Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Netflix’s Ultimatum, Amazon’s Goodbye, and a String.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Netflix gives WBD 1 week to get a best-and-final from Paramount Skydance.
Netflix & Warner Bros. send a cease-and-desist to ByteDance over Seedance 2.0.
Peter Traugott becomes Head of TV at Fifth Season.
Netflix’s latest feature adaptation is Ticket to Ride.
Netflix’s new adult animated series is Anchivo Motors.
Walton Goggins leads action-comedy Mister opposite Chloë Grace Moretz.
Amazon MGM’s romcom Goodbye Girl adds Zosia Mamet + Alan Ruck.
Leo Woodhall plays Sydney Sweeney’s husband in The Custom of the Country.
McKenna Grace cast as Daphne in Netflix’s live-action Scooby-Doo.
Sharlto Copley plays a pirate gang leader in The Good Samaritan.
Neon buys NA rights to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden.
Black Bear buys Sundance breakout Wicker.
Joke Zero takes Tribeca screenplay winner On a String.
Condor Distribution takes French rights to Berlin entry Dust.
TODAY’S QUIZ
Yesterday’s correct answer: 7 Oscar nominations for Robert Duvall.
54% got it correct.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Netflix is giving Warner Bros. Discovery a 1-week ultimatum to try to get a best-and-final offer out of Paramount Skydance.
Currently, a PSKY board member has told WBD’s board that they’re happy to pay $31/share and possibly even more. That’s $1 higher than their previous sweetened offer.
WBD has given PSKY until Feb 23rd to submit its best offer. So we may be in for a bidding war.
Something the two studios can agree on? Both Netflix and Warner Bros. sent a cease-and-desist letter to Seedance 2.0’s parent company, ByteDance (owner: TikTok), that accused them of stealing IP.
This comes after Disney and Paramount sent their own cease-and-desist letters following the viral Brad Pitt vs. Tom Cruise vids.
Tidbits:
Veteran TV exec Peter Traugott is now officially the Head of TV at Severance’s Fifth Season. Leaving his post as president of Keshet Studios (Apple TV’s Echo 3). Maggie Burkhard was upped to SVP of TV Development & Production, overseeing the studio’s entire scripted slate. Noah Greenshner was promoted to EVP and Head of TV Creative, replacing Peter Traugott, set to guide development on projects like the recent Netflix hit His & Hers.
Netflix is on board with Ticket to Ride! A film based on the popular railway-themed board game is currently in development, similar to the streamer’s recent global acquisition of another hit Asmodee game, Catan. Netflix has brought several video games to the screen, from Arcane to the upcoming Assassin’s Creed series, with Ticket to Ride being adapted by Kung Fu Panda writers Ben Mekler and Chris Amick.
From American Dad! producers, Anchivo Motors is Netflix’s newest adult animated series currently in development. The comedy is set at a family-owned auto dealership and revolves around a former baseball star who embraces his second act as a car salesman.
Oscar-nominated Mehdi Mahmoudian (script collaborator on Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident) has been released from prison in Iran. Iran has consistently chosen to punish their filmmakers (Mohammad Rasoulof, dir: Seed of the Sacred Fig, was sentenced to eight years in prison). It’s important that the international community continue to support these artists and their work.
Mini Tidbits:
In an ironic twist, the WGA West’s employees are striking against the guild itself. They’re trying to unionize, which may hinder negotiations between WGA West and its writer members as their contract with the studios expires on May 1.
Versant announces that Capitol Counsel political strategist Jonathan Kott is the new SVP of government affairs. Kott will oversee all of the company’s public policies as well as keep communication clear with policymakers and industry leaders.
Jane Baer (animator: Who Framed Roger Rabbit) has died at 91. She worked on many iconic Disney films, including Sleeping Beauty, and later formed her own company with 100+ animators.
Trailers:
Focus Features’ The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
Dir: Daniel Roher (Navalny)
Prod: Daniel Kwan (EEAAO)
Premiere: Sundance, SXSW
Release: Mar 27
Disney’s The Mandalorian and Grogu
Trailer (sneak peek of Martin Scorsese’s voice role)
Release: May 22nd
Prime’s Deadloch (S2)
Release: Mar 20
CNN Originals’ Standoff: The FBI, Power and Paranoia (4pt docu-series)
Release: March 22nd
Lionsgate’s Do Not Enter
Release: March 20
Release dates:
Netflix’s Bass X Machina (animated series)
Cast: Brian Tyree Henry
Release: Oct 6
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
From the studio behind John Wick, Walton Goggins (The White Lotus) is set to lead action comedy Mister alongside Chloë Grace Moretz.
Goggins will play an amnesiac being hunted by assassins who, with the help of his estranged daughter (Moretz), must confront his mysterious past in order to survive.
After scene-stealing turns as a charismatic villain in Justified (2010-15) and more recently as the ruthless (and noseless), gunslinging ghoul in Prime Video’s Fallout, his new role, once again, puts him at the center of the action.
Goggins thrives when he can be unpredictable, able to make danger feel both thrilling and perversely fun. Mister is the directorial debut of Wade Eastwood, who has an obvious knack for action flicks, having previously worked as a second unit director on the past two Mission: Impossible movies. Filming on Mister gears up next month in Madrid.
Leo Woodhall will play one of Sydney Sweeney’s husbands in StudioCanal’s movie adaptation of Edith Wharton’s period drama The Custom of the Country.
Sweeney’s character is a social climber, so there are a few choices for Woodhall, from the sweet to the smarmy to the charming. Woodhall has an immense range (watch Tuner and Nuremberg back to back) and would excel in any of these characters.
Launching at EFM.
A24’s high school reunion film Peaked keeps getting better. Laura Dern. Connor Storrie (Headed Rivalry) and Levon Hawke (son of Ethan) have just joined the cast, which already includes Sex Education’s Emma Mackey. This is Molly Gordon’s sophomore directorial feature.
The film follows two former high school bullies trying to relive their glory days at their 10-year reunion.
No roles have been announced, but Peaked is starting production next month.
Tidbits:
From Ghostbusters to The Hunger Games, now Scooby-Doo. McKenna Grace is the first cast member announced for Netflix’s upcoming live-action Scooby-Doo series from Berlanti Productions. Grace will play the beloved and fashion-forward Daphne in the eight-part series that looks at the first case that brought the mystery-solving gang together. Grace couldn’t be more perfect for the part, having already voiced the iconic character in the animated film Scoob! (2020, clip).
District 9’s hero, Sharlto Copley, will play the head of a heinous gang of pirates in The Good Samaritan, directed by Pierre Morel (dir: Taken) and starring Daisy Ridley. The story follows Dr. Rosalind Carver (Ridley), whose act of rescuing a wounded stranger off the coast of Indonesia triggers a deadly conspiracy involving pirates (Copley), corrupt mercenaries (just cast: Josh Duhamel). With Copley, who brought so much heart to the post-apocalyptic landscape of District 9, we’re sure this will be an interesting film.
The Wayans brothers can’t get enough of sports dramas about traumatic head injuries. Damon Wayans Jr. is set to star in NBC’s pilot Puzzled. He plays a man whose college sports head injury causes him to become a savant. He solves mathematical riddles with extreme ease and goes onto help the police solve crime. His brother, Marlon Wayans, took things in a different direction in the cult film Him (2025).
Goodbye Girl, Amazon MGM’s newest romcom, casts two HBO favorites. Zosia Mamet, electrically spacey in Girls, and Alan Ruck, sleepily self-righteous in Succession. No word on roles, but this is director Oran Zegman’s (Honor Society) sophomore feature.
Casting Tidbits:
Fox’s Baywatch
Apple TV+’s Stick
A Bones reunion
An Eighth Grade Breakout
All those mini casting tidbits and more here.
FESTIVALS
Next big film at Berlin, getting strong reviews:
Queen at Sea
Cast: Juliette Binoche
Int. Sales Rep: The Match Factory (The Substance)
Dir/Wri: Lance Hammer (Ballast)
Prod. Co: The Bureau (A Little Chaos)
Synopsis:
As advanced dementia erodes an older woman’s ability to communicate her inner life, her husband and daughter struggle to act in her best interests, navigating love and the fragile boundaries between care, protection and autonomy.
Ahead of the London TV Screenings, Banijay Entertainment is bringing two high-profile dramas.
Check them out here, plus some exciting projects at EFM.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Neon picks up North American rights for All of a Sudden. Directed by acclaimed Japanese writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car). Led by a fabulous duo of Virginie Efira (Benedetta) and Tao Okamoto (The Wolverine), All of a Sudden revolves around the bond between two women, a Japanese theater director and a French nurse.
Official Synopsis:
Two scholars exchange letters about chance and risk. As the philosopher falls ill, their academic correspondence evolves into intimate discussions about mortality, and a deeper connection forms between them.
Hamaguchi is perhaps best known for his meditative international feature, the Cannes (Best Screenplay) and Oscar-winning Drive My Car (2021, trailer), which, similarly to his newest project, depicted an unlikely but deep bond underpinned by a shared longing for connection.
No word on release, but everyone is hoping for Cannes.
Black Bear, once again, buys a film that it served as the sales rep for. Their latest buy is Sundance’s Wicker, for North American rights.
This film got the best unexpected buzz of the festival, so it’s a great choice. The cast is stellar: Alexander Skarsgård, Olivia Colman, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki. And the film is strange and heartfelt.
No word on release date. First look at Colman as a fisherwoman.
Joke Zero picks up the Tribeca Best Screenplay (US Narrative Feature) winner, On a String. The project is exceptional because Isabel Hagen wore so many hats, serving as the director, writer, producer, EP, and star.
She plays a young, Juilliard-trained violist who returns home to live with her parents in the heart of New York City.
The project has a good prod company behind it, Dweck Productions (Michael Cera’s The Adults, Jane Schoenbrun’s debut We’re All Going to the World’s Fair).
The real-life Isabel Hagen is a stand-up comedian (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) and classically trained violist (master’s degree: Juilliard). No word on release date.
Mini Tidbits:
True crime novel Innocents is headed to the big screen from Curiosity Rights and United Heroes. The book follows the trial for a murdered 11-year-old and the wrongful conviction that was greatly disputed for almost twenty years. Authors Jonathan Rose and Steve Panter will adapt the screenplay.
Blue Harbor Entertainment (A Nice Indian Boy) acquires U.S. rights to Kangaroo Island. One of Australia’s highest-grossing movies last year, it follows a struggling actor who deals with both familial conflict and romantic entanglements. Blue Harbor will launch in U.S. theaters on April 24th.
Producer Jake Weiner is exiting his own company, Good Fear, to launch Harvest Hill Entertainment, a new management firm. Some clients moving to the new company are writers Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures), Paul Haapaniemi (Netflix’s Ransom Canyon), and It Follows (2014) director David Robert Mitchell.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Condor Distribution (Aftersun) gets French rights to Berlin competition entry Dust from director Anke Blondé (The Best of Dorian B.).
It sees two Belgian entrepreneurs who lose everything when tragedy strikes, experiencing each of the five stages of grief.
The dark comedy premiered at Berlin this week.
Mini Tidbits:
AMC Networks International (AMCNI) names Tom Keaveney as EVP and Managing Director of its U.K. division. Keaveney joins from advertising and measurement firm iSpot.tv set to oversee all business operations, advertising, and marketing in the region.
Dark crime comedy Antiparos is the debut film of Volteo Media, launched by Tanweer Productions (So Long, Marianne) and Buccaneer co-CEO Richard Tulk-Hart (Paramount+’s The Crow Girl). The Greek film follows a police officer forced to take on maybe his deadliest investigation yet.
Channel 4’s adaptation of the coming-of-age romance novel The Rachel Incident will be led by Irish actress Máiréad Tyers (Disney+’s Extraordinary). From Channel 4, UCP (Peacock’s The Burbs), and Element Pictures (Bugonia), the story follows an unlikely friendship that changes the course of their lives.
The three-part documentary series Love Doesn’t Hurt (Láska nebolí) comes from the makers of the Berlin entry Monyová. Told through real stories from victims and perpetrators, the doc explores domestic violence cases, looking to spread awareness about this abuse and empower women worldwide.
ON THIS DAY
1954. John Travolta born in Englewood, New Jersey.
Written by Gabriel Miller and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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