Sponsored by:
 |
Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:
Civil War‘s point-blank victory, Justin Lin goes indie, Chris Farley biopic, Eleanor Coppola’s Hearts of Darkness, and an irradiated cowboy.
Let’s go!
MILES TELLER’S PROMISE
 |
Screen acting is its own art form.
You have to be microscopic with your choices. There’s an intimacy to it. But it’s also very deconstructed.
By 1990, Alyssa Rallo Bennett and Gary O. Bennett, the co-founders of Stonestreet Studios, were looking for a way to teach screen acting techniques in a field that was entirely dominated by theater acting.
Bennett explained:
“We had produced features like The Pack [starring Lucie Arnaz and Elisabeth Moss] & Rain Without Thunder [starring Jeff Daniels] at Stonestreet and wanted to create an immersive working environment for up-and-coming actors, who we aim to become our colleagues.”
What they created was a multi-faceted studio that allows actors & hyphenates to work in a real-world film set.
They equip actors with an understanding of not just screen performance techniques but also the entire filmmaking process, from scripting to shooting to editing, so they can become the producers of their own careers.
Some of their alums include:
- Miles Teller (Whiplash)
- Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)
- Idina Menzel (Frozen, Wicked)
- Rachel Sennott (Bottoms, Shiva Baby)
At the heart of Stonestreet Studios lies its Residency Program.
They offer one in New York and one in Los Angeles.
Their NY six-week intensive workshop is geared to professionals and international students.
NY & LA residency include:
- Screen Acting & Production
- Directing the Actor
- Screen Improv & Comedy
- Creating Your Own Material
- Producing Your Own Career
- Screen Audition & Industry Prep
- Weekly Industry Auditions
Successful completion of the full program leaves students with a polished original pilot, film, or series, as well as a newfound familiarity with the NY &/or LA landscape.
Veronica Rose-Franco, who attended last year’s LA residency, described her experience:
“The program allowed me to take my dream of working as a professional actor off of a pedestal — it’s more real, personal, and tangible to me than it was before… LA is now a familiar place I love, I can return to and know I have some roots.”
This residency provides an unparalleled opportunity for screen actors to advance their career.
The NY residencies begin May 20th & July 8th.
The LA residency program is a four-week program from June 3rd – June 28th.
For More info:
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
|
|
Weekend Box Office. Here are the domestic grosses:
- $25.7 M Civil War (A24)
- $50 M budget
- Highest-grossing opening weekend for A24 film
- ↑ 90% from the previous largest A24 opening – Hereditary, $13.5 M
- Trailer
- $15.4 M Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros/Legendary)
- 3rd weekend
- $158 M domestic total
- $436 M worldwide
- $135 million production budget
- $1 bn cumulative for WB at international box office in 2024
- Trailer
- $4.1 M Monkey Man (Universal/Thunder Road)
- 2nd weekend
- $17.7M domestic total
- $22.87 M worldwide total
- $9 M – Cost for Universal to acquire film from Netflix
- Trailer
IASTE Electrical Lighting Technicians and Costumer Designer guilds reach tentative agreements with AMPTP.
To date, 10 out of the 13 local guilds will present their members with terms for ratification.
Here are the ten:
- Local 728
- Electrical Lighting Technicians
- Local 892
- Costume Designers Guild
- Local 700
- Editors
- Local 871
- Script supervisors
- Production Coordinators
- Accountants
- Local 80
- Grips
- Crafts Service
- Local 706
- Makeup Artists
- Hairstyle
- Local 695
- Production Sound
- Video Engineers
- Local 600
- Cinematographers
- Local 729
- Set Painter
- Local 800
- Art Directors
Mike Miller, VP of IATSE, stated:
“This bargaining calendar, together with the diligent preparation work that the West Coast Studio Locals’ Negotiation Committees have done, has meant that the time we have spent at the table so far with the employers was effective.”
Negotiations with the reaming guilds, Locals 44 (Craftspersons) and 705 (Costumers) begin today. Talks with the final guild Local 884 (Studio Teachers) will start later in the week.
The shared contract for all guilds under IASTE expires on July 31st.
Amazon MGM teams with Justin Lin (Dir: Fast and Furious 2, 4-6, 9 ), who will direct the crime thriller Stakehorse. Here’s the official synopsis of the script, which was #2 on this year’s Blacklist:
Follows a racetrack veterinarian who runs an off-the-books ER for criminals, and finds his practice and life in jeopardy when he’s recruited for his patient’s heist.
Lin is currently working on a trio of other projects:
- The Last Days of John Allen Chau
- Indie film
- Plot: Follows John Allen Chau, who in an attempt to find identity, meaning, and belonging, sets out on a mission to proselytize the Sentinelese from the uncontacted tribe on North Sentinel Island.
- This is Lin’s first indie film since his debut with Better Luck Tomorrow (2002)
- In pre-production
- Two for the Money
- Studio feature
- Production Company: Apple Studios
- Starring: Daniel Craig and Charlize Theron
- In pre-production
- One Punch Man
- Studio feature
- Distributor: Sony Pictures
- In development
No word on when Stakehorse will move into pre-production.
Tidbit:
Andy Samberg is fielding 7-figure offers for a robot comedy. Not much is known about the project other than Samberg will star and Radio Silence (a director’s trio: VHS) will direct.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
|
|
Quite possibly, the funniest slapstick comedian to ever exist is getting his biopic. The late Chris Farley got his start on SNL and then had a short but storied Hollywood career with Coneheads (1993), Black Sheep (1996), and, of course, Tommy Boy (1995). Farley’s life was dedicated to making others laugh.
Best of Chris Farley:
Farley once stated:
“People… need a time to laugh. It’s up to us to bonk ourselves on the head and slip on a banana peel so the average guy can say, ‘I may be bad, honey, but I’m not as much of an idiot as that guy on the screen.”’
Behind the smile and the goofy demeanor, there was a lot of darkness, addiction, and self-loathing. A complicated person with a complicated life, something acclaimed actor Josh Gad (Frozen, Jobs, Wolf Like Me) has decided to tackle for his directing debut.
Gad found his Farley in Emmy award-winning actor Paul Walter Hauser (I, Tonya, Richard Jewell).
Hauser both is wonderful at large physical comedy:
- Cruella (2021)
- I, Tonya (2017)
Hauser also has a grounded authenticity that makes him perfect for the darker aspects of Farley’s life. Hauser is picture-perfect in the titular role of Richard Jewell (2019, trailer), which captured the portrait of a genial hero whose life becomes a living nightmare after he is accused of The Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
Oscar winners Helen Hunt and Dustin Hoffman star together in Peter Greenaway’s (dir: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover) new project.
The film tells the story of an intelligent man whose final big adventure is intended to be his own death, which he seeks to organize in a way that leaves as few loose ends as possible.
While little has been revealed regarding the thought-provoking drama, Helen Hunt, who has recently been solely a theater actor, is last seen on the screen in the STARZ comedy series Blindspotting (2021) alongside Hamilton actor Daveed Diggs.
Hunt gave an Oscar-winning performance as the considerate waitress willing to give Jack Nicholson’s character a chance in As Good As It Gets (1997), as well as appearing in other films like Twister (1996) and Castaway (2000).
Watch the undeniable chemistry between Hollywood royalty Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson in James L. Brooks’ iconic 90s romcom! As Good As It Gets scene
The new Greenaway film is currently in production in Italy.
Walton Goggins loves to play a cowboy, even if it’s an irradiated melted one. In Prime’s Fallout, critics and fans love Amazon’s take on the post-nuclear wasteland adapted from the video game of the same name. Goggins has already become a crowd favorite with his portrayal of “The Ghoul ” one of the tritagonists of the series. In the series, before the great war, he was Cooper Howard, a golden Hollywood actor until the bomb dropped and he lost everything, including his good looks; now he trounces through the wasteland and conducts a symphony of hyper-violence as a chem-addicted bounty hunter (still).
But the character’s transformation was a difficult one for Goggins at first.
The actor discussed the process of working in the hot desert under full facial prosthetics and false teeth:
“Extremely anxiety provoking… when I put in the retainers, these things that kind of covered these pearly white teeth, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t get the words out.”
He had to learn to express himself in a new way.
Playing the bad guy, Goggins is no stranger to walking a line of veiled morality, as Boyd Crowder in Justified (2010-2015), he started as a bank robber, then in jail, he becomes a messiah of sorts, then later descends back into the underbelly of crime.
No matter how dark or violent, Walton can not help but do it with swagger. He has a charisma that drips out even when taking on the roles of unsavory characters. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, some Southern charm finds its way into all of his roles. But that juxtaposition solidifies his leadership and gravitas, and that smile is all the more sinister when it’s pointing a gun at you.
FESTIVALS
 |
The 2023 awards season wrapped last night with the WGA Awards. Here’s a short list of winners:
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
- The Holdovers
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
- American Fiction
COMEDY SERIES
- The Bear
DRAMA SERIES
- Succession
The full list, which includes variety talk series, variety specials, documentary, news scripts, and radio scripts can be found here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
 |
Booked and busy Emma Stone is in talks to star in husband Dave McCary’s untitled Universal film.
While details about the project are being kept under wraps, this will be McCary’s second film in the director’s chair and the first that Stone will star in.
After working as a writer for five seasons on Saturday Night Live, McCary made his directorial debut with the comedy thriller Brigsby Bear (2017, trailer).
Here’s the official synopsis:
After being freed from his life in an underground bunker, a man sets out to make a movie of the only TV show he has ever known.
The TV show is “Brigsby Bear,” a weird live-action children’s show about a plucky heroic bear. It has completely consumed McCary’s protagonist (played by SNL alum Kyle Mooney), and when he tries to acclimate to the real world, the show keeps a strong psychological grip. The film is a hilarious and profound look at fandom.
Brigsby Bear was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics after playing at Sundance and Cannes.
McCary and Stone are EPs in Showtime’s satirical series The Curse (2023), in addition to producing When You Finish Saving the World (2022), Problemista (2023), and I Saw the TV Glow (2024).
Apple has picked up the Cannes documentary Bread & Roses (2023) by director Sahra Mani.
Cannes official synopsis:
Offers a powerful window into the seismic impact on women’s rights and livelihoods after Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021. The film follows three women, in real time, as they fight to recover their autonomy. Mani captures the spirit and resilience of Afghan women through her raw, intimate depiction of their harrowing plight.
The doc is produced by Jennifer Lawrence. Apple TV+ will release on June 21.
Eleanor Coppola has died at 87. Eleanor Coppola was an Emmy-Award-winning documentarian whose personal magnum opus explored the primordial forces that forged her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991, trailer), is the greatest behind-the-scenes documentary of all time.
Coppola stated:
“I may hold the world’s record for the person who has made the most documentaries about their family directing films… I am an observer at heart, who has the impulse to record what I see around me.”
Read the powerful NY Times obit here. She will be missed.
ON THIS DAY
1980. 52nd Academy Awards: Best Picture Kramer vs Kramer, Dustin Hoffman & Sally Field win.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
