Brad Pitt + A24
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Brad Pitt’s search, Joseph Kosinski’s vice, and a Peasant.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Brad Pitt will star in Edward Berger’s The Riders for A24.
Joseph Kosinski directs a Miami Vice reboot for Universal.
Hulu orders horror-thriller series Stillwater from Greg Berlanti and Skybound.
Ben Foster stars in the absurdist Old West buddy comedy The Stalemate.
Orlando Bloom joins Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard.
Emmy winner Anna Sawai joins Amazon MGM’s How to Rob a Bank.
Miles Teller to star in romantic sports drama Winter Games at Paramount.
Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong join the Cannes 2025 jury.
François Ozon adapts Camus’ The Stranger with Denis Lavant for Gaumont.
Dev Patel to write, direct, and star in medieval revenge epic The Peasant.
Sally Potter’s Alma stars Pamela Anderson and Dakota Fanning.
Souleymane’s Story picked up by Kino Lorber for U.S. release August 1.
Jenna Ortega to direct her first feature from an original script.
Shout! Studios launching Hong Kong Cinema Classics 4K label this summer.
Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon to step down.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Brad Pitt + A24. Pitt will star in The Riders. The talent on the project is impressive:
Dir: Edward Berger (Conclave, All Quiet on the Western Front)
Lead: Brad Pitt
Writer: David Kajganich (Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All)
Prod Co: Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment
Prod Co: Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions
Financing/Worldwide Distributor: A24
Here’s the synopsis, based on the novel:
An Australian living in Ireland embarks on a frantic search for his missing wife.
This is the first indie film Pitt has starred in over a decade, with the last being Weinstein Company’s Killing Them Softly (2012). He is the biggest star ever to appear in an A24 film, representing a major milestone for the studio, which also has an upcoming film with Dwayne Johnson (The Smashing Machine).
Berger is one of the hottest directors on the market right now, following a hot streak of great cinema:
4 Oscar wins for his foreign-language film All Quiet on the Western Front
Conclave was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning Best Adapted Screenplay
Wrapped: The Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton for Netflix
Next film: 20th Century’s time travel film starring Austin Butler, The Barrier.
But there are no overnight success stories. Berger started as an assistant working for Ted Hope’s company, Good Machine, in the 90s.
The Riders will shoot early 2026.
From fighter jets to racecars to UFOs to cops. Joseph Kosinski (Dir: Top Gun 2, F1) will direct a Miami Vice film based on the ‘80s undercover cops TV show.
The talent is insane:
Dir: Kosinski
Writer: Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler, Andor)
First Draft: Eric Warren Singer* (Top Gun: Maverick, American Hustle)
Prod: Kosinski + Dylan Clark (The Batman, Carry On, Oblivion)
Studio: Universal
Status: In development
NBC’s Miami Vice (1984-1990) was a show that redefined the TV landscape. It was highly violent, with constant large-scale shootouts happening regularly. There was a high-octane nature to the speed of the action, the car chases, the synthesizers blasting on the soundtrack, and the neon-drenched Miami landscape (original trailer).
All elements are ripe for Kosinski, who does speed with style and heart. It’ll be interesting for him to take on a more terrestrial project after his upcoming UFO film.
*As an interesting side note, Eric Warren Singer’s cousin just sued Paramount over the claim that he helped write Top Gun 2.
Hulu orders EP/co-writer Greg Berlanti’s Stillwater, a horror thriller series based on the Skybound comic by legendary comic writer Chip Zdarsky and others. Stillwater follows ex-con Daniel West, who arrives in a mysterious town where no one ages, dies, or leaves. Produced by Berlanti Productions, Skybound Entertainment, and Warner Bros. TV, Stillwater is Berlanti’s first writing credit since Superman & Lois in 2021. Alongside his partnership with Amazon and Skybound, he also recently co-wrote Foster Dade based on Nash Jenkins' novel. A triumphant return for a writer who was really impressed with his grounded take on Superman & Lois (2021).
Tidbits:
New Line snaps up new spec script, Cut Outs. No plot details have been revealed, but it's a sci-fi thriller produced by BoulderLight (Companion, Barbarian). Written by Isaac Louis García (writer’s assistant: Max’s Duster).
New Regency is developing a drama series, Dead Calm, based on the 1989 film starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, and Billy Zane (trailer). Matthew Weiner (creator: Mad Men) is scripting.
The 1999 US soccer team win is the subject of a new Netflix feature, The 99’ers.
Trailer for FX’s Welcome to Wrexham Season 4. Premiere: May 15th.
Season 2 renewal: BET+’s Diarra From Detroit.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Ben Foster’s wacky western. Foster, who was wildly unhinged in Hell or High Water (trailer), stars in an absurdist western, The Stalemate.
Synopsis:
A sheriff (Foster) and robber (Manny Jacinto) exhaust their ammunition during a pursuit in the Old West. Far from civilization, they're forced to negotiate their way out of their endless chase.
This buddy comedy is juicy for Foster, who can take his nothing-to-lose modern cowboy type and push it to infinity.
From first-time feature director/writer Nicholas Arioli. Shooting in New Mexico.
Orlando Bloom is an indie film darling. Bloom, who has been fairly off-compass since Pirates of the Caribbean 3, is starring in two indies:
Dir/Wri: Werner Herzog
New Cast: Bloom + Domhnall Gleeson
Previously announced: Rooney and Kate Mara
Sales Rep: HanWay Films (Shame, La Cocina)
Synopsis:
The film is based on the true story of inseparable twin sisters Joan and Jean, who live on the fringes of society.
Bloom will play the sisters' rowdy ex-lover.
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean
Prod: Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed, Jurassic World)
Premiere: Tribeca
Logline:
A down-on-their-luck trio of wannabe improv comedians are recruited to go undercover and bust petty criminals.
He had a rich pride as Will Turner in the Pirates films that we can’t wait to see him bust out of.
Following her breakout success in Shōgun, Emmy winner Anna Sawai has joined Nicholas Hoult and Pete Davidson in Amazon MGM Studios’ How to Rob a Bank, directed by David Leitch (Bullet Train).
Ocean’s 11-style logline:
A group of savvy bank robbers that use social media to document their heists, playing a cat and mouse game with police.
Sawai continues her career momentum post Emmy with upcoming roles in (Saint) Peter and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season. It will be exciting to see what she does with this one.
Tidbits:
Miles Teller will star in Paramount’s upcoming film Winter Games, reuniting him with the studio behind Top Gun: Maverick and producers Tim and Trevor White (King Richard, A24’s Eternity). Teller, who has continued to build his Maverick momentum with recent acclaimed performances in Paramount+’s The Offer (2022) and Spiderhead (2022), will also produce the romantic sports drama set during the Winter Olympics. Teller plays a hockey legend in a chaotic romance with another fellow Olympian. Winter Games is currently in production.
First, there was Fire Country; now we have Sheriff Country. In the CBS spinoff, Matt Lauria (CSI: Vegas) is set to play Boone, a tough deputy and longtime partner of Morena Baccarin’s (Homeland) straight-shooting sheriff Mickey Fox. The network crime drama is set to premiere this fall.
Bradley Whitford (West Wing) joins Universal’s Reminders of Him alongside Maika Monroe. The Colleen Hoover adaptation follows a mother seeking redemption after prison.
FESTIVALS
Cannes Jury 2025, chaired by Juliette Binoche:
Halle Berry
Jeremy Strong
Payal Kapadia (dir: All We Imagine as Light)
Hong Sangsoo (dir: A Traveler’s Need starring Isabelle Huppert)
Alba Rohrwacher (actress: Maria, La Chimera)
Leïla Slimani (French-Moroccan writer)
Dieudo Hamadi (Dir: Cannes Official Selection 2020 doc Downstream to Kinshasa)
Carlos Reygadas (4-time Cannes filmmaker)
Cannes winners announced Saturday, May 24th.
Cannes Market:
The Marshmallow Experiment
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Johnny Knoxville
Prod co/Finance: Big Picture Cinema Group
North America Sales Rep: UTA
International Sales Rep: Essential Film Group
Synopsis:
For Alex, making it through high school as a socially awkward teen is hard enough. Trying to survive while having an insatiable online porn addiction makes it even harder. Or as it turns out , not hard enough.
The Stranger
Dir: François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Young and Beautiful)
Cast: Denis Lavant (Lovers on the Bridge, Holy Moters), Swann Arlaud (Anatomy of a Fall)
Based on Albert Camus’ The Stranger.
International Sales Rep: Gaumont
We couldn’t be more excited for this, not least of which because Lavant is the greatest living actor.
Full Cannes Market + a new project starring Marion Cotillard:
https://theindustry.co/p/cannes-market-2025
Mini Tidbits:
Alexander Payne has been named the Jury President of the 2025 Venice Film Festival. The fest runs Aug 27 - Sept 6.
The President’s Cake (Cannes Directors’ Fortnight) was boarded by sales rep Films Boutique (The Seed of the Sacred Fig).
Berlin 2026 will run from February 12 - 22nd.
Sundance selects its 2025 fellows for the Native Labs. The projects are wonderfully ethereal.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Dev Patel back in the director's chair: With his frenetic revenger Monkey Man impressed enough to earn him another shot behind the camera.
It looks like writing, directing, producing, and starring is Patel's chosen path forward. His newest film, The Peasant, is the next in that journey.
Described as Braveheart meets John Wick, the new film is set in 1300s feudal India and follows a shepherd who wages a brutal campaign against mercenary knights who razed his village. Sounds a bit insane and full of action, pretty much on par with Monkey Man, just as a time period piece.
Originally on the 2023 Black List and once set in Italy, the project has been reimagined by Patel and writer Will Dunn into a high-octane, mythic Indian saga intended to launch a franchise.
Renowned British filmmaker Sally Potter’s latest indie feature Alma is led by some big names like Golden Globe nominees Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl) and Dakota Fanning, and About Time’s Lindsay Duncan.
With no specific roles yet disclosed, the story follows a family coming together to scatter the ashes of their mother, only to find that her continued haunting presence explosively and comically unravels the secrets of their lives.
Alma, Potter’s first film in over five years, sounds to be a more grounded, intimate, and personal story compared to some of her past, more experimental works. Films like her beloved Virginia Woolf adaptation Orlando (1992, scene) or the semi-autobiographical half-narrative, half-documentary The Tango Lesson (1997) were fantastical and highly stylized, dealing with topics far more out there than a family conflict.
Backside Films (Your Monster) has boarded Alma for worldwide sales ahead of this year’s Cannes Festival. The dramedy film is currently in pre-production and set to start shooting in England this fall.
Kino Lorber picks up Souleymane’s Story (Cannes Un Certain Regard, Best Actor/Jury Prize) for US/Canada distribution.
Synopsis:
A Paris food delivery cyclist and asylum seeker named Souleymane has two days to prepare his story for a make-or-break interview to secure legal residency.
Trailer. Theatrical release: August 1st. Supported by Canal+.
Tidbits:
XYZ Films has appointed Guy Danella, a former executive at 87North and Studio 8, as President of Film. His credits include Violent Night, Love Hurts, and The Trip. Danella will oversee the acquisition and production of high-end genre films for theatrical release.
Greenwich Entertainment has acquired Omaha, which premiered at Sundance in the US Dramatic Competition section. The film follows a father who road-trips across the country with his two children after their home is foreclosed on after the market crash of 2008. Slated for theatrical release later this year.
Indie group, Linden Productions, is attached to adapt The Darkest White with Riva Marker (The Guilty), former founding partner of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories Productions, on board to produce. The book by bestselling author Eric Blehm recounts the true and inspiring story of Craig Kelly, also known as the Godfather of Snowboarding, who significantly contributed to the growth of the sport to what it is today.
Jenna Ortega is stepping behind the director’s chair. The Wednesday, Death of a Unicorn actress will direct an original script that she wrote. No word on plot or shoot dates.
Actors Jamie Dornan (Belfast, Fifty Shades of Grey) and Conor MacNeill (Industry) launch Blackthorn Films, a company rooted in Northern Ireland’s rugged soul. Their mission: to craft indigenous stories that reject cliché, embracing the strange, the scarred, and the fiercely alive.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Channel 4’s first-ever female CEO, Alex Mahon, is officially stepping down. Officially leaving the U.K. major broadcaster in the summer, COO Jonathan Allan will serve as the interim CEO until a replacement is found. Mahon has transformed Channel 4 into a digital-first public service streamer, saying:
“What we get to do here is much more than just television or film because we reflect our country with humor, creativity, grit, and care.”
The Poor Things banner is undergoing a comprehensive recruitment process over the coming months.
Tidbits:
ITV Studios (Love Island, Coronation Street) is apparently in talks with French production and distribution giant Banijay (Peaky Blinders, MasterChef). The UK network has been among the most acquisitive independent TV makers in recent years, with this new deal either being a full-on takeover or just as their more lucrative production wing.
A true rags-to-riches story, Barbara Taylor Bradford’s A Woman of Substance is getting its own remake with Channel 4. The two-time Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn (Pride and Prejudice) will play the incredibly resilient Emma Harte, and emerging actress Jessica Reynolds (Outlander) is portraying the younger version of the iconic character in the new series. The remake comes 40 years after Channel 4’s three-part television drama (trailer) aired for one season, with the new version just beginning production.
Shout! Studios is launching a Hong Kong Cinema Classics label, starting with 4K restorations of major Kung Fu titles like Hard Boiled, City on Fire, and The Killer on June 24. Physical releases kick off July 29 with The Jet Li Collection. The move follows Shout!'s acquisition of the Golden Princess film library earlier this year.
Vue Lumière, headed up by Film London Board of Directors Eve Gabereau, acquires one of my Sundance favorites, The Thing with Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, for the UK/Ireland. Releasing later this year.
Sony will release Mamoru Hosoda’s animated film Scarlet on December 12. Co-financed with Studio Chizu and Nippon TV, it follows a brave princess transcending time and space.
ON THIS DAY
1957. Daniel Day-Lewis born in London.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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