Amanda Seyfried’s Layers of Reality
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Amanda Seyfried, Jesse Armstrong and a Tick.
Let’s go!
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A girl walking blindfolded in the forest.
That’s the psychological territory of Oscar-nominated director Atom Egoyan’s latest film Seven Veils starring Amanda Seyfried.
I sat down with Atom to explore how he constructed the film, which follows Seyfried as she preps a hauntingly personal Opera:
“What she didn't anticipate was that plunging into this creative process was going to create these different sort of traumas.”
The film explores Seyfried’s seven primary relationships, each of which elucidates and complicates why the production is so triggering:
Charles, her mentor, with whom she had an intense romantic relationship, whose opera she is re-staging.
An attractive male understudy.
Her husband, whom she’s split from.
Her father, a possible abuser.
Her daughter.
Her work.
The hostile opera company.
The film comes alive when these valences criss-cross and intersect.
In one visceral scene Seyfried watches a section of her opera being rehearsed, where a young woman in shadow is tormented by a gang of men. Not only are her reactions profoundly personal, Atom intercuts this with a flashback of her father taking questionable video of her blindfolded in a forrest, and her mentor Charles original staging of this section as a rape scene.
Atom expanded:
“She remembers what the power of that erotic relationship with [Charles] and she transfers it into this scene… and she suddenly realizes that what she saw on stage was really sexually charged and she becomes obsessed with trying to create that same feeling and she goes a little bit crazy.”
As these seven layers collide, Egoyan creates a feast of terror that lingers well beyond the final aria. Just be prepared for the very bloody ending.
For More:
Seven Veils trailer.
My interview with Atom. A fascinating dissection of character psychology.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Steve Carell is cast in Jesse Armstrong’s (creator: Succession) next project, an untitled movie for HBO.
Revised numbers for The Oscars: 19.69 M views, a post-COVID high.
HBO is producing a doc on Flaco, the eagle-owl freed in NYC.
Lionsgate Studios and Starz will split by the end of April.
FX releases a tidbit from their upcoming show Dying For Sex starring Michelle Williams.
Rachel Weisz’s next project is Netflix’s Vladimir, a twisted limited series.
Pierce Brosnan orchestrates a symphony of violence in Paramount's MobLand series.
Tracy Morgan and Tina Fey are reuniting for an NBC comedy pilot.
David Arquette is set to (somehow) make his return in Scream 7.
Kevin Bacon is a laise-faire demon hunter in Prime’s The Bondsman.
SXSW’s upcoming horror film, The True Beauty of Being Bit By a Tick, has a very unsettling trailer.
A24’s Materialists, dir: Celine Song (Past Lives), has set a June release.
Bleecker Street acquires North American rights for The Third Parent, a horror film starring Rob Lowe.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Jesse Armstrong’s (creator: Succession) next project is an untitled movie for HBO.
It follows four billionaire friends reuniting amid an ongoing international financial crisis:
Steve Carell
Jason Schwartzman
Cory Michael Smith
Ramy Youssef
If these friends are anything like The Roy family in Succession, “reuniting” will be the furthest thing from a picnic.
The film, which marks Armstrong’s directorial debut, is set to begin filming in Park City, Utah, later this month and is slated for a spring premiere.
Read more on Armstrong’s feature filmmaking work here:
https://theindustry.co/p/steve-carells-succession
Rewind! Revised numbers for The Oscars show 19.69 M viewers, a post-COVID high. Here are the last few years for US viewing:
2025: 19.69 M viewers
2024: 19.5 M viewers
2023: 18.8 M viewers
2022: 16.6 M viewers
2021: 10.4 M viewers
2000: 46.3 M viewers
Good news, more young folks are tuning in, which is Neon’s demographic. But we’re still a far cry from the fact that pre-2018 the telecast was never less than 32 M viewers.
Tidbits:
HBO is producing a documentary on Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl freed in NYC in 2023. Directed by Penny Lane (Hail Satan?), it explores his escape, survival, and public reaction. The release date is currently unannounced. News coverage Clip.
Cancellations
FBI: Most Wanted (CBS)
FBI: International (CBS)
Lionsgate Studios and Starz will split by the end of April. Learn more about why:
https://theindustry.co/p/lionsgate-and-starz-split
FX Drops an amuse bouche for its upcoming slate, including the triumphant return of The Bear Season 4 and a new series with Michelle Williams:
https://theindustry.co/p/fx-2025
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Pierce Brosnan Orchestrates a Symphony of Violence: In Paramount's new series MobLand Brosnan plays an Irish crime boss inflicting all types of pain and carnage, mostly via his fixer (Tom Hardy) but not afraid to bloody his own hands a bit.
The series is appropriately from the mind of director and showrunner Guy Ritchie, deliverer of many seedy worlds, and it's pretty striking how Brosnan slips into that grime. Sure, everyone thinks of him first in a suit, drinking a martini (shaken not stirred), but from the trailer, Brosnan looks like a man, tightly wound, unraveling slowly.
Mobland starts streaming on Paramount+ March 30th. Judging by Hardy's contract it looks like the plan is for this to go for at least three seasons, with a cast this strong I say double it.
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Netflix has officially greenlit Oscar winner Rachel Weisz’s next project Vladimir, a limited series based on Julia May Jonas’ novel of the same name.
Official Logline:
As a woman’s (Weisz) life unravels, she becomes obsessed with her captivating new colleague, and goes hell-bent to turn her fantasies into reality.
20th Television is producing with Kate Robin (prod. The Affair, Dead to Me) serving as showrunner. Netflix’s VP of comedy Tracey Pakosta stated:
“A script that deftly examines the complexity of attraction and moral ambiguities, and the incomparable Rachel Weisz leading the cast.”
Weisz’s roles have continued to get darker and more psychologically tormented with Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite (2019), and a recent adaptation of Dead Ringers (2024) for a Prime TV series.
Tracy Morgan and Tina Fey are reuniting for an NBC comedy pilot, with Morgan starring as a disgraced ex-football player seeking redemption. Written by 30 Rock alums Sam Means and Robert Carlock, the untitled show is produced by Universal Television. Rhys Thomas will direct. Fey and Morgan played off of each other for 7 amazing seasons of 30 Rock where Morgan played a fictionalized version of himself and Fey played the frazzled Liz Lemon showrunner and creator of The Girly Show, an SNL parody. Excited to see these two back in action.
Tidbits:
Death is never definite in the Scream universe. David Arquette is set to (somehow) make his return as Deputy Dewey Riley in Scream 7 from Spyglass and Paramount Pictures. Arquette joins actors Scott Foley and Matthew Lillard whose characters were all killed off but are set to reappear in the seventh installment. Arquette’s Riley was actually killed by newly minted Oscar winner Mikey Madison in the fifth film in the franchise. Scream 7 is set to hit theaters Feb. 27th, 2026.
Emmy and Tony award winner Neil Patrick Harris has been cast in the Showtime original followup series Dexter: Resurrection in a recurring guest role. Emmy nominee Clyde Phillips (Dexter, Nurse Jackie) serves as showrunner and EP. The series is set to premiere this summer on Paramount+.
Kevin Bacon is a laise-faire demon hunter in Prime’s The Bondsman. It hails from Blumhouse, so we hope it has more bite than the trailer. Premiering on Prime April 3rd.
New casting updates for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Owen Wilson’s hip-hop comedy and Russell Crowe’s Bear Country. One of these is a Breaking Bad alternate universe:
https://theindustry.co/p/the-odyssey-owen-wilson-russell-crowe
FESTIVALS
SXSW’s upcoming horror film, The True Beauty of Being Bit By a Tick, has a very unsettling trailer, featuring among other things, bugs having sex.
Synopsis:
A woman in crisis seeks refuge in her friend’s idyllic countryside home only to suffer strange side effects from a mysterious tick bite.
The director Peter Ohs, who also served as co-writer, DP, Editor and Producer, previously directed an early Julia Garner film, Everything Beautiful Is Far Away (2017).
Daddy’s got to save a mermaid. That’s the fun part of the SXSW premiering film, Mermaid.
Synopsis:
A drug addicted Florida man finds a wounded mermaid at his lowest point. When word spreads about his secret, he'll stop at nothing to protect her.
Trailer is all sorts of horrible fun.
Co-founder of the American Film Market Robert Bobby Meyers passed away this past weekend at 90. With a career lasting just short of 60 years, Meyers, before joining Columbia Pictures, held executive positions at Orion Pictures, and Village Roadshow. He also served as the first chairman of the American Film Marketing Association (now IFTA), continuing to be heavily involved until his passing.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A24’s Materialists, the highly anticipated followup project to Celine Song’s acclaimed directorial debut Past Lives (2023), has set a June release. The upcoming A24 romcom is headlined by Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans who sees the actress as an ambitious New York matchmaker who finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.
Sony Pictures will be handling the international release. Materialists premieres in theaters nationwide on June 13th.
Bleecker Street has acquired North American distribution rights for The Third Parent, a horror film starring Rob Lowe, Crispin Glover, and Roselyn Sanchez, with a nationwide theatrical release planned. Directed and written by first-time filmmaker David Michaels, the movie is based on Elias Witherow’s viral creepypasta story about a sinister figure named Tommy Taffy (played by Glover) infiltrating a suburban neighborhood during a Fourth of July celebration. Arriving in theaters Halloween 2025.
Tidbits:
Icelandic studio Glassriver is teaming up with Nicholas Weinstock EP of Severance to co-produce Masquerade a thriller that follows an American reporter investigating a decades-old child abduction in an Icelandic village. Currently in production, the casting is not announced, but I wonder if Ben Stiller's frequent collaborator Ólafur Darri Ólafsson might end up being involved. The Icelandic actor worked with Stiller on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and now serves as a mysterious enforcer in Severance.
A24 has a cool BTS video for Alex Garland (dir: Civil War) new film, Warfare. We like how Cosmo Jarvis and Charles Melton (May December) speak about their visceral boot camp experience informing the film.
The documentary about the legendary and lovable Italian chef Marcella has been picked up by Greenwich Entertainment (Coup!) for North American distribution rights. Marcella Hazan, through her best-selling cookbooks, revolutionized the way Americans cook and understand authentic Italian cuisine. Greenwich will release Marcella in theaters on May 9th, ahead of its streaming premiere on PBS which will be announced at a later date.
Canal+ has released its full 2024 numbers with revenue and earnings rising. CEO Maxime Saada stated:
“Canal+ is now firmly on track to reach its ambition to become a global media and entertainment leader with 50-100 million subscribers.”
Read the full breakdown here:
https://theindustry.co/p/canal-2024
Mini Tidbit:
Maverick director Werner Herzog’s next project is The Twilight World. It will be his first animated film, and it’s being based on his book of the same title.
ON THIS DAY
1956. King Kong is televised for the first time.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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