Amanda Seyfried’s Subversive Vulnerability
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Amanda Seyfried’s River, Brad Pitt’s race, and concrete.
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Amanda Seyfried just can’t let anyone in.
That’s the haunting predicament at the core of Peacock’s Long Bright River, a psychological crime thriller from showrunner Nikki Toscano (The Offer).
We sat down with Toscano, who shared what drew her to this unusual police procedural that centers on a Philly police officer (Seyfried) searching for her missing, drug-raddled sister.
Toscano:
“The family drama was as important to the murder mystery as the murder mystery itself.”
That’s because Seyfried’s struggle to find allies is hindered by her lack of trust. In one crushing moment, Seyfried admits:
“25% of my brain has always been busy with a problem. If [my sister] was using, the problem would be that she might die. If she was clean, it would be that she might start using again.”
What occupies the remaining fraction of her mind is the love she has for the only member of her family that matters: her son.
For Toscano, that same care leaks onto her job:
“She's a patrol cop and she's kind of a shitty one at that… but that’s what makes her unique — the amount of care she has for the people in the neighborhood because she grew up with them.”
Toscano’s show finds its heart in Seyfried’s struggles with who to let in, upending our assumptions at every step.
For More:
Our interview with Toscano reveals her adaptation process from book to hit show. Plus, the series trailer.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Amazon MGM lands racing film/doc from Brad Pitt and Channing Tatum.
Lionsgate’s co-president Jason Constantine dies at 55.
Ang Lee to direct Old Gold Mountain.
Viola Davis reteams with Amazon MGM for new thriller Ally Clark.
Josh Greenbaum to direct a Care Bears movie for Warner Bros.
Paramount+ is developing a spinoff of Tulsa King starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Nick Jonas to play KISS frontman Paul Stanley in biopic.
Daniel Dae Kim stars in Prime’s Butterfly, a spy thriller.
Bobby Moynihan leads horror-comedy Best Friends Forever about a bachelorette party gone wrong.
A Poet (Jury Prize winner, Un Certain Regard) acquired for North America by 1-2 Special.
A24’s Architecton (dir: Victor Kossakovsky) doc is like Koyaanisqatsi for concrete.
Nobu doc (dir: Matt Tyrnauer) acquired by Vertical.
Mubi’s Lurker (dir: Alex Russell) trailer drops.
BBC and Working Title are developing a 5-part A Passage to India series.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Tatum and Brad Pitt are off to the races: Amazon MGM Studios has acquired both a feature film and docuseries package centered on the legendary Isle of Man Tourist Trophy motorcycle race, with Channing Tatum attached to star in the film and producing alongside Brad Pitt's Plan B.
Reid Carolin (prod/wri: Magic Mike 1-3) will direct. The currently unnamed feature will dramatize the high-stakes, high-speed event, while the companion docuseries (The Greatest Race On Earth) will delve into its inner workings and give a look at the extreme lives of TT riders.
Amazon aims to launch a broader IP positioning the duo at the center of a major new racing-focused franchise.
Here’s a clip of a recent TT race: lightning-fast racing through the public streets of this small island.
The co-president of Lionsgate, Jason Constantine, has sadly passed away at 55 after a long battle with cancer.
He was an early champion of Saw after viewing it when it was a short; as a franchise, it has now grossed more than $1bn. He also oversaw:
John Wick series
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out films
Best Picture winner Crash
His influence at Lionsgate and throughout the industry will continue to be felt.
On Earth, everyone can hear you scream. We have the first full trailer for FX’s Alien: Earth. This first-ever series from the world of Alien kicks off with a ship carrying 5 monstrous alien species crash-landing onto Earth. I was impressed by the visuals in the trailer and the contained storytelling. After all, what is most terrifying about the series was never the containment (although that certainly helped) but the corruption of caretakers. Release date Aug 12. Created by Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion).
Ang Lee’s Mountains. The Brokeback Mountain director will helm Old Gold Mountain, a film adaptation of C. Pam Zhang’s novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold. Scripted by Hansol Jung (Pachinko), it follows two orphaned immigrant siblings navigating the unforgiving wild west. We can see a mixture of Lee's expertise, the rugged West, and the Asian American experience threaded together. In pre-production.
Tidbit:
Amazon MGM teams back up with Viola Davis (#1 streaming film G20) for Ally Clark. Davis will star and produce in the thriller about an investigator who tries to get to the bottom of her friend’s death by looking into a dangerous global conglomerate.
Josh Greenbaum (dir: Will & Harper + Spaceballs reboot) will direct a new Care Bears film for Warner Bros. How he will make a bunch of bears with colorful things on their stomachs into a movie is beyond me. But drawing on the heart he brought out in Will & Harper could be a great start.
Amazon MGM Studios is developing Elsie Silver’s Rose Hill books with Temple Hill Entertainment (Twilight). Set in a small town in the Rocky Mountains, the trilogy sees lifelong locals and big-city transplants discovering how messy love really is.
Prime Video loves their YA adaptations, and Powerless, the first in a viral YA trilogy by Lauren Roberts, is their newest in development. The fantasy is being adapted by Daphne Ferraro (head writer: German’s Maxton Hall).
Release dates:
MGM+’s The Institute
Cast: Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds)
Source Material: Stephen King
Release date: July 13th
Universal’s Reminders of Him
Source Material: Colleen Hoover
Release date: Feb 13 → Feb 6, 2026
Mini Tidbit:
Paramount+’s Tulsa King has a new spinoff series in the works starring Samuel L. Jackson, called NOLA King.
Shari Redstone, owner of National Amusements, the parent company of Paramount (82% stake), has Thyroid Cancer.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Nick Jonas dips into his musical aptitude to play Paul Stanley from Kiss. Jonas is nearing a deal to join Shout It Out Loud, McG’s (dir: Terminator Salvation) long-gestating biopic about the rise of KISS, which is set to begin filming by early 2026.
Jonas will do his own singing and is currently planning vocal training to hit Stanley's characteristic dramatic timbre and range. STX financing and casting is currently underway for his compatriot Gene Simmons.
New first look at Prime Video’s Butterfly, a spy thriller starring and EP’d by Daniel Dae Kim (Lost). Based on the Boom! Studio’s graphic novel it follows a former U.S. intelligence agent hunted by a deadly operative. Daniel brings his quiet stoicism, inner turmoil, and martial arts ability to spy on David Jung.
So badass he doesn't even look at explosions - First look.
Whalefall, a survival thriller directed by Brian Duffield (Hulu’s No One Will Save You), adds:
Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas)
John Ortiz (American Fiction)
Based on Daniel Kraus' novel, the film follows a diver (Wolfs’ Austin Abrams) trapped inside a whale. A squishier twist on 127 Hours. Production kicks off next week in LA.
Tidbit:
Bobby Moynihan (SNL) is set to star in Best Friends Forever, a horror-comedy from director Liz Manashil. Described as an indie feature about a bachelorette party gone supernaturally wrong. Moynihan brings his humor, and Best Friends Forever will bring the gross.
Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton) has joined the cast of Imperfect Women, a psychological thriller series for Apple TV+ based on Araminta Hall’s novel starring Elisabeth Moss and Kerry Washington.
Do not rent Willem Dafoe your basement. In Hulu’s The Man in My Basement, Dafoe makes an offer to Corey Hawkins (The Color Purple) to pay him $65K to rent his basement for 2 months. The catch is that Dafoe starts engaging in some crazy, cult-like behavior. Cue the trailer. In theaters later this year. On Hulu this fall.
Paradise, adds The Idea of You co-star Raymond Cham Jr. for a recurring role in its second season. No character details, but we loved Cham gumming up things in The Idea of You, as Nicholas Galitzine’s bandmate.
Pierce Brosnan’s son, Paris Brosnan, is starring in Overhill Manor. The young actor will play a teen serving community service at a retirement home who bonds with a former war correspondent on a secret treasure hunt. This will be Paris’s first major screen role (although he played opposite his dad in the upcoming Unholy Trinity).
Kiss of the Spider-Woman, starring Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna, now has a trailer.
FESTIVALS
Distributor 1-2 Special makes another Cannes acquisition. They have picked up North American rights for A Poet (Jury Prize winner: Un Certain Regard). No word on release date, but yesterday they snagged Cannes Director’s Fortnight title Miroirs No.3.
The Scout, which premiered at Tribeca in the US Narrative Competition, has a clip that reveals how painful it is to be a location scout. That tracks as the director Paula González-Nasser scouted Never Rarely Sometimes Always and HBO’s High Maintenance.
Gkids has acquired North American rights to Little Amélie or The Character of Rain. An incredibly long title for an animated feature based on Amélie Nothomb’s novel. It premiered at Cannes Special Screening.
Love Me Tender starring Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), which played at Cannes Un Certain Regard, sells to 9 territories including Canada. Krieps plays a lawyer who leaves her marriage to embrace her true self, like Kramer vs. Kramer, but from a female lens.
Snare, playing at Tribeca’s creator market, shows off a shroom-fuelled dessert trip that gets a little bloody (teaser).
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Koyaanisqatsi for Concrete. A24’s Architecton (Dir: Victor Kossakovsky), which premiered in Berlin, has the most poetic footage of concrete we’ve ever seen.
It’s massive, ethereal, and moves beyond all traditional notions of time on a human scale.
We can't wait for Architecton to erupt our traditional notions of building materials. Trailer.
[WARNING: Spoilers for SPC’s Oh, Hi and Lionsgate’s Hurry Up Tomorrow].
A trio of indie films this year shows a main character forming a parasitic relationship with their romantic idol/partner and either figuratively or literally tying them up so they can’t escape:
Mubi’s Lurker (premiere: Sundance, trailer)
Sony Pictures Classics’ Oh, Hi! (premiere: Sundance)
Lionsgate’s Hurry Up Tomorrow
Ahead of its Tribeca Festival premiere, Vertical Entertainment (The Lost Daughter) has acquired North American rights to Nobu, a Matt Tyrnauer (Studio 54) documentary about the sushi master and restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisa. Tracing his humble beginnings and remarkable journey into a global phenomenon built on the back of some edamame. Theatrical Release date: July 4th.
Tidbit:
Nina Conti's Sunlight is a perfect mix of weird, funny things that I like. A man on the way to dig up and yell at his dead dad, finds that his camper van has been hijacked by a woman in a full monkey suit having a mental breakdown. If you don't like that, I'm sorry, but we can't be friends. The trailer has an indie, twee, maybe even romantic sheen, but with a dark, realistic undercurrent of two very broken people. Trailer here.
Magenta Light Studios (Strange Darling) has picked up Maserati: The Brothers for US theatrical distribution. The biopic stars Anthony Hopkins and Andy García, with a cameo from Al Pacino, in a story about the founders of Maserati. Directed by Bobby Moresco. Global premiere: Fall 2025.
David Baxter is exiting fan-based funding studio Legion M to launch Larger Than Life Entertainment. He spent over nine years at Legion M where he cultivated their groundbreaking funding style that used crowd funding as a major source.
Former news anchor Katie Couric is looking to grow her media company with the launch of Barolo Films, which will develop and produce documentaries, unscripted and scripted entertainment. She first launched Katie Couric Media back in 2017, and since then, it has grown immensely.
A Man With Sole traces Shoe designer Kenneth Cole’s crusade to use his iconic brand as a platform to bring awareness to social issues. “It’s not just what you stand in, it’s what you stand for.” Trailer.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The creator of Irish drama Love/Hate, Stuart Carolan, is lining up an ensemble cast for his new darkly comedic crime drama Tall Tales & Murder.
Ella Lily Hyland (Black Doves)
Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones)
Philippa Dunne (Derry Girls)
Based on the much-loved eight-book “Dublin Trilogy” series by Caimh McDonnell, it follows the adventures of an unlikely crime-solving trio. Carolan is developing the show with Chris Addison (Veep), an Emmy and DGA award-winning director. Tall Tales & Murder began filming this week in Ireland.
Mini Tidbits:
Khalid Hayat is leaving Channel 4 after five years as Director of Strategy & Consumer Insight. His exit follows CEO Alex Mahon’s departure and comes amid a broader shake-up at the broadcaster.
The BBC and Working Title are developing a five-part adaptation of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. Directed by Richie Mehta, the series will aim to be the definitive adaptation of the novel.
Disney and Canada’s Bell Media extended their deal with a new streaming bundle including Disney+, Crave, and TSN, starting later this year. The agreement means Bell Media subscribers will get access to sports and HBO at a single cost.
Broadcaster and historian David Olusoga, in a first-look deal with BBC Studios, launches Hillgate Films. Olusoga’s previous work includes BBC’s A House Through Time and the more recent BBC series Union.
ON THIS DAY
2002. The Bourne Identity premieres in LA.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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Love your newsletter and I really like the break down industry TLDR