Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Skydance, IMAX, and a dust bunny.
Let’s go!
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The Paramount Global–Skydance merger is approved. And should close on August 7th.
For those counting, that’s one year and 1 month after the deal was announced.
[I’ve collected everything I’ve written about the deal for the past year and done a thorough fact check, but it’s fairly complex, so I may have missed something. But here are the details as we know them today.]
How it happened:
The final deal hurdle was the FCC approval of the transfer of CBS’s broadcast license, including 28 TV stations, to Skydance.
Two days ago, CBS News agreed to install a two-year ombudsman, and Paramount agreed to eliminate DEI programs.
That sealed the deal, and the FCC approved the transfer.
Now What:
One of Paramount’s three CEOs is exiting:
Chris McCarthy, Showtime/MTV/Comedy Central CEO
He will receive 2× base salary in severance pay ($5.5M) and a prorated annual bonus ($2.75M). Replaced by Cindy Holland (former: Netflix VP of Content Acquisitions).
Likely leaving:
Brian Robbins, Paramount Pictures CEO
Likely Staying:
George Cheeks, CBS CEO
Skydance’s Final Paramount Acquisition Deal Terms:
$1.75 bn for Shari Redstone
E.g., buying her stake in National Amusements (Paramount’s parent company)
Skydance buys nearly 50% of Class B shares for $15/share
$4.5 bn total
$3 bn in cash to reduce Paramount’s debt
$1.5 bn from Skydance
$1.5 bn from RedBird
Ownership of the company:
69%
Skydance & RedBird
31%
Paramount's Class B shareholders
The leadership team would tentatively be as follows:
Paramount/Skydance Studios CEO
David Ellison (current CEO of Skydance)
Paramount Global/CBS (unconfirmed)
Jeff Shell, executive RedBird (former CEO NBCUniversal)
The total deal is valued at $8.4bn.
According to an FCC filing, here’s the breakdown of who will own National Amusements, which has a controlling stake in Paramount Global:
77.5% Larry Ellison via his investment vehicle, Pinnacle Media
22.5% Gerry Cardinale, Founder & Managing Partner of RedBird Capital (Skydance backer)
David Ellison will hold 100 percent of the Ellison Family’s voting interests in NAI
Is this merger good?
David Ellison, the new Paramount chairman and CEO, is known to be creator-friendly, even taking personal calls with writers to go over individual story beats. Also, his father, Larry Ellison, has a net worth of $293 bn (almost 3x the entire market cap of the film industry), so even though Paramount gutted $6bn of value in a recent write-down, it now has too-big-to-fail dollars.
On the flip side, a lot of “operational efficiencies” are going to be created by the axing of many people, to the tune of $2bn in savings.
For More:
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
IMAX hits $14.6M net income in Q2, up 51%.
Sony’s 3000 Pictures picks up Open House, a teen comedy from Ricky Stanicky writer.
Universal teams with Lord Miller to produce astronaut story The Six.
Netflix is adapting The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife.
Comcast names Versant Media Group board.
Ilya Naishuller (Heads of State) is in talks to direct Roadhouse 2.
CBS orders vampire comedy Eternally Yours from Ghosts creators.
Sam Richardson leads alien abduction comedy Into The Sky.
Jason Schwartzman joins Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial.
NYFF Centerpiece: Father Mother Sister Brother by Jim Jarmusch.
TIFF Midnight lineup includes Dust Bunny starring Mads Mikkelsen.
Lionsgate adapts Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, directed by J.T. Mollner.
Metrograph halts theatrical distribution with exec David Laub joining Neon.
ITV Studios' 2025 profit is down 31%.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
IMAX Q2 2025 revenue increases. We broke down their numbers and how they stacked up against last year:
$281M global box office
↑ 41%
$91.7M revenue
↑ 3%
$14.6M Net Income
↑51%
The top earner:
$75.8M from MI:8
Nowhere close to last quarter’s $164M from Ne Zha 2
IMAX expects to deliver a record box office of more than $1.2 billion in 2025.
Sony’s 3000 Pictures has acquired Open House, a teen sex comedy spec from Ricky Stanicky writer Jeff Bushell, with Russell Hollander and Bushell producing.
The film follows a high school senior who uses his mom’s luxury home listings to throw raging parties. It’s currently in early development, but Ricky Stanicky was a pretty funny John Cena vehicle; we are seeing more tentative stabs at middle-budget comedy recently, and I am all for it making a return.
Ilya Naishuller is in talks to direct Roadhouse 2. He has a good pedigree for action movies, moving from Hardcore Henry (2015) to Nobody (2021) to Amazon MGM’s Heads of State (2025).
He replaces Guy Ritchie, who recently exited. Amazon MGM’s sequel to the 2024 Jake Gyllenhaal-led remake also ran into problems, too, with a very public falling out with director Doug Liman. No new director is currently set to step in, and plot details are tightly under wraps.
Universal Pictures teams up with major production powerhouse Lord Miller (Project Hail Mary) to produce The Six: The Extraordinary Story of the Grit and Daring of America’s First Women Astronauts.
Based on Loren Grush’s bestseller, the heroic and humorous story follows America’s first female astronauts. The writer, Bill Parker, and director of HBO’s original film Unpregnant (2020), Rachel Lee Goldenberg, have signed on to the Lord Miller production.
Tidbits:
Netflix, alongside A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood scribes Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue, is set to adapt The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife. A lot like Fred Rogers, old man Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart.
Comcast has announced the first board of directors for its Versant Media Group, including NBCUniversal’s Mark Lazarus as chairman and former Disney EMEA president Rebecca Campbell. Eight other high-profile executives have been recruited to join Versant’s board from the worlds of media, tech, marketing, and finance. The spinoff will launch by the year’s end.
Mini Tidbits:
America Ferrera’s production company Take Fountain (Netflix’s Gentefied) brings on Connor DeSha (prod. Robin Hood) as VP of Development and Production. DeSha, a former creative exec at DiCaprio’s Appian Way, has over a decade of experience in development and production.
Budd Carr, music supervisor and former manager of rock band Kansas, had died at 79. He worked in film extensively as Oliver Stone's music supervisor, lending his talents to Platoon, Wall Street, and Twister, among others.
DGA Members: The DGA Awards will be held on February 7, 2026, with the awards nominations released on January 8, 2026.
Pilot order:
CBS’s Eternally Yours
Genre: Vampire Comedy
Creators: Joe Port and Joe Wiseman (CBS’s Ghosts)
Synopsis:
A married vampire couple struggling to accept their daughter's human boyfriend, after being together for 500 years.
Cancellations:
NBC’s E! News (ran from 1991-2025)
USA’s Resident Alien (ran 4 seasons)
Renewals:
Peacock’s Days Of Our Lives (for Season 62 & 63)
Prime’s The Legend Of Vox Machina (for Season 5)
Trailers:
Comedy Central’s Beavis And Butt-Head (Season 3)
Release date: September 3
Bleecker Street’s Spinal Tap II
Release date: September 12
Mubi’s The History of Sound
Premiere: Cannes
Cast: Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor
Release date: Sept 12
Warner Bros.’ One Battle After Another
Release date: September 26
The Man Who Saves the World (doc)
EP: Peter Farrelly, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green
Release: Oct. 17
Searchlight’s Rental Family
Cast: Brendan Fraser
Release date: Nov 21st
BBC’s King & Conqueror (series)
Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister GOT)
Shoot dates pushed:
Ang Lee‘s Old Gold Mountain
Shooting: Spring 2026
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Hulk Hogan has died at 71. Hogan was a Pro-Wrestling legend who made his film on-screen debut in Rocky III. At 300lbs and 6ft 8in, he dwarfed Sylvester Stallone and made mincemeat out of him after an ultra-cocky tirade at the beginning of the match (can Rocky turn it around? clip).
Stallone stated:
“I had the pleasure of meeting this brilliant personality and showman when he was 26 years old. He was absolutely wonderful and his amazing skill made Rocky three incredibly special. My heart breaks.”
His presence, just like his stature, was massive anywhere he went. Interestingly, Hogan will soon be portrayed by Ben Affleck in Gus Van Sant’s Killing Gawker.
Sam Richardson, unsung hero of Veep, The Detroiters, and that one Totino's pizza roll commercial, will star in Into the Sky, a sci-fi about a man who continuously gets abducted by aliens.
The ensemble is full of very funny people:
David Cross (Arrested Development)
Arturo Castro (Broad City)
Sofia Black D’Elia (Single Drunk Female)
Directed by Drew Mylrea and Evan Wolf Buxbaum, the film was wrapped in New York and aims for a 2026 release.
Jason Schwartzman joins Amazon MGM’s Artificial, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Challengers) and co-starring Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov (Anora).
This film follows OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the tumultuous days when he is fired and then rehired.
Schwartzman recently played a tech bro on Mountainhead, and was quite cerebral and childish, so he should be well-suited for this world.
Tidbits:
Hawk Girl is flying into the thriller genre. Isabela Merced (Superman, Alien: Romulus) and Ford v Ferrari’s Noah Jupe have been cast in Psyche, directed by Palme d’Or nominee Agustina San Martin (Monster God). The original story follows a backpacker who gets drawn into the murky world of illegal archeological digs.
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who garnered an Academy Award nomination for King Richard, stars in The Body Is Water, an indie film about a man who disappears to a tiny Irish town. No word on who she’ll play
Universal Pictures’ Italianna has cast Another Simple Favor’s Lorenzo Dee Moor. The Dutch-Italian actor will share the screen with The Little Mermaid’s Halle Bailey and Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page. CBS’ Matlock director Kat Coiro is attached to direct Italianna.
Hulu’s upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival has added five series regulars to its cast, including Sarah Bock (Severance) and Jack Cutmore-Scott (Tenet). The new additions will be joining Sarah Michelle Gellar, reprising her role as the original vampire slayer, when it premieres sometime next year.
Pierce Brosnan plays the legendary Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, best known for training Naseem Hamed from childhood to multiple featherweight championships. First trailer of an aged Brosnan.
FESTIVALS
NYFF. Venice. TIFF. Once again, updates abound as we head into fall festival season.
NYFF:
The Centerpiece Selection is set to be:
Dir: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett,
Distributor: Mubi
Synopsis:
Estranged siblings reunite after years apart, forced to confront unresolved tensions and reevaluate their strained relationships with their emotionally distant parents.
TIFF:
ABC News Studios acquires Lilith Fair: Build a Mystery for US release.
Synopsis:
Behind the scenes of Sarah McLachlan’s legendary all-women music festival. Interviews w/ Bonnie Raitt and Olivia Rodrigo.
Airing Sept. 17th, then headed to Hulu and Disney+ Sept 21st.
TIFF Midnight:
Two projects caught our attention:
Ben Wheatley (dir: High-Rise, A24’s Free Fire) is back! After Wheatley’s latest film Meg 2 pounded $400M at the box office, we thought he was done with arthouse. Welcome back, Ben. He’s screening Normal at TIFF Midnight. Follows “provisional sheriff (Bob Odenkirk) against his constituents when the exposure of a small town’s sordid secret sparks a rip-roaring firefight.” Written by John Wick writer Derek Kolstad. First look image.
Mads Mikkelsen is starring in Dust Bunny.
Synopsis:
A 10-year-old girl procures the services of a hit man (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster under her bed, who she thinks ate her family.
This one is billed as a drama, horror, thriller, but the first look image tilts it much more zany with its wild color palette, from Bryan Fuller (creator: Hannibal).
Full TIFF breakdown here.
Venice Days:
Full breakdown of this Venice Sidebar section, includes a Kenyan sci-fi film! https://theindustry.co/p/the-venice-2025-lineup
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Stories below the paywall include:
Breakdown of why Strange Darling director J.T. Mollner is the perfect choice for a new Stephen King adaptation.
A post mortem on Metrograph Pictures.
Blumhouse’s high stakes for their next sequel, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, after M3GAN 2.0 tanked at the box office.
And my favorite bad movie…
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