Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Ben Stiller’s Airman, Amazon MGM’s SEAL, and a lonely tree.
Let’s go!
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We Are Doing a TIFF Event.
Are you going to be at TIFF this year? Come and say hello!
We will be moderating a panel, State of the Independent Industry, today from 2:30pm - 3:15pm at Oretta King West (633 King St. West).
The panel includes studio executive turned indie producer Ashley Schlaifer (prod: Netflix’s Train Dreams) and Marc Iserlis, Head of Film at Republic (platform: Eli Roth and Robert Rodriguez’s new production companies).
Come say hello. We'd love to meet you. If you have any questions about the event or would like to connect at TIFF, email me gabriel.miller@theindustry.co
Click here to see the latest Mubi documentary, Vice Is Broke.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
A24 is in talks for Ben Stiller’s Airman starring Jeremy Allen White.
Focus Features preps Paul Greengrass film starring Andrew Garfield.
Amazon MGM developing Navy SEAL biopic starring Alan Ritchson.
Will Smith’s Fast and Loose finds director John Swab (King Ivory).
Roku hires Lisa Holme (ex-WBD) as Head of Content.
Maureen Polo promoted to CEO of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine.
Legendary signs 3-year distribution deal with Paramount.
Columbia Pictures wins bidding war for The Earthling, sci-fi survival story.
Emily Blunt to star in Walk the Blue Fields.
Joe Pantoliano joins Violent Night 2 (Dec 2026).
Kurt Russell boards Yellowstone spinoff The Madison.
Isabelle Huppert stars in comedy All About Corinne.
Mark Rylance cast in Amazon MGM’s Artificial.
Warner Bros. Discovery joins Disney & Universal in suing Midjourney.
Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia (H.) direct Pamela Anderson & Guy Pearce in outlaw musical.
Black Bear’s first release will be Christy (star: Sydney Sweeney).
Film Movement acquires Cannes’ Renoir.
Estonia selects Rolling Papers as its International Oscar submission.
Click here to see the latest Mubi documentary, Vice Is Broke.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
A healthy number of studio projects have come together with top-tier talent:
A24’s Airman
Dir/Prod: Ben Stiller
Star: Jeremy Allen White
Prod Co: Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories, Le Grisbi (Fury, Birdman)
Wri: Ben Shattuck (History of Sound)
Synopsis:
An American B-24 bomber pilot is shot down over Vichy France in 1943 and is given shelter by a leader in the French resistance.
This is the project Stiller is leaving Severance Season 3 to direct. Here’s our cover story on what happened: https://theindustry.co/p/ben-stiller-innie-outie
A24 is in talks.
Focus Features’ Untitled Medieval England Film
Dir: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Katherine Waterston
Prod Co: Blumhouse
Synopsis:
In medieval England, a fearless warrior rallies common folk into a fierce uprising against King Richard II's oppressive rule. As the nation plunges into chaos, his rebel army clashes with royal forces in a desperate battle for freedom.
Amazon MGM’s Untitled Navy Seals Film
Dir: Patrick Hughes (The Man from Toronto)
Cast: Alan Ritchson (Reacher)
Prod Co: Stallone’s Balboa Productions
Synopsis:
Navy SEAL Mike Thornton final days of Vietnam War, leading a desperate last stand with five men trapped behind enemy lines, fighting 150 soldiers before retreating to South China Sea, earning Congressional Medal of Honor.
And one more project with no current studio attachment:
Will Smith’s Fast and Loose has been in an interesting position; it was originally set to be his reunion with Bad Boys’ Michael Bay. But after reporting over action vs comedy (Bay wanted action, Smith wanted comedy), Bay then left the project over those creative differences.
For a minute, Fast and Loose just sat there, and whatever momentum Smith had for his “comeback” began to wane. Until now, Fast and Loose has finally found director John Swab to fill that Bay-sized hole. Swab, whose King Ivory premiered at Venice to acclaim, impressed both Netflix and Smith and helped him secure the gig.
The film follows a man who wakes in Tijuana with no memory, discovering he’s been living two lives: a crime kingpin and an undercover CIA agent. Currently in production.
Exec Moves:
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine (Big Little Lies) is switching things up with its CEO, Sarah Harden, stepping down. Head of direct-to-consumer Maureen Polo will take over and oversee all areas of communications. Harden will remain with the company as advisor through to 2026.
Roku has scooped up Lisa Holme as its new Head of Content. She formerly worked as VP of Content Acquisition at Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu.
Longtime Lionsgate executives Gray Ainsworth and Mark Sgriccia see promotions. Ainsworth will move up to EVP & Global Head of Content Operations, and Sgriccia will serve as EVP of Content Operations and Strategy.
Mini Tidbits:
Legendary (Dune trilogy, Godzilla x Kong, Interstellar, A Minecraft Movie) partners with David Ellison’s Paramount to distribute their films for the next three years. This excludes some of Legendary’s most lucrative properties, like the Godzilla-Kong and Dune series, both at Warner Bros. The first film of the Paramount/Legendary deal is Street Fighter, starring Jason Momoa. Releasing Oct. 16, 2026.
Columbia Pictures has won a heated bidding war for Jonathan Marty’s short story The Earthling, paying mid-six-figures. Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein (Final Destination: Bloodlines) are set to direct the sci-fi survival that, to my ear, sounds a bit like The Martian. Eric Heisserer, who adapted Arrival, brought the project in via his Sony first-look deal.
Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, has announced a strict return-to-office for all employees in LA and NY with a deadline of January 2026.
YouTube has struck an expanded partnership with Sesame Workshop, securing the largest digital library of Sesame Street episodes to date. Hundreds of classic episodes will begin streaming in January 2026, alongside new exclusive YouTube content.
Warner Bros. Discovery now joins Universal and Disney in suing Midjourney AI. More details here: https://theindustry.co/p/wbd-universal-and-disney-sue
The White Lotus S4 will take place in France.
Trailers:
Amazon MGM’s John Candy: I Like Me
Release: Oct 10
ABC’s High Potential (S2)
Star: Kaitlin Olson
Release date: Sept 16
AMC+’s Talamasca: The Secret Order
Source author: Anne Rice
Release: October 26th
PBS Masterpiece’s The Forsytes
Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story
Release: Oct 3
Netflix’s Left-Handed Girl
Release: NOV 14
Release dates:
Paramount+’s The Crutch
Cast: Tracy Morgan
Release: Nov. 3
Neon’s No Other Choice
Release: Dec 25
Disney’s Bluey
Release: Aug. 6, 2027
Click here to see the latest Mubi documentary, Vice Is Broke.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Between the Venice premiering The Smashing Machine and the filming of the long-awaited sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Emily Blunt is booked and busy.
Blunt is set to star in Walk the Blue Fields, a film adaptation of author Claire Keegan’s (Small Things Like These) short story.
Logline:
On her wedding day, a woman faces an agonizing choice when a past love triangle risks exposure.
An unfulfilling romance tale, it feels like a fitting role, bridging the intense urgency of A Quiet Place (2018) with her turn as a heartbroken woman in The Girl on the Train (2016, trailer), as Blunt continues to take on more dramatic work.
Blunt is also producing through her Ledbury Productions with We Live in Time (2024) director John Crowley in talks to join the film.
Tidbits:
Conor Swindells will reunite with director Ben Taylor and the Sex Education team for Japan-set series Shinjuku Sugar Fox. Not too much is known currently about the 8-episode series, just that it will be set in Tokyo and is a “uniquely sardonic coming of age story.” Swindells’ Adam started off as bully in Sex Education but surprisingly had one of the most impactful story arcs when he confronted his insecurities, his sexuality, and his complicated relationship with his father. It is not surprising that Taylor feels Swindells will tell the story right.
Fleabag’s Sian Clifford joins the season two cast of BBC’s Ludwig, the network’s biggest scripted show of last year. Clifford is known for Claire, the tightly-wound but “perfect older sister” to the messy Fleabag, with their relationship acting as a central storyline throughout the show’s two seasons. All we know about Ludwig is that Clifford will play a local MP and that filming has just begun.
French cinematic icon Isabelle Huppert is set to star in the titular role in the upcoming comedy feature All About Corinne, directed by Call My Agent! filmmaker Marc Fitoussi. While the actress is known for her fearless intensity in roles like The Piano Teacher (2001) and Elle (2016), Corinne is more understated, a supporting actress with big aspirations.
Casting Announcements:
Joe Pantoliano
Kurt Russell
Mark Rylance
For all the above and more, click here.
Click here to see the latest Mubi documentary, Vice Is Broke.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / FESTIVALS
If you’re a reader of this newsletter, you know I like weird films that tilt sci-fi. Holy Motors. Under the Skin. Tarkovsky’s Solaris.
So you may not have heard of Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia. But back in 2014, they directed H., which premiered at Sundance 2015. Pretty much it blends a few different story lines, one is a group of women who mother fake babies. The other is a meteorite that passes the town and leads to a group psychosis. It doesn’t totally work, but it was amazing (trailer).
Now, the duo is directing Pamela Anderson and Guy Pearce as lovers on the run in the musical Queen of the Falls.
That logline is so vanilla that we know Attieh and Garcia have something wild up their sleeve.
Mini Tidbits:
Black Bear’s (prod co/financier: Sing Sing) first US release will be Christy, starring Sydney Sweeney. Black Bear is going to release 12/year. That’s as many as Amazon committed to by 2026. So the plans are ambitious. Christy releases Nov. 7.
Léa Seydoux in a weird art film? Yes, please! She co-stars with Tony Leung Chiu-wai (main character, In the Mood for Love) in Silent Friend, a film that is told from the POV of a lonely tree in a botanical garden. Whatever this is, we’re in for it! Trailer.
Giorgio Armani has passed away at 91. His work was seen on Richard Gere in American Gigolo, Christian Bale in The Dark Knight, and Jodie Foster in Elysium.
New TIFF Market projects include one EP’d by David Lynch, one starring Ian McKellen, and another starring Tom Felton (HP’s Malfoy). Full breakdown here: https://theindustry.co/p/lynch-mckellen-malfoy
For More:
Brad Pitt’s Plan B is expanding in Europe
Film Movement acquires Renoir
Uwe Boll’s Run is picked up by Quiver
For all the above tidbits and more click here.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Estonia officially picked the coming-of-age dramedy Rolling Papers (Pikad Paberid, trailer) as its official Oscar selection. One of those just a day in the life type of movies, Rolling Papers follows a store clerk whose ordinary workday gets disrupted by a free-spirited wanderer, they smoke together and share their dreams.
So far, 19 countries have selected their Oscar submissions. Full breakdown here.
Crave’s Mafia: Most Wanted (trailer) is headed to Netflix. The three-part gripping true-crime documentary gives an inside look at the feared crime ring Ndrangheta, which controlled 70% of the global cocaine trade for an absurd amount of time. The doc originally aired on the Canadian streamer back in March and will now play on Netflix in the U.S. and Italy.
CJ ENM, Korea’s top entertainment conglomerate, is expanding to India through Amazon’s free streaming service, MX Player. The agreement includes 18 of CJ ENM’s drama series (Lovely Runner) that’ll gradually be made available for Indian audiences.
Channel 4’s latest queer drama, Tip Toe, will be led by Traitors host Alan Cumming and Sherwood’s David Morrissey. The miniseries comes from veteran Doctor Who (2005-22) writer Russell T. Davies.
In the “vein of King Lear and Succession,” the upcoming untitled historical drama sees mega Korean actor and musician Park Bo-Gum (Prime Video’s Good Boy) starring. From the director of A Taxi Driver (2017), Jang Hoon, production is set to begin next month.
ON THIS DAY
1951. Michael Keaton born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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