Channing Tatum’s Dumb Money

Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:

Channing Tatum’s billions, Miramax's new president, Michael Bay gets musical, Hasbro gets a clue, and Megalopolis finds a maison.

Let’s go!

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CHANNING TATUM’S DUMB MONEY

Blink Twice. Amazon MGM Studios.

Channing Tatum is the latest tech-bro billionaire.

He stars as a tech entrepreneur in Zoë Kravitz’s (Catwoman, The Batman) directorial debut, Blink Twice, formerly titled Pussy Island.

In the newly released trailer, his blasé yet manic entitledness exemplifies the trend in recent cinema to paint tech-bro billionaires as blisteringly stupid.

Here’s a short list of stand-outs:

• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

  • Edward Norton plays billionaire Miles Bron (​still​)

Described as:

“His grasp of disruption theory is remedial at best…Look into the clear center of this Glass Onion…Miles Bron is an idiot!”

• Succession (2021-2023)

  • Alexander Skarsgård plays CEO Lukas Matsson (​still​)

Character highlights:

Steals from his own company tanking the value, and sends blood bags to his assistant as a means of seduction.

• Don’t Look Up (2021)

  • Mark Rylance plays CEO Peter Isherwell (​still​)

Tagline for Isherwell’s mobile company:

“Life, without the stress of living.”

What makes Kravitz’s Blink Twice stand out is how sharply it's told from a plebeian’s perspective.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Frida (Naomi Ackie) is a young waitress in Los Angeles who has her eye on tech entrepreneur Slater King (Tatum). When she gets to go to an intimate meeting on his private island. Frida senses there's more to it than meets the eye.

Kravitz stated:

“This is not a story about empowerment. This is a story about power.”

There’s something about collective memory failure in the trailer that heightens this idea that we’re all hypnotized by capitalistic demigods.

Amazon MGM Studios is distributing the film. In theaters August 23.

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