Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:
A24 dream scenario, Harry Potter and the Showrunner’s Announcement, Halle Berry’s Union, War Game minus Broderick and a devil fruit.
Let’s go!
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
 |
A24 gets a $100 M investment from Thrive Capital. A24’s valuation has skyrocketed in recent years:
- $2.5 bn (2022)
- $3.5 bn (2024)
- Up 40%
Thrive Capital stated:
“In A24, we see a company bringing extraordinary talent and creativity together with business model and technology innovation to reinvent entertainment for the modern age.”
Josh Kushner, the founder of Thrive Capital, will be awarded a board seat. Thrive is typically a tech investor with early-stage investments in Instagram, Spotify, and OpenAI, but they have also taken over Life Magazine.
As A24 increasingly vies for IP-driven projects and ups their production budgets (e.g. $50 M for Civil War), the investment serves as a crucial driver for continued expansion.
Harry Potter and the showrunner’s announcement Warner Bros. Discovery has selected Francesca Gardiner (consulting producer: Succession, EP/Writer: His Dark Materials) as the showrunner for the upcoming Harry Potter TV series, with Mark Mylod (Succession, Game of Thrones) directing multiple episodes and serving as executive producer. The series, a faithful adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s seven books, will air on HBO, diverging from the initial plan to release it on Max. The show is set to premiere in 2026 and will span 10 years, though each season might not correspond directly to one of the seven books. The casting process for new actors to play Harry, Ron, and Hermione, among others, is expected to begin soon.
Sony’s live-action Street Fighter movie is still kicking even after the exit of its previous directors, Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk To Me). Sony has gone ahead and scheduled the movie for release on March 20, 2026 with a new director to be announced soon.
The original 1994 version has been lauded as one the greatest worst movies ever made and has a bit of a cult status, especially Raul Julia‘s wonderfully campy M. Bison performance. The original was plagued with a tight shooting schedule, a ballooning budget, and tons of overseas studio interference. Surely we have learned this time? Sony might want to take its time or could be another K.O.
Here is here! The trailer for the upcoming film Here, which stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, has landed. The Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) directed film centers on a corner of a room and on the events that have occurred in that space over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. The trailer spans the dawn of the dinosaurs through to their extinction to the dawn of Hanks and Wright’s relationship and it’s final chapter. The film taps into our desire to watch a boyish Hanks (who was de-aged for the movie) mature, as detailed in yesterday’s cover story.
Here will be in theaters on November 27th.
Tidbits:
Barack Obama’s former white house aide Pat Cunnane sold his script K Street to Universal International Studios and Tim Bevan’s and Eric Fellner’s Working Title (Drive Away Dolls, Last Night in Soho). The companies won the spec in a bidding war.
The series follows Ben Carter a lobbyist that while good at his job, has to navigate the unending corruption always just out of reach.
Alex Richanbach is Single at the Wedding! The filmmaker, known for his Netflix hit Ibiza (2018, trailer), is set to direct and produce, Single at the Wedding, a new comedy for New Line Cinema.
In Single at the Wedding, Allie is the last single one of her friends. She makes it her mission to find love at her best friend’s wedding with the help of a list of available men, but it turns out she has competition in the form of the groom’s perfect sister.
Richanbach, who began his career at Funny or Die, is developing the script with LA-based writer Anne Sundell.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
 |
Halle Berry works for The Union. Berry returns to her action roots opposite Mark Wahlberg in a new fast-paced action comedy, The Union for Netflix, with director Julian Farino (Entourage).
Here’s the official synopsis:
Mike (Wahlberg), a down-to-earth construction worker from Jersey, is quickly thrust into the world of super spies and secret agents when his high school ex-girlfriend Roxanne (Berry) recruits him on a high-stakes US intelligence mission.
Wahlberg said working with Berry on The Union:
“Is an absolute joy. I’ve always been a huge fan of her and an admirer of her work. Doing anything with Halle is very easy.”
The Oscar-winning actress has a string of epic action roles:
Berry has a stacked upcoming slate all under her new production company HalleHolly:
- The Process (TBD)
- A Kubrickian psychological thriller
- Maude v Maude (TBD)
- A spy vs. spy thriller alongside Angelina Jolie
- Never Let Go (2024)
- A drama thriller about a family haunted by evil spirits
Check out the silly and action-packed trailer for The Union here and watch it on Netflix when it premieres on Aug. 16th.
Camrus Johnson will be explosive in Netflix’s One Piece Season 2, a live-action pirate adventure series adapted from the popular Manga (S1 trailer). Johnson, who previously co-starred as Luke Fox in CW’s Batwoman (clip), will play one of the villains, Mr. 5 (still).
Like many of the pirates of the world, Mr. 5 has eaten a power-giving devil fruit (specifically the bomu bomu no mi), which allows him to explode any part of his body (including his boogers).
The Industry spoke to Johnson, a young actor/writer/director on the rise, about the news:
“Going from playing a DC comic book/animation-adapted character to now playing a manga/anime adapted character in one of THE biggest one Manga series in the world?! AND having it be my first villain? I’m mind blown by the fun I get to have, and I can’t thank the One Piece family enough for already making me feel so welcome.”
The One Piece Manga is massively popular worldwide and some fans call it the greatest story ever told.
Netflix took on an insanely tall order when it committed to an adaptation (currently, the anime stands at 1109 episodes and counting.) Their first season did an incredible job cutting to the heart of the story. Brought about by its stellar casting and respect for the material. With the strong ensemble cast growing with fantastic additions like David Dastmalchian, the star of IFC’s Late Night with The Devil, Camrus Johnson, will be in great company for season 2.
Tidbits:
Jeffrey Wright is back in the land of spys. He has just been cast as the mentor and director of operations in The Agency alongside Michael Fassbender, who will star as the undercover operative called home but still embroiled in a love affair. Wright has been excellent for many years in the Bond series playing CIA’s Felix Leiter (does it look like we need the money clip).
Bill Cobbs, the prolific character actor, has passed away at 90. Cobbs shared the screen with legends like Tom Cruise and Paul Newman in The Color of Money (clip) and Ben Stiller in Night of the Museum (clip). He played in over 200 film and TV projects. He will be missed.
FESTIVALS AND RESOURCES
|
|
Final Draft’s Big Break Contest is closing tomorrow. Big Break is an annual international feature film and television screenwriting contest.
Writers who have entered Big Break have had their screenplays optioned, sold, have been staffed, and secured high-profile representation.
They have an impressive set of judges, including Gary King, VP of development for Paramount TV studios, Lauren Deitch, who is the manager for drama series development for Netflix, and Amanda Alley, who is a creative executive of film development at Skydance (Mission Impossible series).
Previous Big Break Contest winners have signed with:
- UTA
- Anonymous Content
- Zero Gravity
Prizes include:
- $10,000 cash
- A trip to Hollywood to meet with executives
- NYFA course
The final deadline is tomorrow.
Submit your script here.
Raindance Film Festival secures a $3.8 million investment through a groundbreaking partnership with international legal firm Guernica 37 Group (G37), aiming to develop films based on human rights cases. This collaboration will produce up to six documentary features using G37’s extensive archive of justice cases.
Almudena Bernabeu, G37 co-founder, stated:
“We have seen in our work the importance of culture and media in advancing the aims of justice and accountability.”
This innovative venture bridges legal expertise and cinematic storytelling, highlighting injustice and empowering activists, while showcasing the vital role of film in social impact.
Xoftex, debuts at the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, kicking off tomorrow.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Nasser and friends film satirical sketches and prepare for a zombie horror flick while awaiting immigration interviews. Camp reality resembles a horror scenario, with rising tension and conflicts blurring dreams and nightmares.
The image structure in the trailer is successive quasi-POV shots pulling away from characters. Hard drifts from gritty to dark dreams. I think it looks fantastic.
MAD Solutions (The Double) will serve as the sales agent for worldwide rights.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
|
|
Director David Bruckner and A24 would make a scary (good) pair! While little is known of the plot, Bruckner is to direct the new horror mystery movie Mice, being produced and fully financed by horror masters A24 (The Witch, Hereditary, Men).
Writing duo Todd Spence (Creepshow) and Zak White (Your Date is Here) will be penning the script.
Throughout his directorial career, Bruckner has stuck primarily to the horror genre in both his features and short films.
- Hellraiser (2022)
- Reboot to the 80’s fantasy horror classic
- Trailer
- The Night House (2020)
- A psychological thriller about a literal haunted house
- The Ritual (2017)
- Netflix’s British folk horror
Before all of his scary stand-alone films, Bruckner first gained recognition as a director for his cult anthology horror series V/H/S, which recently released its third film in the series, V/H/S 85 (trailer). The series of films (and one stand-alone miniseries) center around a number of disturbing VHS tapes that are discovered by innocent viewers and the possessive influence of the videos over those who see them.
With much anticipated to come in the genre for the production company, A24 is currently seeing the third and final film of Ti West X’s trilogy, MaXXXine (trailer), which premieres next weekend.
Tidbit:
6 hours to Civil War. That’s the setup for the documentary War Game, which premiered at Sundance. The trailer is a ticking time bomb of anxiety as the filmmakers stage a hyper-real White House situation war game populated by U.S. defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations.
The film is being distributed by Submarine. Josh Braun, one of the founders, stated:
“We believe [the film] is incredibly timely and has a large identifiable audience and thus has the possibility of working theatrically in a time when independent theatrical releases have struggled… It is an important and thought provoking film that everyone needs to see.”
Release date August 2nd. The poster is epic.
Skincare vs. Skincare. Elizabeth Banks will star in a new thriller mystery Skincare, the first narrative feature from director Austin Peters.
Here’s the official synopsis for Skincare:
A famed aesthetician Hope Goldman (Banks), who is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skincare line, though complications arise when rival facialist Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a new skincare boutique directly across from her studio.
Here’s the trailer.
Skincare is set to hit theaters on Aug. 16th.
ON THIS DAY
1958. 8th Berlin International Film Festival: Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries” wins Golden Bear.
See you Friday.
—
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Spencer Carter.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
