Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Feathers, Sigourney Weaver’s Tomb, and a Waffle House.
Let’s go!
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Benedict Cumberbatch stars in The Thing With Feathers as a grieving widower with two small sons, haunted by a giant crow.
It’s a cross between extreme verite and poetry.
This was one of my favorite films at Sundance, and now that it’s in theaters, I sat down with director Dylan Southern to discuss his narrative directorial debut.
On one side, Cumberbatch digs deep into a psychic angst over the loss of his wife. Sliding from grief to despair. He can’t be the father he once was, and as his reality seeps away, he becomes haunted by a ten-foot crow.
Southern explained how he manifested this creature from Max Porter’s book to the screen:
“Crow is this creation that started life as a sculpture by this amazing fine artist called Nicola Hicks… [It was] turned into a wearable costume, this animatronic head… by a team of experts in their field…Then worn by this incredible actor… who’s trained in mime and clowning and animal studies.”
The cherry on top is that it’s voiced by David Thewlis (Naked, Harry Potter).
Southern expanded:
“[Crow] is Dad’s worst instincts about himself. So when he’s saying ‘oh, you’re pathetic’ that’s the way when, in grief, you start thinking about yourself, you start denigrating yourself. And crow’s just an external version of that.”
Crow is so extreme that he transfers the grief into quasi-comical. It’s a really good mirror, allowing Cumberbatch, who reaches the depths of psychological hell, to see outside of himself in a way that brings him back to reality.
For More:
Trailer + full interview with Dylan Southern. He details the decade it took for him to adapt the project from Max Porter’s book. The mistakes he made along the way. And listening to music in Benedict Cumberbatch’s house: https://theindustry.co/p/benedict-cumberbatchs-the-thing-with
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Apple TV+ adapts The Brothers Lionheart with Thomas Vinterberg directing.
Republic Pictures acquires the Orphan prequel.
Former Apple COO Jeff Williams nominated to join Disney’s board.
Robert and Michelle King are developing Vatican City for Hulu with Scott Free.
Saladin Patterson (King of the Hill) renews deal with 20th Television.
Justin Lin developing Starz drama.
Sigourney Weaver in talks to join Amazon MGM’s Tomb Raider.
David Dastmalchian to star in horror Kill Screen alongside Ella Balinska.
One Night Only adds Maya Hawke and Julia Fox.
Nikki Glaser and Brenda Song join Netflix’s The Fifth Wheel.
John Stamos boards Season 2 of Netflix’s The Hunting Wives.
2025 Black List includes Building Bowie and Waffle House Index.
Slamdance opens with Tarantino-produced The Projectionist.
Divide/Conquer inks first-look deal with Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.
Josh Loeb makes filmmaking debut with romcom In Spite Of Ourselves.
Editor Lesley Walker (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) dies at 80.
BFI acquires Venice Critics’ Week winner Ish for 2026 U.K./Ireland release.
Netflix Brazil greenlights Vicente Amorim’s The Pilgrimage.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
The Brothers Lionheart is headed to Apple TV+ as a limited‑series adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s fantasy novel. Award‑winning filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round) is directing, and British playwright Simon Stephens (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime) is writing.
The story tells a tale of two loving brothers in a magical realm who are forced to confront dangerous dragons and harrowing prophecies to save their relationship. The rights to the 1973 children’s classic were originally acquired by Media Res back in 2023, reigniting a strong partnership with the streamer with whom they previously collaborated on their hit drama The Morning Show.
This is a wild choice for Vinterberg, whose films are very adult (The Hunt, The Celebration, etc.).
Republic Pictures (Twinless, It’s a Wonderful Life) has just acquired the prequel to Orphan. It’s a great time for this series as the first film did strong business:
Orphan (2009)
$41.6M domestic
$77.9M worldwide
And although the second film tanked domestically:
Orphan: First Kill (2022)
$5.4M domestically
$37.1M worldwide
Likely that given the horror resurgence, this will do quite well. Dark Castle serves as the prod co on all three films.
Robert and Michelle King (Creators of The Good Wife) are developing Vatican City for Hulu with Ridley Scott’s Scott Free and CBS Studios.
The series centers on Caroline, an American reporter in Rome who is selected by a newly elected Pope to become the Vatican’s first female spokesperson. She confronts intense politics, resistance, and institutional misogyny while navigating her own past.
The project extends the Kings’ collaboration with past Good Wife collaborator Scott Free and also marks a rare CBS Studios sale to Hulu.
Mini Tidbits:
Latest on WBD/Netflix/PSKY? Nothing much material. Paramount could go up to $32 or even $35 a share if Netflix challenges their bid. And David Zaslav (WBD CEO) could make $1bn depending on how high the deal goes, based on his stock options. Not bad for a guy who didn’t found the company.
Former Apple COO Jeff Williams is nominated as Disney’s 11th Board Member. Apple and Disney have had close ties since the acquisition of Pixar in 2006. If Williams is nominated, it’ll be interesting to see which of the possible Disney candidates for CEO he will favor, as Bob Iger is set to retire in 2026.
RubberBandGames’ brand new game, Wobbly Life, is being developed into both film and TV adaptations. The game follows a yellow wobbly guy exploring a weird wobbly world. Garnering millions of players and a major YouTube Let’s Play presence. Much like the open-ended aspect of the game, there is a lot you can do with this. Game Trailer.
New Deals:
Saladin Patterson (Producer - Psych) has renewed his deal with 20th Television and 20th Television Animation, continuing as EP and showrunner of Hulu’s revived King of the Hill. The series’ return generated major Nielsen success and strong reviews. Giving Hank Hill a new, more modern Arlen to complain about and then learn about. Alongside this, Patterson is developing additional Disney projects.
Alex Convery (Producer/ Writer - Air) and Justin Lin (Fast and Furious) are developing a Starz drama about famous baseball player Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, whose gambling-fueled theft scandal derailed Ohtani’s rise. Mizuhara pled guilty to bank and tax fraud, received nearly five years in prison, and faces possible deportation.
The Atlantic has struck a first-look film and TV deal with RedBird Capital’s Prologue Entertainment (prod: Netflix’s Zero Day), giving them access to adapt the magazine’s entire library into scripted and unscripted projects. The move opens a new chapter for The Atlantic’s storytelling legacy. Atlantic follows suit with many news outlets licensing their library of content.
Exec changes:
Former Peacock exec Annie Luo is named AMC Networks’ new president of streaming growth. The newly created role comes at a time when the network is seeing its primary revenue source coming from its streaming services (AMC+, Shudder, Sundance Now, Acorn TV).
Allen Media Group has hired longtime TelevisaUnivision ad-sales veteran John Kozack as Chief Revenue Officer, just as TelevisaUnivision sees top distribution exec Adam Waltuch exit after four years as EVP of Global Distribution & Partnerships.
Former Discovery & Change Content exec Julie Meisner Eagle has joined Pioneer Productions (Elton John: Touched by Gold) as EVP of Production and Development to lead the company’s U.S. expansion and steer new projects across genres, growing their international footprint.
Release Date:
Kino Lorber’s Jimpa
Premiere: Sundance
Cast: Olivia Colman, John Lithgow
LA Release: Feb 6th (national rollout follows)
Trailer:
HBO Max’s The Pitt
Release: Jan 8th
Mubi’s Sound of Falling
Official Selection Cannes
Release: Jan 16
Neon and Universal’s EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert
Release: Feb 20 (IMAX)
Kismet’s Holy Days (NZ nun comedy)
A24 and Apple TV+’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Release: April 15
The Deb
Director/Co-Star: Rebel Wilson
Release: Jan 15
No trailer yet, but Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey will have a 6-minute trailer at Imax screenings of Avatar 3.
First Look:
Prime’s Young Sherlock
Release: 2026
A24’s The Drama
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zendaya
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
From one legendary franchise to the next, Sigourney Weaver is in talks to join the Tomb Raider universe for Prime Video. The highly anticipated new take on the adventure video game has already cast Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) as the badass explorer Lara Croft and has Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) writing and producing in what she described as a “passion project”.
From leading one of the greatest sci-fi sagas as Ripley in Alien (1979, clip, 86, 92, 97) to the Ghostbusters’ first client in Ghostbusters (1984), and once again as the pioneering, sympathetic scientist in the upcoming third installment, Avatar: Fire & Ash, Weaver’s legacy of blockbuster roles may continue sooner than expected.
While her specific part is unknown, Amazon MGM has set January 19th as Tomb Raider’s current production start date.
David Dastmalchian (The Dark Knight, Ant-Man) will star as the sadistic creator of a lethal VR horror game in the film Kill Screen, opposite Ella Balinska (Charlie’s Angels).
Dastmalchian’s recent turn toward horror has been delightful, with Late Night with the Devil and the upcoming The Cure. A confessed horror film fan, it’s amazing to see the man in his element.
Look, Dastmalchian can be a bit unsettling at times, even in comedy roles, it adds to his character. But with Devil, we got to see him really let loose, and things got really sinister.
Directed by Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) from a script by Gus Krieger (Old Henry), the film follows a woman searching for her missing sister inside a virtual reality nightmare where each level embodies a different horror subgenre. Dying in the game means dying in real life, forcing the group to outthink Dastmalchian’s character to survive.
An evil nerd with a god complex, and a huge horror playground, just waiting for someone dumb enough to press “start”.
Universal Pictures’ One Night Only is becoming quite the female-led ensemble. With Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown) and Callum Turner (Masters of the Air) playing strangers desperate for someone to sleep with on the one night premarital sex is legal, new cast additions include:
Maya Hawke (Stranger Things)
Julia Fox (Uncut Gems)
Ziwe (The Studio)
Este Haim (Licorice Pizza)
King Princess (Nine Perfect Strangers)
One Night Only is set to premiere Aug. 7th. Oh, and this was our top Blacklist film last year.
Mini Tidbits:
Eva Longoria’s newest directorial venture, The Fifth Wheel for Netflix, adds some heavy hitters to its cast. Comedians Nikki Glaser (Trainwreck) and Fortune Feimster (The Mindy Project), and Running Point’s Brenda Song are joining Kim Kardashian in the comedy following a group of best friends who reconnect during a weekend in Vegas.
Who better than major ‘90s heartthrob John Stamos to join the hottest show of the 2020s? The Uncle Jesse actor is joining season two of Netflix’s The Hunting Wives in an undisclosed role. Alongside Stamos, Dale Dickey (Winter’s Bone) and Cam Gigandet (The O.C.) are joining. Filming started late last month.
Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt is ending her production company, Insight Pictures, just two years after signing an exclusive first-look deal with MGM. The Mobland actress is leaving the company to focus solely on her acting career.
FX’s newest limited thriller series, Cry Wolf, adds Alyvia Alyn Lind (Chucky) to its cast alongside Oscar winners Olivia Colman and Brie Larson. The story revolves around allegations of abuse from Lind’s teenage character and how her mother (Larson) copes with the help of a social worker (Colman).
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
The 2025 Blacklist is here. Curated from over 500 film executives’ top ten screenplay picks of the most liked, unproduced scripts.
Here’s a full breakdown of our favorites: https://theindustry.co/p/the-black-list-2025
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Divide/Conquer (Heart Eyes) has inked a first-look deal with Blumhouse-Atomic Monster. Their first project under the pact is Doomtown, a high-concept survival horror film, with a script that James Wan absolutely loved.
This has been a beautiful collaboration and a decade-long relationship that began when Jason Blum mentored the founders at Sundance.
Divide/Conquer and Blumhouse have collaborated on projects like Freaky (trailer), Black Phone 2, M3GAN, and Totally Killer. The new deal aims to grow both companies’ genre slates and support the rising filmmakers.
Tidbits:
The Bear’s own chef, Matty Matheson’s chaotic cooking series Just A Dash, moves from YouTube to Netflix. All three seasons, including a road trip for the new Season 3, with no kitchen or plan. Matheson has a bizarre sense of humor and a big heart; things get fairly unhinged in the loosest frame of a cooking show. Matheson is also set to return to his role as Fak in the new season of The Bear. Check out Season 3’s trailer here.
Neon (Anora) and nonprofit UFO…
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