an Interpol cop at FIFA who uncovers a match-fixing scandal and launches a full-stakes investigation. From Chernin Entertainment, the film marks the second recent Netflix project (after Extraction) for Dormer.

Chris Rock joins the voice cast of live-action-animation hybrid short film Goodnight, Lamby. The film will follow a three-year-old girl as she searches for her missing stuffed Lamby through her father’s surreal sculpture. The film is produced by Darren Aronofsky. Paul Rudd is also cast alongside Rock.

Bye, Marvel, hello, DC. With filming ongoing, director Matt Reeves confirms Scarlett Johansson will appear, while Sebastian Stan will play Two-Face in The Batman: Part II. Bullet Train’s Brian Tyree Henry has also joined the cast. The sequel will (hopefully) hit theaters in October 2027.

Mini Tidbits:

• Isabella Rossellini

• Richie Stephens

• Dacre Montgomery

All those casting tidbits and more here.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

Netflix has acquired four major documentaries from this past year’s festival circuit.

1. Tribeca’s Room to Move

• Dir: Alexander Hammer (Edit: Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé)

• EP: Amy Schumer

• Release: May 27

• Trailer

2. Sundance’s Boys State

• Dir(s): Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss (Teenage Wasteland)

• Release: Sept. 4

• Trailer

3. Sundance’s Free Leonard Peltier

• Dir(s): Jesse Short Bull (Lakota Nation vs. United States), David France (How to Survive a Plague)

• Release: Oct. 12

• Trailer

4. Telluride’s The Bend in the River

• Dir: Robb Moss (Containment)

• Prod(s): Joel Coen, Frances McDormand

• Release: Dec. 4

• Trailer

A trio of Cannes films is picked up by sales reps, including Soderbergh’s film and the latest from the director of Red Rooms. Breakdown here.

The third annual Gotham Television Awards will bestow Homeland and The Beast in Me star Claire Danes with a performer tribute at the event in New York on June 1.

Cannes Market additions, with projects starring Noomi Rapace and Guy Pearce. Full details here.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

A feature documentary titled Ruben is in the works, following filmmaker Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness) during the making of his latest film, The Entertainment System Is Down. Directed by Swedish filmmaker Sigge Eklund, the doc tracks a project fueled by Östlund’s near-impossible ambition to become the first director in history to win three Palme d’Or awards at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Entertainment System Is Down is currently in post-production and will compete at next year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Fifth Season (Prod Co: Severance) acquires international distribution rights to the Indie series Recap, starring Corey Stoll (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) and Julia Stiles (Bourne franchise). The show follows Morley (Stoll), who wakes each day with no memory beyond a video recap and lives by strict rules on an isolated farm, until one incident makes him question his reality.

It is being described as a psychological thriller from showrunners Adam Glass (Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders) and Andrew Dabb (Supernatural).

Director Announcements at Cannes:

Respected French filmmaker and festival regular Catherine Breillat is writing and directing The German Cousin, a drama set in 1930s Europe. Her last feature, the erotic drama Last Summer, played in Cannes competition in 2023, with the director returning to the festival as a producer of the 2026 entry The Man I Love starring Rami Malek.

Danish director Lone Scherfig (An Education) is set to helm Scandinavian romance thriller Honeytrap, with TrustNordisk selling at the Cannes Market. From her own script, it follows a woman who falls intensely in love with the “perfect” man before realizing he is an agent meant to seduce her for information about her secretive job.

Mini Tidbits:

Emmy-winning, veteran magazine editor Graydon Carter is launching Par Avion Pictures, a production company alongside former Vanity Fair writer Harrison Vail. The company will have a specific focus on literary adaptations and history-centered projects across narrative and non-fiction formats. Their first project is a literary doc and co-production with HBO and Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side).

Berlin 2025’s Best Director-winning film, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, has sold to Cohen Media Group for US rights. The film is about a jazz pianist and stars Bill Pullman and Laurie Metcalf.

International Tidbits:

• Michelle Yeoh EPs

• BBC comedy Black Ops

• UK pay-TV titan Sky

Details here.

ON THIS DAY

2004. Shrek 2 premieres at Cannes.

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

Hit BBC comedy Black Ops is coming to the US, with the show creator and star Akemnji Ndifornyen confirming a Hollywood remake was in the works. The timing isn’t coincidental with the BBC renewing the original series for a third season yesterday.

UK pay-TV titan Sky (SNL UK) has promoted Shirley Jones to Head of Entertainment Commissioning. First joining back in 2015, Jones most recently worked on Sky’s biggest entertainment launch in five years with reality comedy series The Dyers’ Caravan Park.

• Int. Sales Rep: 193 (Die My Love)

• Dir: Steven Soderbergh

Synopsis:

John Lennon’s final interview on Dec 8, 1980, hours before his death. He and Yoko Ono discussed music, politics, and fatherhood. Soderbergh’s doc presents the complete conversation with reflections from those present.

King’s Daughter

• Int. Sales Rep: WTFilms (Infested)

• Dir: Pascal Plante (Red Rooms)

• Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire (Vagabond)

Synopsis:

Follows the doomed voyage of orphan virgins sent by King Louis XIV to marry in New-France. The youngest, Catherine Moitié, 13, and others endure 111 days of disease, famine, vermin, and death.

Children Untold (Watashi no Shiranai Kodomotachi)

• Int. Sales Rep: Intramovies (Charlie Says)

• Wri/Dir: Nishikawa Miwa (Under the Open Sky)

Synopsis:

Follows a 12-year-old orphaned girl in post-WWII Tokyo who disguises herself as a boy to survive the underworld, while her former teacher retraces her path.

Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) joins the cast of John Wick spinoff Caine, directed by and starring Donnie Yen (Caine in the John Wick franchise). The film will follow Caine (Yen) right after the events of John Wick: Chapter 4, as he is freed from serving The High Table. No info on Montgomery’s role.

Freya Allen (The Witcher) and Maria Pedraza (Money Heist) join the cast of road movie Europa. The film will follow a young British woman who escapes from London and drives across Europe, only to form an intense relationship with another woman. Think of it as a European Thelma & Louise (1991). Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) also stars in the film.

Isabella Rossellini will play a woman plagued by lost love in Vermillion. A film about Marie Antoinette’s pre-war love triangle. Directed by Jon Amiel (The Core). Shooting early 2027. Rossellini will also be honored with the coveted Excellence Award at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

Adam Sandler’s Up, Michael Bay’s comic, and Lady.

Let’s go!

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Cannes Day 2 solidified Jane Schoenbrun as one of the most interesting up-and-coming filmmakers. Following their breakout sophomore feature, I Saw the TV Glow, they return to Cannes with Mubi’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which premiered yesterday in Un Certain Regard. It’s a campy, goofy, seductive, and incredibly powerful vision of an indie screenwriter (Hannah Einbinder) whose sexual frustrations are explored and exploded by embracing the genre tropes of horror films, embodied by a Norma Desmond-like Gillian Anderson. If that sounds peculiar, it is. But the film manages to find emotional resonance in the oddest, yet most familiar of places. Some scenes would make David Cronenberg smile.

The other discovery is first-time actor Talha Akdogan, who plays Barry Keoghan’s son in Butterfly Jam, which premiered yesterday in Directors’ Fortnight. Akdogan is a teenager growing up with a father whose refusal to grow up sparks his own maturity. Watching Akdogan’s eyes subtly fall as Keoghan makes a fool of himself carried much of the emotional weight of the film.

Two major films premiere at Cannes today: Mubi’s Fatherland from director Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War - Best Director Award at Cannes), starring Sandra Hüller. And Parallel Tales from director, writer Asghar Farhadi (2x Oscar winner for A Separation and The Salesman), starring Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel, and Catherine Deneuve.

THE INDUSTRY TLDR

• Adam Sandler writes Grown Ups 3 for Netflix.

• Michael Bay directs Netflix’s medieval-fantasy comic adaptation Barbaric.

• Netflix expands its Harlan Coben partnership with Myron Bolitar.

• Netflix greenlights Kim Kardashian and Emma Roberts’ Calabasas Confidential.

• Dan Levy signs a Netflix first-look deal.

• Ben Stiller joins Netflix’s angel romance A Matter of Time.

• David Jonsson cast in Halina Reijn’s new A24 film Please.

• John Sayles returns with Amy Madigan and Chris Cooper in I Passed This Way.

• HanWay sells Sundance winner Lady to Cohen Media Group.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Both the Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery upfronts were held today, featuring major announcements for their future film and TV lineup.

One of the biggest pieces of news to come from the Netflix side was yet another project from the longstanding partnership between Adam Sandler and the streamer, Grown Ups 3.

13 years after the second film, the Sandman is writing a script with Happy Gilmore 2 director Kyle Newacheck already attached. Guess it was time for another ridiculous friend group reunion, no word yet on which of Sandler’s famous friends will be joining.

Grown Ups 2 (2013, trailer).

Two New Book Adaptation Series:

Netflix’s next book adaptation has Michael Bay directing, Sam Claflin attached to star, and is one of the most popular medieval-fantasy comics around. Barbaric, based on the Vault Comics of the same name, follows a barbarian cursed to only his violence for good, a redemption story with co-showrunners Sheldon Turner (wri: Up in the Air) and Robert Rovner (prod: CW’s Supergirl) on board.

The 10-year, over-10 series-spanning partnership between Netflix and author Harlan Coben is expanding with the greenlight of his next series, Myron Bolitar. From Emmy winner David E. Kelley (wri. Big Little Lies) and Kyle Long (wri: Suits), the drama follows a retired basketball star who reinvents himself as a sports agent using his charm and sometimes his own sanity to get what his clients want.

Leads of The Pitt, Noah Wyle, and Katherine LaNasa surprised the WB Upfront stage with a major pre-production teaser ahead of its third season. Following the summer-set episodes, the new season will take place in early November before the holidays.

Netflix Upfront Greenlight announcements:

Scripted romance drama series Calabasas Confidential

• E.P.(s): Kim Kardashian, Emma Roberts

Untitled Nick Cannon docuseries

• Release: Winter 2026

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

• Moving from Fox Sports

• Airing Feb. 1-2 2027

CNN Upfront Greenlight announcements:

Mind vs/+ Machine: The Human Story of A.I.

• Dir: Steve James (Hoop Dreams)

• E.P: Alex Gibney (Dir: Taxi to the Dark Side)

• Release: 2027

Netflix Renewals:

Love Is Blind for S11

• Set in Boston

• Release: Fall 2026

My Life With the Walter Boys for S4

• Release date for S3 and S4: TBA

Running Point for S3

• Cast: Kate Hudson, Justin Theroux

Big Mistakes

• Wri(s): Dan Levy, Rachel Sennott

• Levy also signed a new first-look series deal with the streamer

CNN Renewals:

Eva Longoria: Searching for France for S2

• Release: 2027

Apple renewal:

Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles for S2

• Cast: Elle Fanning, Nick Offerman, Michelle Pfeiffer

• From David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and (newly promoted) EP Eva Anderson

Trailers/Clips:

Netflix’s East of Eden

• Teaser

• Cast: Florence Pugh

• Wri/EP: Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick)

• Release: Fall 2026

Netflix’s The Hawk

• Teaser

• Cast: Will Ferrell

• Release: July 16

HBO Max’s Stuart Fails To Save the Universe

• Teaser

• Cast: Kevin Sussman

• Release: July 23

Laika Studios’ Wildwood

• Trailer

• Dir: Travis Knight (Dir: Kubo and the Two Strings)

• Release: Oct. 23

Lightbox’s Gabin

• Trailer

• Dir: Maxence Voiseux (Les héritiers)

• Premiering in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight sidebar

Tangles

• Premiere: Cannes

• Clip

• Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Seth Rogen

• Int. Sales Rep: Charades (The Testament of Ann Lee)

First Look:

Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender S2

• First Look

• Release: June 25

Release Dates:

Netflix’s Bridgerton S5

• Release: Early 2027

  • Marking the first time in the series history of two years with consecutive seasons

Netflix’s Quarterback S3

• Release: July 14

Netflix’s A Different World sequel series

• Release: Fall 2026

Sony’s The Legend of Zelda

• Release: May 7, 2027

Paramount Pictures’ Heart of the Beast

• Dir: David Ayer (Wri. Training Day)

• Cast: Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Anna Lambe (True Detective)

• Release: Sept. 25

CBS’ Big Brother S28

• Release: July 9

Mini Tidbits:

After a decade with the company, Prodigy Public Relations has upped Taylor Shannon to EVP of its Film department. At Prodigy, Shannon most recently worked on upcoming titles like the SXSW dark comedy Kill Me and the Nicolas Cage thriller Mandy.

Wild Child Studios has hired Archer Gray’s Kelsey Jackson (prod. American Horror Story) as Head of Scripted. Jackson will oversee the On the End studio’s entire upcoming scripted slate.

The “Godfather of Reality TV,” John Barbour, has died at 93. The five-time Emmy award winner is best known for creating and co-hosting the NBC show Real People (1979-85).

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

Ben Stiller, the guardian angel. Ben Stiller will lead the Netflix feature A Matter of Time, directed by Harry Bradbeer (Enola Holmes). The film will follow an unlikely angel who convinces a recluse to sacrifice himself for the greater good, only for his impending death to start a new romance. Nicholas Galitzine (The Idea of You) and Bella Maclean (Sex Education) star alongside Stiller.

No info on Stiller’s role, but it would be hilarious to see him as an angel who ironically tries to get people to sacrifice themselves. The premise almost feels like a reversal of another Ben Stiller film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), where Stiller plays a man trying to search for the meaning of life away from his old, boring job and routine.

We would love to see his neurotic and deadpan charm shine through in this ironic role.

Tidbits:

David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus) joins the cast of A24’s Please, directed by Halina Reijn (Babygirl). No info on his role or the film's plot as of yet. Alongside Jonsson are Grammy-nominee Gracie Abrams, Connor Storrie (Heated Rivalry), and Tom Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga). Ever since his breakout role in HBO’s series Industry, Jonsson has been growing his career with films like Rye Lane (2023), The Long Walk (2025), and most notably Alien: Romulus (2024), which grossed more than $350M at the global box office. He excels in timid yet endearing roles, and we would love to see him in a raunchy, satirical comedy much like Reijn’s 2022 A24 film Bodies Bodies Bodies.

Mini Tidbits:

Breeda Wool (AWOL) and Natasha Halevi (B.C. Butcher) will lead the female-driven thriller Cottontail. A directorial debut for Sander Gusinow, the film will follow two sisters playing a game of survival when they run into an escaped convict amidst the search for abortion medication.

Rising Danish actor Casper Kjær Jensen (The Shadow in My Eye) is stepping into the shoes of beloved Scandinavian children’s writer Hans Christian Andersen in My Fairytale Life. The biopic will follow Andersen’s efforts to break into Copenhagen’s cultural elite before accidentally becoming a literary legend. His casting was unveiled at a presentation by the Nordic Film Institute at Cannes.

FESTIVALS AND DOCS

Distribution deals at Cannes:

Paris-based sales outfit Luxbox has secured a French distribution deal for I’ll Be Gone in June, a New Mexico-set coming-of-age film premiering in Cannes Un Certain Regard.

• Dir/Wri: Katharina Rivilis

• Prod: Wim Wenders (Dir: Paris, Texas)

• Trailer

• France distribution: Nour Films (France dist: The Life of Chuck)

Seven new projects have been added to the Cannes Market, including one starring Scott Adkins and another from Black Bear. Check them out here.

The 2026 Student Academy Awards will be held at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14.

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT/ INTERNATIONAL NEWS

American indie legend John Sayles (Lone Star) is finally riding back into the saddle.

Sayles is set to direct from his own screenplay a film titled I Passed This Way starring the newly-minted Oscar winner Amy Madigan (Weapons) alongside frequent collaborator Chris Cooper (Lone Star, City of Hope, Amigo).

Thirteen years since his last feature, Go for Sisters (2013), the new Sayles project is based on the 1927 novella of the same name. Set in 1898, the film follows a legendary lawman and his deputy in a relentless pursuit of a thieving cowboy.

Shooting will begin this fall, while it’s currently being shopped to buyers at the Cannes market this week.

Isabelle Deluce (producer of Charlie Kaufman’s short film How to Shoot a Ghost) is producing Replacer, a feature film that counts Lilly Wachowski as an EP.

Synopsis:

Stranded in Montreal, Proxy (Halsey), a troubled DJ, meets an alluring artist and his group of friends who run an underground radio station. The station’s broadcast becomes warped by a mysterious signal hidden deep beneath the city’s subway system.

We love the idea of casting a popstar (Halsey) to explore the seductive allure of underground clubbing in a way that will tilt into psychosexual horror.

CAA and UTA are selling at the Cannes market.

Tidbits:

Alex Proyas (Dir: I, Robot) is set to direct historical epic The Hakim, based on the life of Bahrain leader Shaikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa. The film will follow the legendary leader Shaikh Ali as he inherits Bahrain’s throne at 19 and struggles to lead his nation through economic collapse, natural disaster, and the discovery of oil that will transform the region. The film is produced by PG Entertainment UK. Casting is currently underway.

HanWay Films sells Sundance Jury Award winner Lady to Cohen Media Group (Franz) for U.S. distribution rights. The debut feature from Nigerian-born filmmaker Olive Nwosu follows a female cab driver on a quest for survival and sisterhood.

Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) has started production on his newest film, Gold Mountain, set during the American Gold Rush. A co-production between Fifth Season (Severance) and The Ink Factory (The Night Manager), production is underway in North Carolina.

Mini Tidbits:

• Apple, International

• Channel 4’s Wrong Move

• Dead Man’s Wire producer

All those tidbits and more, here.

ON THIS DAY

1979. Tarkovsky’s Stalker is released.

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

Editor: Gabriel Miller.

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