Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:
Adam Scott’s Bad Romance, Will Ferrell’s Happy Gilmore and Billie Eilish.
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SXSW is kicking off today. Here’s a full breakdown of the lineup. I’m here for a week. If you’re going to the opening party tonight, come up and say “hi.”
SXSW kicks off today. The Oscars are on Sunday. So we figured we’d ease everyone into this exciting beginning and nail-biting ending of different cycles of the film industry with a trio of trailers:
Netflix’s The Hawk
Cast: Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson, Molly Shannon
10-episode golf comedy series
Release: Summer 2026
Synopsis:
Follows Lonnie Hawkins, 2004’s top golfer, as he struggles to recapture his magic late in his career, refusing to believe he’s anything other than one stroke away from golf’s greatest comeback.
Plot-wise, this shares a lot of DNA with Apple TV+’s The Stick (2025 - ) starring Owen Wilson. But while that series leaned on the melancholy of Wilson’s comeback to great effect, The Hawk seems to be keying into Ferrell’s mania. And that’s the exact right vibe.
Neon’s Hokum
Dir: Damian McCarthy (Oddity)
Star: Adam Scott
Release: May 1
Synopsis:
A horror writer visits an Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, unaware the property is said to be haunted by a witch.
Scott post-Severance is ready to put himself into a psychological horror meat grinder. It doesn’t feel like too big a leap from Severance, which had a conceit that was quite horrid. And Scott, in this trailer, fits perfectly in this depraved setting. Interestingly, Scott hasn’t led many films theatrically (2015’s The Overnight and 2013’s A.C.O.D.) so Neon is betting that the Severance audience shows up theatrically.
Roadside’s Fuze
Dir: David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water, Relay)
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Sam Worthington
Release: April 24
Director David Mackenzie has been indexing recently on high-anxiety action films. From Hell or High Water to Relay, where the iron-clad familial and romantic bonds add a lot of soul to these adrenaline-fueled pics. Fuze has a little less of this element, but it’s raised the stakes much higher.
For More:
Lionsgate’s Power Ballad with Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas trailer.
Utopia’s Bunnylovr, a wonderfully disturbing Sundance film, trailer.
SXSW’s Imposters teaser.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Hulu orders pilots for Durago, a youth-skewing crime story and Lex.
AGBO has acquired a script from The Bluff writers for seven figures.
Lionsgate is restructuring its TV distribution division.
Sony Nonfiction president Eli Holzman & co-pres Aaron Saidman are exiting.
Nikki Glaser will return to host the Golden Globes in 2027.
Fox Entertainment Studios signs This Fool breakout Frankie Quiñones.
Billie Eilish will make her feature acting debut in Focus Features’ The Bell Jar.
Lionsgate signs The Housemaid breakout Brandon Sklenar to a first-look deal.
Kate Winslet joins Andy Serkis’ The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
Emma D’Arcy will lead cancer drama Last Train Home.
Tommy Lee Jones joins FX’s The Lowdown for Season 2.
William Fichtner cast in MGM+’s Bosch: Start of Watch.
Cannes will honor Barbra Streisand with an honorary Palme d’Or.
Christopher Landon will write & direct a supernatural horror for Screen Gems.
Hanna Gray Organschi’s feature directorial debut is a Sundance-backed comedy.
Fifth Season has acquired U.K. outfit The Story Collective.
Yesterday’s correct answer: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is Asa Butterfield’s 1st role.
61% got it right.
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THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Hulu orders two pilots:
Lex
Writer/EP: Sean Clements (Co-EP S3 Severance)
EP: Paul Simms (Atlanta, What We Do In the Shadows)
Synopsis:
A disgraced reality star films a murder in the background of a cameo video, which leads to a web of conspiracies that may propel him back to stardom.
Durago
Writer: Eliza Clark (wri/prod: TNT’s Animal Kingdom)
Prod Co: Media Res
Studio: 20th Television
Synopsis:
Bunny and Mikey find themselves in danger after stealing money from Mikey’s ex-wife and her gangster boyfriend.
Clark’s Animal Kingdom was a great, gritty crime drama. And Durago seems to skew this direction but for the TikTok age.
A rough schematic for Tarantino’s play, The Popinjay Cavalier, is revealed:
A rambunctious comedy of deception and disguise inspired by the grand swashbuckling epics of stage and screen. A sweeping celebration of theatre and its heightened romance, told with Tarantino’s signature style and unmistakable wit.
Set in 1830s Europe. Sony has boarded to help produce. Slated to premiere Jan 2027 at the West End in London.
Tidbits:
Lionsgate is restructuring its Television Distribution Group. President Jim Packer shared that due to a rapidly shifting distribution landscape, Lionsgate will create a new self-distribution vertical that includes FAST Channels and media platforms like YouTube. The self-distribution approach has been a long time coming for the studio, including both hires and layoffs at its U.S., Canada, and UK offices.
The Russo’s AGBO picks up a new script by The Bluff writers Frank E. Flowers and Joe Ballarini. The duo previously saw success with Priyanka Chopra Jones as a swashbuckling pirate in Prime’s The Bluff. No information on the new film, but the deal is reported to be seven figures.
Both Sony’s Nonfiction president, Eli Holzman, and co-president Aaron Saidman are leaving the company after four years. From American Idol to A+E’s Leah Remini: Scientology & the Aftermath to Netflix’s With Love, Meghan, the duo have been critical in shaping Sony’s nonfiction portfolio.
Mini Tidbits:
Nikki Glaser is back to host the Golden Globes in 2027. She crushed in 2026 and in 2025 with her hilarious monologues. You can watch the full thing, or we’ve conveniently fast-forwarded to the Adam Sandler Timothée Chalamet moment.
Fox Entertainment Studios signs Hulu’s This Fool breakout Frankie Quiñones to develop, co-write, and star in a scripted comedy series.
Netflix purchased Ben Affleck’s AI company for hundreds of millions of dollars. No exact figure is known, but it could hit $600M if certain benchmarks are hit.
Renewal:
Netflix’s At Home with the Furys (for S2)
First look:
Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty (S9)
Release: May 24
Shoot date:
Hannibal
Dir: Antoine Fuqua
Star: Denzel Washington
Shooting: Summer
Release dates:
Hulu’s #SkyKing
Release: April 14th
Focus Features’ Sense and Sensibility
Release date: Oct 16
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Ten-time Grammy winner and two-time Oscar winner Billie Eilish is making her feature acting debut. The singer is attached to headline Focus Features and Sarah Polley’s (Woman Talking) adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s devastating, semi-autobiographical classic The Bell Jar.
Eilish will play the brilliant Esther Greenwood, charting the young writer’s descent into mental illness as she struggles with societal expectations and understanding her own identity. The “What Was I Made For” singer has become known for her introspective and vulnerable lyricism, with much of her music mirroring the same internal turmoil, pressure, and isolation Greenwood feels throughout the novel.
Eilish previously appeared in the short-lived Donald Glover-created Amazon Prime series Swarm (2023, scene) and can be seen on the big screen in her and James Cameron’s directed tour doc Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) in theaters this May.
For a first leading role, it’s fitting but daring, and one with undeniable potential.
Lionsgate is capitalizing on the success of Paul Feig’s The Housemaid by signing Brandon Sklenar to a first-look deal through his Vista Lane Pictures banner. In the film, Sklenar portrayed a seemingly perfect husband whose polished exterior hides a dark and unpredictable, violent side, showing the actor’s range.
On top of The Housemaid, Sklenar has seen lots of success the past two years, starring in the $350M grossing It Ends With Us (2024) and the widely popular Taylor Sheridan prequel series 1923.
Kate Winslet will co-star in Andy Serkis’ Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
The film will follow a young Aragorn as he captures Gollum before the Ring falls into the hands of the evil lord Sauron.
This will be a long-awaited reunion for Kate Winslet and Peter Jackson; Winslet’s feature debut Heavenly Creatures (1994, trailer), was directed by the man who brought Middle-Earth to the big screen. This is the first time Winslet will act in a classic epic fantasy genre.
We hope she brings a nurturing yet resolute nature like Ronal from the Avatar franchise. She could possibly be the leader of the Elves of Mirkwood, who guides Aragorn on his perilous journey.
Tidbits:
William Fichtner will star as a recurring cast member in MGM+ series Bosch: Start of Watch. A prequel to the original series, the show will follow a 26-year-old Harry Bosch (Cameron Monaghan) as a rookie cop. Fichtner will play Calhern, a defense attorney turned power broker of the criminal underworld. We love to see Fichtner stand up to the forces of evil. Remember him in The Dark Knight?
Tommy Lee Jones joins Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo’s FX series The Lowdown S2. No word on his role but Lee Jones feels like a perfect fit for this stylized western world, having done some of his best work in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. The Western drama was renewed for a second season recently, with shooting beginning soon in Oklahoma.
Casting Tidbits:
Emma D’Arcy
Emmy winner Rome Flynn
Rose Leslie
All those casting tidbits and more here.
FESTIVALS
Barbra Streisand will receive the honorary Palme d’Or.
Cannes stated:
“Barbra Streisand is as powerful as her clear mezzo-soprano voice spanning two octaves. She is as free and independent, extravagant and unconventional in her life as she is in her work.”
Learn more here.
The following films will likely not be at Cannes:
Spielberg’s Disclosure Day
Pixar’s Toy Story 5
Nolan’s The Odyssey
Östlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Christopher Landon (Drop) will write and direct a new supernatural horror film for Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems.
Landon has directed a slate full of campy supernatural comedy horrors, like the Happy Death Day series, to Heart Eyes (2025). He is a master at merging different genres with horror, from time-loop films to romantic comedies, so it will be interesting to see how he incorporates supernatural elements into his work.
Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville will EP:
Everybody to Kenmure Street
Int. Sales Rep: The Party Film Sales (The Voice of Hind Rajab)
Dir: Felipe Bustos Sierra (Nae Pasaran)
Cast: Emma Thompson
Prod. Comp: Barry Crerar (Sebastian)
Synopsis:
Glasgow residents abandon their daily routines to gather on Kenmure Street after learning authorities plan to deport their neighbors, sparking an impromptu grassroots movement.
The film won Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Civil Resistance. Releasing March 13th in the UK/Ireland.
Tidbit:
NYU alum Hanna Gray Organschi is making her feature directorial debut with the 3x Sundance-backed…
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