Amazon: Carrie(d) Away
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
In The Industry News: Disney’s Succession. Fox’s Billionaires. Chick-Fil-A.
Actor Spotlight: Is Tom Holland Christopher Nolan’s next Cillian Murphy?
Festivals: Hulu Has Fallen.
Indie Filmmaker Spotlight/International News: Colin Tilley is Alright. Editor Directors. Fifth Season’s Nordic drama.
Let’s go!
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Amazon is gearing up for Halloween with an 8-episode Carrie series. Mike Flanagan (dir: Doctor Sleep, The Life of Chuck) will serve as the series showrunner. The series is based on the iconic Stephen King novel, which became Brian De Palma’s supernatural horror masterwork Carrie (1976).
Flanagan is coming off of his win for the People’s Choice Award at TIFF for The Life Of Chuck, based on a Stephen King novella.
Mike Flanagan is a king of horror. He directed Oculus (2013), Doctor Sleep (2019, The Shining prequel), and recently took over The Exorcist franchise. He is set to direct the next two films in that series.
Do we need another remake of Carrie? The original is Brian De De Palma’s hyperbolic take on the horrors of the female body, which found its meaning through Sissy Spacek's (original Carrie actress) journey to gain acceptance as a daughter, school peer, and as a romantic partner (trailer). Carrie (2013) moved away from these ideas, leaning more heavily into religious themes, and was ultimately met with mixed reviews (trailer). However, it made $85 M off a $30 M budget.
It’ll be curious how Flanagan adapts the material and takes it into uncharted waters.
Carrie is being fast-tracked, and a writer's room is being assembled.
Disney’s succession plan: Bob Iger (Disney CEO) now says he will find a replacement CEO by early 2026. Iger said it’s his top priority to find a new CEO after his 17 non-consecutive years helming Disney.
Here are 4 possibilities:
Co-Chair of Disney Entertainment
Dana Walden
Alan Bergman
Chairperson of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Josh D’Amaro
Chairman ESPN (former president)
Jimmy Pitaro
However, the company will likely be extending its CEO search outside the House of Mouse. Helping with this effort is the addition of James Gorman (Morgan Stanley CEO 2010 - 2023), who joined the Disney Board in February and will become the Chairman of the Board on January 2nd, 2025. This means he’ll have a lot of pull to find Disney’s next CEO.
Iger’s official contract end date is December 31st, 2026. If he actually leaves (most scenarios point to him staying on the board), it will be the end of an era.
Fox’s Billionaires. Fox Entertainment Studios is producing a new series, Billionaire Apocalypse. The team is top-notch:
Writer: Jay Carson (creator: The Morning Show)
EP: Hugh Jackman
EP: Lawrence Bender (prod: Pulp Fiction)
EP: Kevin Brown (EP: Starz’s Flesh and Bone)
Here’s the series synopsis:
The richest man on the planet, 200 of his employees, and his family are forced to flee to his private island in the wake of a global financial collapse, where the employees and family members — who he’s treated as afterthoughts for decades — quickly realize he’s no longer rich and thus no longer in charge.
Sounds like the end of Triangle of Sadness (2022). The project is launching at MIPCOM (more on this in Festivals).
Chad Stahelski, the architect of the John Wick universe (director of films 1-4 + spinoffs), and his company 87Entertainment are producing Spellslinger with showrunner M. Raven Metzner (consulting producer: Star Trek: Discovery, Producer: Fox’s Sleepy Hollow).
Here’s the logline for the action-adventure series:
16-year-old Kellen, lives in a world where magic is everything. The problem is: he doesn’t have any.
87Entertainment is hyper-busy these days, with the multiple John Wick spinoffs. Up next: Ballerina (2025).
Tidbits:
As previously announced, Chick-Fil-A is bringing a lot more to the table than just chicken… with Chick-Fil-A Play, a family friendly app and streaming service. The fast food company is launching a number of scripted animated shows including Evergreen Hills and Chick-Fil-A Cows as well as several cooking shows, scripted podcasts, and an untitled ten-part gameshow with Glassman Media (NBC’s The Wall) suited for the whole family to enjoy.
Chick-Fil-A Play will officially launch on November 18th.
Netflix is set to develop a feature adaptation of In the Likely Event, a war romance from bestselling author Rebecca Yarros. Penned by Lindsey Ferrentino, a frequent collaborator with the streamer, the Afghanistan-set present day war story, in addition to Netflix, is being produced by Dylan Clark Productions. Yarros is most notably known for her viral fantasy novel, Fourth Wing (2023), the first book in a five part series being adapted for TV by Amazon.
Cast and crew details for In the Likely Event are yet to be released.
Netflix vs. Paramount. In response to Paramount+'s eight-episode scripted drama, JonBenét Ramsey, starring Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen , Netflix has ordered a docu-series, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey.
TPG (Private equity firm) has unveiled the name of its talent management subsidiary, Initial Group, which is comprised of two recent acquisitions:
Untitled Entertainment, talent agency (clients: Demi Moore, Laura Dern) earlier Grandview, literary management firm (clients: Osgood Perkins, Jeremy Saulnier)
This acquisition aims to expand Initial Group’s representation capabilities, with more strategic investments likely in the future.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
My spidey senses are telling me this could be a very big deal for Tom Holland! The Spiderman actor is in talks to join Christopher Nolan’s secret next film in a lead role opposite Matt Damon for Universal.
This will mark the third time Damon and Nolan have worked together (Interstellar and Oppenheimer), but it will be the first time the Oscar-winning director and the Uncharted (2022) actor will be teaming up.
Holland is coming off his acclaimed run in the London stage production of Romeo and Juliet, which ran for 12 weeks this past summer at Duke of York’s Theatre in London.
He is undoubtedly most known for his take on Peter Parker, with the third film in his Marvel led franchise, SpiderMan: No Way Home (2021, trailer) a massive box office success making $2 B worldwide. Holland is expected to reprise his role as the beloved Queens native in the fourth film from Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) director Destin Daniel Cretton set to premiere in 2026.
Is Holland Nolan’s next Cillian Murphy?
Murphy was 28 when he played Scarecrow in Batman Begins (2005), his first Nolan film role. Over the next two decades, he appeared in six Nolan films, hitting the apex with his Best Actor Oscar win for Oppenheimer (2023). Holland is currently the same age as Murphy when he started.
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Peter Dinklage is now co-starring in Dir: Derek Cianfrance’s (Blue Valentine) latest Roofman.
Miramax will distribute domestically and internationally, with Paramount helping.
Here’s a breakdown of the film:
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Channing Tatum
Production Company: Limelight (Palm Springs)
Official synopsis:
The story of the rooftop robber, Jeffrey Manchester, and his time evading capture.
No word on who Dinklage will play.
Read our cover story on the project a return to form for Cianfrance:
https://theindustry.co/p/blue-valentine-to-toys-r-us
Tidbit:
Nine Perfect Strangers actor Luke Evans is set to star in Emergency, an upcoming thriller series set during the Guerilla War in 1950s Malaya. Based on real events, Evans (also an EP) will play Brigadier ‘Mad’ Mike Calvert, the closeted homosexual and highly controversial British commander. From the newly established production label Sympatico, headed by producer Min Lim, Emergency is only in its pre-development stage now.
Netflix’s East of Eden is now starring two screen legends:
Great American Playwright, August Osage County
Father in Lady Bird (clip)
Fearsome in Belfast (2021)
The main cast is Florence Pugh and Chris Abbott. The ambitious family drama was previously adapted to film in 1955 for Warner Bros, with Abbot playing the role of Adam Trask, brother to James Dean’s Cal.
Actor/screenwriter Zoe Kazan is writing and EPing the upcoming Netflix series almost 70 years after her grandfather, Elia Kazan, directed the 1955 film version!
FESTIVALS
MIPCOM is getting off to a fast and furious start. This is the annual trade show for the TV industry held in Cannes.
Amongst the top projects/deals:
Fox’s Billionaire Apocalypse (outlined in The Industry News)
Paris Has Fallen series
Buyer: Hulu (US Rights)
Seller: StudioCanal
Hulu Release date: Last this year
Source Material: Has Fallen film franchise starring Gerard Butler
Buyer: Banjay Asia, Disney Hotstar (Indian adaptation)
Seller: NBCUniversal
Buyer: ANT1 TV (Greek adaptation)
Seller: Brit Box
MICPOM runs through October 24th. Check out the festival here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Master music video director Colin Tilley is making his feature-length debut with Eye for an Eye, a sinister revenge horror launching at AFM with Hanway Films (International sales) and WME (Domestic sales).
We’ve been waiting for this moment.
Tilley is the ultra-talented director behind Kendrick Lamar’s Alright music video (mind-blowing visuals). It repurposed the cityscape as surreal and perilous in beautiful Black and White cinematography.
Eye for an Eye will star Whitney Peak who first gained recognition for her supporting role in Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game (2017) as well as the spooky sequel Hocus Pocus 2 (2022).
Not said to be a remake or related at all to the 1996 film of the same name, Tilley’s film follows Anna (Peak), a young woman mourning the sudden death of her parents who must relocate from the big city to the marshlands of Florida to live with her grandmother (portrayed by S. Epatha Merkerson), whom she’s never met.
The renowned director is behind over 300 music videos, having worked with some of the industry’s biggest artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, and 50 Cent.
Beyond having worked with everyone in Hollywood, Tilley has also completely dominated the advertising space, regularly directing major brand commercials. Tilley should be more than capable of pulling this off, but there is no official word yet on the production status of Eye for an Eye.
Stefan Grube (editor: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) is making his directorial debut with Out There.
Netflix has acquired the spec script by Shane Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke (Writer: Don't Worry Darling) and Ian Levy.
Here’s the teaser logline:
A fractured family who must face the most catastrophic day of their lives.
That’s frighteningly anemic but this is supposed to be a sci-fi which lines up with Grube’s work. Many famous Hollywood directors have started as editors, such as:
Editor: Citizen Kane (1941)
Director: West Side Story (1961), The Sound of Music (1965)
Editor: Pygmalion (1938)
Director: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Editor: In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Director: Harold and Maude (1971)
Tidbits:
Do high YouTube subscriber numbers hold any coin in Hollywood? Markiplier (37M followers, horror content creator) tried to get funding/distribution for an original horror series, The Edge of Sleep, but got rejected from every studio despite having the prolific Brian Kavanaugh Jones (producer: Midnight Special, Longlegs) in his corner. So he put up the initial money himself and got New Regency to chip in the rest of the budget. But even after the project was finished, he couldn’t get any distro, so he uploaded the project on Amazon (they take a 50% cut of sales) and funneled people from his YouTube channel to the series. So far, it’s in the top 10 on Amazon.
Check out the trailer here.
Gareth West, the founder of Ketchup Entertainment, is partnering up with Zero Gravity Management to form a new television division dedicated to producing and acquiring premium series. With several shows already in development, the release date for its unnamed inaugural series is expected sometime spring 2025. Ketchup Entertainment currently is behind the Michael Keaton led heartfelt father daughter film, Goodrich in theaters now.
Fifth Season is crying wolf. Sometimes all you want to do is snuggle up and watch a dark twisted Nordic drama about a wolf attack, which turns into something deeper and darker. Cry Wolf (trailer) is that series.
Prentiss Fraser, president of Fifth Season’s TV distribution, stated:
“It’s filmed in a small town on the Swedish border with Finland with the characters really driving the story. It’s in the same vein as shows like Fargo, keeping the thriller crime genre at its core whilst delving into darkly comedic themes and twists of fate.”
The production company is Nordic Drama Queens, which is backed by TV powerhouse Fifth Season (Severance).
It will be released on TV4.
ON THIS DAY
1938. Christopher Lloyd was born in Stamford, Connecticut.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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