Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Catherine O’Hara RIP. Bedford Park SPC. Netflix RHCP.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
“Worry is but undernourished enthusiasm.” ~ Catherine O’Hara as Moira Rose.
On Friday morning, Catherine O’Hara passed away from a sudden illness at 71.
Just hours before I heard the news, I coincidentally watched the delightfully wacky Beetlejuice (1988). I’ve seen it countless times and can recite every line, yet it remains a comfort movie, and Catherine O’Hara is the heart and soul of it. As the deliciously unhinged, neurotic, artsy stepmother, she steals every scene, even when she’s not the focus.
Warm, electric, and utterly magnetic on screen, her talent was simply unparalleled.
For many, she was first introduced as the forgetful matriarch of the McCallister family in the holiday classic Home Alone (1990).
Her scream, so iconic, became permanently etched into the cultural zeitgeist, transcending the movie itself and living far beyond the holidays. Her onscreen son, Macaulay Culkin, was among the first to share a tribute:
“Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you but I had so much more to say,” he wrote. “I love you. I’ll see you later.”
She started on the sketch comedy series SCTV, where she would first collaborate with her frequent onscreen husband, Eugene Levy. Her role in Best in Show (2000) never gets old, her signature shrill voice, manic confidence, and frantic energy are outrageously over-the-top, in the funniest possible way.
From Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (1985) to Tim Burton’s claymation masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), O’Hara’s body of work is astonishingly vast.
She reunited with Levy almost a decade later to play the Emmy-winning, highly quotable, wig-obsessed Moira Rose for six seasons on Schitt’s Creek (2015-20).
Schitt’s felt like a sort of special resurgence in television for O’Hara, who just this past year starred in recurring roles in prestige series like HBO’s The Last of Us and Apple’s The Studio. The actress is even nominated for a SAG Award for her supporting role in the latter, as a sassy, legendary studio exec opposite Seth Rogen.
A comedic genius, O’Hara was so effortlessly hilarious. There will never be another like her, and her absence is already deeply felt.
For More:
Home Alone (1990) scream.
Best in Show (2000) scene.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) song.
Schitt’s Creek (2015-20) scene.
The Studio scene.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Sony Pictures Classics lands worldwide rights to Sundance’s Bedford Park.
Charter Communications posts Q4 gain: 12.6M video customers, +44K.
It Was Just an Accident co-writer Mehdi Mahmoudian arrested in Iran.
Maggie O’Farrell’s (wri: Hamnet) new novel, Land, acquired by Hamnet producers.
Blumhouse + Atomic Monster develop feature adaptation of Exorcism at 1600 Penn.
Fred Armisen will host CNN Originals series.
Bob Iger reportedly intends to exit Disney before contract ends in 2026.
Netflix dates a Red Hot Chili Peppers doc for March 20.
The Last of the Tribe adds Orlando Bloom opposite Ethan Hawke.
Josh Gad will star as Kurt Gerron in Gerron’s Last Film.
Theo Rossi leads Young Blood.
Demond Wilson (Sanford and Son) has died at 79.
Sundance winners: Josephine (U.S. Grand Jury Prize + Audience Award, Dramatic).
Ava DuVernay + Allen Media Group making King Vs. The United States of America.
Mediawan expands its global footprint by acquiring The North Road Company.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Sony Pictures Classics makes its second Sundance buy with Bedford Park for worldwide rights. Good timing, too, as the film just won the Jury Award for Debut Feature for a U.S. Drama.
Synopsis:
Two souls collide: a Korean American woman struggling with family expectations and her own aspirations, and an ex-wrestler haunted by his past. Their paths unexpectedly cross, leading to a transformative journey.
No word on release date. SPC previously picked up Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!
Charter, the leading U.S. pay-TV operator, sees a rare gain in Q4 2025:
12.6M total video customers
↑44K subs since last quarter
Charter literally cut its pay TV losses. As of one year ago, it lost 123K subs in Q4 2024.
Oscar-nominated Mehdi Mahmoudian (script collaborator on Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident) has been arrested in Iran.
Iran has consistently chosen to punish their filmmakers (Mohammad Rasoulof, dir: Seed of the Sacred Fig, was sentenced to eight years in prison). It’s important that the international community continue to support these artists and their work.
Tidbits:
Hamnet’s author Maggie O’Farrell is embracing her recent success by extending the partnership between her and the Best Picture nominee’s lead producer, Liza Marshall. The screen rights to her next novel, the unpublished Land, have been acquired by Marshall’s Hera Pictures. Themes of family and tragedy run deep through O’Farrell’s work and if Hamnet is any indication, this will be a very powerful project.
Just a perfect collaboration. Blumehouse + Atomic Monster is developing a feature adaptation of the supernatural comic book series The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, written by Hannah Rose May (upcoming Smile prequel). The thriller story follows the first female president of the U.S. balancing avoiding a WWIII while raising her two teenage daughters in a political hellscape.
Fred Armisen will host an untitled CNN Originals series offering rare access to Universal Music Group’s vast Iron Mountain archives. Produced with PolyGram Entertainment and TIME Studios, the show will explore unseen recordings, master tapes, photos, and artifacts, premiering later this year. I am surprised that other archives like this haven’t done something like this before, with their stock just picking up dust. I assume if this show succeeds, we might see more like it.
Mini Tidbit:
Bob Iger’s Departure
Red Hot Chili Peppers Netflix Doc
Steven Spielberg is an EGOT
All those mini tidbits and more here.
Renewals:
Netflix’s The Asset (S2)
Trailers:
20th Century Studios’ The Devil Wears Prada 2
Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci
Release: May 1
Dutch FilmWorks’ Between Brothers
Cast: Jonas Smulders (Sleepers), Waldemar Torenstra (Divorce)
Release: TBD
Release Dates:
Universal’s Fast & Furious 11
Release: March 17, 2028
HBO’s Harry Potter
Release: 2027
Lionsgate’s The Gates
Release: March 13, 2026
BFI Distribution’s Wasteman
Release: February 16, 2026
BAFTA nominated
First Look:
Scrooge
Johnny Depp revealed as Ebenezer Scrooge
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
The Last of the Tribe adds Orlando Bloom opposite Ethan Hawke in a propulsive Amazon-set thriller directed by Claudio Borrelli (Vultures). Based on a nonfiction book by Monte Reel and scripted by Mark Bailey, the film follows a burned-out Chicago cop (Hawke) turned corporate fixer sent into the rainforest, where he encounters the last surviving member of an Indigenous tribe. We don’t yet know Bloom’s role, but it will be exciting to see these two great actors share some scenes.
Josh Gad has signed on to star in the Holocaust set biopic Gerron’s Last Film, to be directed by Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn). Gad plays Kurt Gerron, a famed Jewish actor forced by Nazis to make a propaganda film in Theresienstadt. The film launches at EFM and shoots later this year. Gad is probably best known for his comedy chops, but he is no stranger to drama (Jobs 2013). However, the heaviness of the story and the fact that he is starring definitely seem like a course change to unexplored territory.
Sons of Anarchy’s “Juice”, Theo Rossi, is leading Young Blood, an island vampire movie directed by Hide and Seek (2005) writer Ari Schlossberg. Young Blood is a spring break comedy that takes a turn for the worse, think From Dusk Till Dawn meets Lost. Rossi most recently starred in HBO Max’s The Penguin, with filming on his newest project starting now.
Mini Tidbits:
Alastair Duncan
Lev Gorn
Markice Moore
Milo Ventimiglia
RIP Demond Wilson
All those mini tidbits and more here.
FESTIVALS
Sundance winners:
U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic &
U.S. Audience Award: Dramatic
Josephine
Dir: Beth de Araújo
Cast: Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan
Synopsis:
After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety, while adults are helpless to console her.
It’s an incredible feat of filmmaking that quickly breaks with the hyperrealism of the horror the child witnesses and pushes it into extreme fantasy.
Full cover story and producer interview here.
U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
Nuisance Bear
Distributor: A24
Synopsis:
A polar bear’s traditional migration path leads it into populated areas, sparking conflict between human interests and wild nature as the animal struggles to survive in a changing world.
It is one of the best POVs I’ve ever seen in documentary filmmaking. We’re taken to Churchill, Manitoba, where we see how the town coexists with polar bears that increasingly encroach upon their habitat.
But this is not a story told from the town’s perspective, the mayor’s, the folks who trap the bears, or even the tourist trucks that bus people across the rock to see the animals. Nor is it told from the polar bear’s perspective.
It’s told from a third POV, that of the Inuit people who have coexisted with the bears. And this lens allows us to see more purely the effects that the bears have on the people and the people have on the bears.
It is a perspective removed and yet able to capture the entire situation with a beautiful balance.
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
Shame and Money
Dir: Visar Morina (2020’s Exile starring Sandra Hüller)
Synopsis:
A proud family man struggles to provide as financial pressures mount. Though his mother and brother-in-law offer help, accepting support wounds his dignity. As stability slips away, he faces tough choices about pride versus survival.
It’s a film about dignity and humanity. But ultimately, how the capitalist system forces those with less to change their humanity, to become more animalistic. It’s wonderfully empathetic, and in one tremendously heartbreaking image, we feel as if the poor are getting washed from the street.
Full list of Sundance winners here.
Göteborg:
Bloodsuckers
Picked up by Sales Rep: Charades (Urchin)
Dir: Elin Grönblom (Ella and Friends)
Prod: Patrik Andersson’s Mylla Films (Midsommar)
Premiere: Göteborg FF’s Works in Progress
Headed to EFM
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
The biggest winner of Sundance is Crystine Zhang. Her films took home three awards:
The Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic (Josephine)
Producer
U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic (Josephine)
Producer
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Debut Feature (Bedford Park)
EP
I interviewed Zhang, who shared that her excellent taste stems from an interesting educational background. She grew up in China, where her father only let her read English-language classics.
Her other credits include:
Sundance’s Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (2026)
Cast: John Slattery, Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm
Glenrothan (2025)
Dir/Cast: Brian Cox
Lee
Cast: Kate Winslet
Gail Daughtry was so delightful, we’d be surprised if it didn’t sell.
Tidbits:
Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay (Selma) is partnering with producer Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group (47 Meters Down) to shine a spotlight on Coretta Scott King and her story. Feature film, King Vs. The United States of America will follow civil rights activist and the wife of MLK Jr. in her decades-long investigative search into her husband’s assassination.
Tom Noakes and Will Goodfellow’s feature directorial debut, The Answerers, is being produced by Princess Pictures (Together). The absurdist comedy follows a burnt-out telemarketer who becomes obsessed with a mysterious rotary phone. Noakes and Goodfellow’s Studio Goono are behind the Sundance short The Worm, which just had its premiere in the Midnight Shorts program.
Director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) is set to helm Known Associate, a gritty adaptation of No Angel, chronicling an ATF special agent’s dangerous undercover infiltration of the motorcycle gang Hells Angels. The project, backed by 308 Enterprises (Unmerciful Good Fortune), is slated to begin on Known Associate this summer.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Industry to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.