Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Hulu’s Predator. Corsica’s Godfather. A wilted dream.
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Amazon MGM Studios is adapting the rom-com novel 69 Million Things I Hate About You into a film.
Paramount Pictures will rocket The Angry Birds Movie 3 into theaters 2027.
Hulu's animated Predator: Killer of Killers looks like a bloody romp.
SK Global (Anyone But You) has hired Elizabeth Haggard as SVP of Feature Film.
Netflix enlists Washington veteran Clete Williams as Chief of Global Affairs.
Robert Pattinson is in talks to portray villainous shapeshifter Scytale in Dune 3.
Danielle Deadwyler (Till, The Piano Lesson) will develop, produce, and star in The Street, an adaptation of a 1946 masterwork.
Alexandra Daddario is set to star in a Hershey’s founder biopic by director Mark Waters (Mean Girls).
Lionsgate’s Karoshi, a corporate thriller with a samurai twist, has added Takehiro Hira (Shōgun).
The Cannes Corsican gangster film, The Kingdom, will release theatrically in May.
Daniel Battsek has been named President of Film at Lincoln Center.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning will premiere at Cannes.
Kelly O'Sullivan & Alex Thompson (dir: Sundance’s Ghostlight) are back with, Mouse.
Emma Stone’s production company, Fruit Tree (A Real Pain), has acquired an untitled teen comedy spec script.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Be careful what you wish for… The bestselling 2017 romantic comedy novel 69 Million Things I Hate About You is getting adapted into a feature at Amazon MGM Studios with Premeditated Productions producing per their three-year first-look film deal.
Official Synopsis:
A trio of overworked friends who hit the lottery and decide to exact hilarious revenge on their unbearable boss before walking away. But when he flips the script, sparks fly, alliances shift, and romance unexpectedly takes center stage.
This will mark the first feature based on author Kira Archer’s three dozen contemporary romance novels, with other film adaptations in the works. The writing duo of Nick Cion and Annie Harnick (Netflix’s Freeridge) will pen the script.
Paramount Pictures will rocket The Angry Birds Movie 3 into theaters in 2027. A major win for fans of the now 16-year-old phone game. The two previous films grossed over $500M worldwide. Most of the star-studded cast will return: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Rachel Bloom, and Danny McBride will return, joined by Keke Palmer, Lily James, and Psalm West. Also returning is the team from Angry Birds 2, directed by John Rice with a screenplay by Thurop Van Orman. Something to look forward to in 2027.
Angry Birds 2 clip.
Predator killing through history: Hulu's animated Predator: Killer of Killers looks like a bloody romp through time. The unique art style reminiscent of Arcane is splashed with ultra-violence as predators fight Samurai and Vikings and dogfight with American fighter planes. Ever since the original Predator movie ended with its victor being given a flintlock, it was hinted that our earth and their history had been combined for some time. Very cool to see what Hulu is doing with this IP. Releasing on Hulu and Disney + June 6th. Trailer here.
Tidbits:
SK Global (Prod company: Anyone But You, Crazy Rich Asians) has hired Elizabeth Haggard as SVP of Feature Film. She previously served as SVP of Narrative Film for Participant (Spotlight, Green Book). After the unexpected shuttering of Participant, it’s nice to see employees finding a home. Just yesterday, Adina Luo (former director of Buis Dev) became COO of Antigravity Academy (prod co: Dìdi).
Netflix enlists Washington veteran Clete Williams as Chief of Global Affairs. Williams will architect the team’s global policy strategy as Netflix operates in 190 countries. Williams has served for both Obama and Trump as a deputy assistant for international economics and legal adviser and chief counsel at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.
Mini Tidbits:
Love, Death and Robots returns May 15 on Netflix with ten new animated shorts mixing sci-fi, horror, and humor. These little vignettes have been a wonderful way to tell big stories in small packages and, at times, push the medium to new heights. Trailer here.
AITA Films, behind Angels In The Asylum starring Simon Pegg, has entered UK administration, similar to chapter 11 bankruptcy, after running out of funds mid-shoot. Owing £600,000+ to crew, the company hopes restructuring will allow debt repayment and film completion despite disputed financing issues.
Robert Pattinson is in talks to portray the villainous shapeshifter Scytale in Denis Villeneuve's upcoming Dune 3, adapting Frank Herbert's Dune: Messiah. Villeneuve was originally going to let another director tackle the ending of his trilogy, but recently, he announced that he would be directing after all.
Renewals:
Paramount+’s Colin From Accounts (for Season 3).
Redbox Bankruptcy Sale! Learn about the epic saga here:
https://theindustry.co/p/redbox-bankruptcy-sale
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Danielle Deadwyler’s A Thousand and One. Deadwyler (Till, The Piano Lesson) will develop, produce, and star in The Street, an adaptation of a 1946 novel considered a masterwork.
Synopsis:
Lutie Johnson (Deadwyler), a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.
Deadwyler stated:
“The Street has quaked my understanding of motherhood, Black and American family life experiences on how to just get by (historically), and the festering emotions that seed alongside the wilted optimism and dark hope of the American Dream.”
We love this role for her, which shares DNA with her breakthrough feature, playing the titular role as educator, activist, and mother Mamie Till-Mobley in gut-wrenching true story drama Till (2022, trailer).
This one has resonances of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning A Thousand and One, which starred Teyana Taylor raising her son in Harlem in the 90s. Watch the trailer, it tore my heart into a thousand and one pieces.
Give me some Sugar. Shea Whigham (MI7) and Sasha Calle (In The Summers, The Flash) join Season 2 of Apple TV+’s Sugar starring Colin Farrell. The first season played like noir, but it was sci-fi. Looks like Whigham will be a government agent helping Farrell investigate. Well, if you haven’t seen the first season, what they’re investigating is a major spoiler. We love Whingham, whose gravelly voice beyond his years delivers just the right dose of intensity and drugidty (explore him briefing his team on Ethan Hunt - MI:7 clip). Calle is extraordinary in the Sundance US Grand Dramtic Jury Prize-winning In the Summers as a dispassionate daughter who is callosed over after a lack of love from her father (trailer). She will play a hustler. No word on release date for Season 2.
Alexandra Daddario’s Willy Wonka. The White Lotus Season 2 actress (and beyond!) is set to star in Hershey, a film about the creators of the Hershey’s chocolate empire. She and Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story) will play Kitty and Milton Hershey, who, in addition to creating a chocolate empire, have done some wonderful philanthropic work. Daddario’s charm is being able to switch from sweet to bitter at a moment’s notice. Look how she excels in this White Lotus scene against a very entitled Sydney Sweeney (clip).
Mark Waters (dir: Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) will direct. We’re excited to see where he takes this love story between Wittrock and Daddario. Shooting kicks off in May and will be released in 2026.
Tidbits:
Adults: FX’s Adults, a Gen Z New Girl, casts Ray Nicholson, Julia Fox (Uncut Gems), and Charlie Cox (Daredevil) as guest stars. Ever since Friends or How I Met Your Mother, every generation has to have a light-hearted comedy about learning to be responsible. No word on who they will play, but Nicholson has his father’s maniacal charm, displayed in full force as the villain in Novicaine. Adults premieres May 28th. Clip.
Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter) joins Barry Keoghan and Riley Keough in Butterfly Jam, Kantemir Balagov’s English-language debut. Set in New Jersey’s Circassian community, the film follows a teen torn between wrestling dreams and helping at his family’s diner. After a failed scheme, he confronts harsh truths and forced maturity.
Lionsgate’s Karoshi, a corporate thriller with a samurai twist, has added Takehiro Hira to its cast alongside Past Lives’ Teo Yoo, Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, and 1923 actress Isabel May. In America, Hira is best known as the former peasant turned powerful Japanese warlord in FX’s Shogun. Production on Karoshi will begin this June.
FESTIVALS
Writer-director Julien Colonna’s debut feature film The Kingdom, which premiered at Cannes, has set a release date. The crime-saga-turned-coming-of-age film, is being compared to legendary mob films like The Godfather (1972).
Official synopsis:
Lesia, a teenager, is taken by a man to a villa where her fugitive father and his men are hiding. A war erupts, leading to death and a chase where father and daughter bond.
The photographer and now filmmaker Julien Colonna offers an authentic experience of his native home, Corsica, the film taking place in the 90s when the island’s rampant organized crime escalated immensely. Trailer. Metrograph releases on May 30th.
Daniel Battsek has been named President of Film at Lincoln Center. Battsek is the former Chairman of Film4, leading production on Poor Things and The Zone of Interest. Starting May 1, he’ll oversee FLC’s programming, strategic growth, and year-round initiatives, including NYFF. At Film4, he served as the production executive on The Banshees of Inisherin and All of Us Strangers. At Miramax from 2005-2010, he greenlit/aquired There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. It’ll be interesting to see how he expands FLC’s cultural footprint and global reach.
Tidbits:
Confirmed! Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning will premiere at Cannes, out of competition, on May 14. The film will be released by Paramount May 23rd. More details on the full cinematic experience here.
Venice Film Festival announced Wener Herzog will receive an honorary Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.
Venice Director stated:
“Herzog constantly crosses the planet Earth pursuing hitherto unseen images, testing our ability to look, challenging us to grasp what lies beyond the appearance of reality, and probing the limits of filmic representation in an unflagging search for a higher, ecstatic truth and new sensorial experiences.”
Need evidence? Check out the doc for Burden of Dreams (trailer). Eat your shoe. We love you, Herzog.
Diego Luna will host The Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards presentation on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Kelly O'Sullivan & Alex Thompson, directors of Sundance’s Ghostlight, are back with a new film, Mouse.
Synopsis:
When seventeen-year old Minnie's best friend Callie is killed in an accident, she struggles to find an identity of her own and forms a complicated friendship with Callie's grieving mother.
O'Sullivan and Thompson are able to portray emotional maturation from closed-down characters in the most sublime of ways. Take Ghostlight (trailer), which shows a construction worker using theater as a sacred space where he is allowed to unleash his dormant emotional life.
We think Mouse will be great. Production has wrapped and they’re hoping for a festival debut.
From Western to Samurai Western. John Maclean (dir: A24’s Slow West) is directing his sophomore feature, Tornado. It stars Tim Roth and Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden.
Here’s the official synopsis:
A young Japanese girl finds herself in a dangerous situation when she and her father's puppet show cross paths with a gang of criminals led by Sugarman (Roth) and his ambitious son, Little Sugar.
The trailer paints this as a somewhat cut and dry story, however, the tone of his Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Slow West was so unique. A coming-of-age Western that functioned as a slow-burn surreal comedy.
IFC Films releases. No word on when.
Sundance Audience award winner Twinless (U.S. Dramatic Competition) is in talks to sell to…
Your Industry news journey doesn’t have to stop here. If you were Daniel Craig investigating a murder, you’d need all the clues hiding behind this paywall.
Details like an undiscovered Cate Blanchett film getting a release.
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