Casey Affleck Spaces Out
Shawn Levy Never Lies. Skydance Animation is Spellbound, Bulgarian Borat and The Man Who Loved UFOs.
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Shawn Levy Never Lies. Skydance Animation is Spellbound, Bulgarian Borat, and The Man Who Loved UFOs.
Let’s go!
Casey Affleck goes sci-fi. The veteran actor is venturing into space in the upcoming Slingshot.
Here’s the official synopsis:
An elite trio of astronauts (Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and The Boy’s Tomer Capone) aboard a years-long, possibly compromised mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut (Affleck) to maintain his grip on reality.
In the trailer, Casey Affleck comes completely undone.
He reaches a level of mania and hallucinations that unbound him from his typical realism, as in his brilliant and Oscar-winning portrayal of a father whose kids have [SPOILER]. Here’s the iconic Manchester by the Sea clip with Michelle Williams.
Affleck is no foreigner to appearing in sci-fi films, although this is the first time he’s gone above the stratosphere.
Specifically, those of Christopher Nolan, appearing as Jessica Chastain’s obtuse brother, masking his pain of losing a child in Interstellar (clip) and as the sociopathic army official in Oppenheimer who seems ready to strangle Cillian Murphy when told that vital information may be leaking (clip).
We’re excited to see Affleck take his performance to new heights.
Slingshot is in theaters on August 30th.
For More:
Slingshot trailer.
Another Nolan veteran, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception), plays a charmingly uninhibited officer:
https://theindustry.co/p/cate-blanchetts-trial-joseph-gordon
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Shawn Levy, Never Lies:
Fresh off the record-breaking weekend of Deadpool and Wolverine becoming the highest-earning R-rated film, Director Shawn Levy is partnering with Netflix to adapt Freida McFadden's best-selling novel Never Lie.
The story follows a newlywed couple trapped in a remote manor during a blizzard, where the wife discovers audio tapes of a missing psychiatrist's sessions, including one with a familiar-sounding sociopath.
Levy's 21 Laps Entertainment has a history of adaptations with Netflix. Levy also produced and directed All the Light We Can Not See, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. 21 Laps now also has a deep partnership and first-look deal with Netflix. Among the planned projects are The Perfect Couple and Season 5 of Stranger Things.
We are on to you Spellbound:
Coming through Netflix's multi-year partnership with Skydance Animation, the small but mighty department will soon be releasing Spellbound. Claiming major accolades (Producers: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Director: Shrek).
The teaser has a bit of that early Pixar magic. A teenager's princess' (Rachel Zegler) parents have turned into monsters (literally), and she is ignited on a magical journey to turn them back before they are stuck in their new forms forever.
Besides having a stacked cast, Nathan Lane stands out as an Oracle of the Moon.
Spellbound is following a particularly worrying trend that most recently afflicted Wonka by disguising that it is, in fact, a musical. Though it isn't surprising if you notice that nearly all of the cast has a voice—just take a look at Oracle of the Sun, Titus Burgess.
Sadly, the trailer doesn't include the promised original Alan Menken score but rather a very safe cut of Journeys: Don't Stop Believing.
Even without a Broadway flair, the animation looks great and seems like a nice family movie. Out November 22nd.
But under its surface is the bubbling of the potential Paramount merger with rumors of Netflix not loving the deal. Half of Netflix’s original animated feature output is by Skydance Animation productions. But the arrangement has frustrated in-house Netflix Animation filmmakers, with Netflix expected to take on the brunt of the production and marketing costs.
The Redstone Skydance deal is still in fluctuation, with a former shareholder taking legal action and yet another potential counteroffer from Edgar Bronfman Jr.
Netflix is exploring investor interest for its first investment-grade bond sale to refinance $1.8 bn of upcoming maturities (e.g., a debt offering).
This marks Netflix's first offering since its upgrade from junk status in March 2023. Both Moody's and S&P recently elevated Netflix's ratings further into investment grade, citing significant revenue growth and improved margins. S&P upgraded Netflix to A from BBB+.
Netflix plans to use the proceeds to refinance existing debt due within the next year and fund general corporate purposes, including a $500 M annual WWE partnership and NFL games on Christmas Day.
The new debt offerings include $1 bn at 4.90% due in 2034 and $800 M at 5.4% due in 2054.
With around $14 bn in total debt, Netflix has less debt than some other media companies:
$47.7 bn - Disney
$43.2 bn - Warner Bros
$14.6 bn - Paramount
Netflix is maintaining a stable outlook and expected revenue growth of 10% to 15% over the next two years, driven by a higher subscriber base, price increases, and advertising revenue. However, ad revenue has been off to a slower-than-expected start, as evidenced by their VP of ad sales exiting the company:
https://theindustry.co/p/exec-moves-and-signed-talent-725
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Netflix’s new festive romcom Champagne Problems stars Euphoria actress Minka Kelly.
From writer-director Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider), the Friday Night Lights actress will play a mergers and acquisitions executive who heads to France just ahead of Christmas to finalize a deal for a beloved champagne brand. However, the situation gets complicated when she begins a whirlwind romance with a Parisian stranger who just happens to be the son of the champagne company’s founder.
So Emily in Paris + Champagne?
The film’s release information and additional cast details are set to be announced at a later date.
John Carroll Lynch (American Horror Story) has joined Amazon's expanding Bosch universe, playing Thomas Laffont, a retired detective helping Renée Ballard (Maggie Q) run the LAPD's cold case division in the untitled third series of the franchise.
Original Bosch trailer
Bosch: Legacy
Lynch will be a welcome addition to the cast. It will be interesting to see him play a detective, something he hasn't done since 2011's Body of Proof.
The new not yet titled series should arrive later on in 2025.
Cate Blanchett is great at hiding.
She plays the lead in Apple TV+’s upcoming series Disclaimer, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Roma, Gravity, Children of Men).
Here’s the official synopsis:
https://theindustry.co/p/cate-blanchetts-trial-joseph-gordon
And a write-up on how her new character shares DNA with Tár.
FESTIVALS AND INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
The Locarno Film Festival’s official selection features a unique gangster film, Death Will Come.
Here’s the official synopsis (this part is less unique):
Tez kills for money. Charles Mahr, a legendary gangster, hires her to avenge the murder of one of his couriers. Once in Brussels, she gets caught up in the thicket of an intrigue in which she herself becomes the prey. Tez has to decide whose instrument she wants to be.
The director, Christoph Hochhäusler, stated:
“What fascinates me about gangster films: how directly you can speak of fate and death, circumventing the realisms of contemporary cinema. As a “modern form of tragedy” (J.-P. Melville) the genre playfully performs last “rites”.’
The trailer feels like something that has a hint of La Femme Nikita (1990) blended with The Bourne Supremacy (2004).
Locarno Film Festival runs August 7th - 17th.
The San Sebastián Competition just dropped their list of official selections, some of which are slated to play at other festivals (Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, Edward Berger’s Conclave and Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl are all playing at TIFF).
One of the entrants that caught my attention was The Man Who Loved UFOs.
Here’s the official synopsis:
1986. Journalist José de Zer and Chango, his cameraman, set out for La Candelaria (Córdoba) after receiving an unusual proposal from two shady characters. Arriving in the village, there’s nothing much to see, only a scorched field surrounded by hills. What happened next was the work of a genius in the art of exaggeration with a hidden talent: the ability to create the best-known audiovisual recording on the existence of alien presence in the history of Argentinian television.
This is director Diego Lerman’s 7th feature and his first backed by Netflix.
He stated:
“This film also explores a character who begins to lose his grip on reality, not in the sense of becoming unhinged, but in the sense of losing faith in what he believes or sees, and questioning whether it’s all a product of his imagination.”
Lerman’s previous film The Substitute (trailer), an official selection at TIFF has a tense verite that I believe will allow The Man Who Loved UFOs to not devolve into farce–although that could be fun.
San Sebastian Film Festival runs September 20th -28th.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Bulgarian trilogy that satirizes sensationalist local news stories into acidic dramas to conclude with a third film, Triumph (starring Borat 2’s Academy-nominated Maria Bakalova), at TIFF’s Platform section.
Official synopsis:
After the Fall of Communism in the early 1990s, a classified task force of high-rank Bulgarian Army officers led by a psychic channeler starts digging a hole in search of a mysterious artifact which will bring about the ultimate triumph.
The director, Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, stated:
“It is also a light-hearted look at an ominous future in which nationalist grandiose desires and military madness reverberate like an echo.”
Previous films in the trilogy are:
The Lesson (2014)
TIFF Premiere
Synopsis:
In a small Bulgarian town, Nadezhda, a young teacher, is looking for the robber in her class so she can teach him a lesson about right and wrong. But when she gets in debt to loan sharks, can she find the right way out herself?
Glory (2016)
Premiere: Locarno
Synopsis:
A reclusive Bulgarian railway trackman finds millions of cash spilled on the tracks and turns them into the police. When the transport ministry's head of PR, Julia Staikova, decides to use him as a diversion from a corruption scandal, his simple life falls victim to the grinder of bureaucracy.
There’s something wildly absurd about Glory that seems like the gold ticket of social satire, and I’ll be adding it to my watch list.
If you want to check out other great films on streaming, here’s our list of what’s coming out on streaming tomorrow:
ON THIS DAY
1962. Wesley Snipes (Blade), born in Orlando, Florida.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.