Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Christian Bale’s Heat, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Scorn, and a Mole.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Christian Bale is circling a role in Michael Mann’s Heat 2.
Tom Cruise receives an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
John Wells (EP: The West Wing) is developing The Aisle, a Netflix political drama.
Starz is exploring a purchase of Disney & Hearst’s A+E Global Media.
Vice’s Pulse Films is shutting down its TV/film division.
Daisy Ridley stars in action-thriller The Good Samaritan. Dir: Pierre Morel (Taken).
Heart Eyes’ Mason Gooding leads Last Resort, a cartel-siege thriller.
Luke Kirby and SNL newcomer Veronika Slowikowska star in Close to Nowhere.
History Channel orders semi-AI-generated historical series Straten van Toen.
Gabriel Beristain (DP: The Beekeeper) directs Mia: See Clearly, a psychological thriller.
Joaquin Phoenix & Rooney Mara board Palme d’Or–winning short I’m Glad You’re Dead Now as EPs.
Kino Lorber’s MHz Choice acquires Icelandic crime series Reykjavík.
BBC orders a 10-part adaptation of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4.
Pathé hires FilmNation’s Ben Browning as co-CEO of Pathé UK.
Picturehouse promotes Sara Frain to managing director of distribution.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Christian Bale vs. Leonardo DiCaprio. Christian Bale is circling a role for Amazon MGM’s Heat 2. This is a sequel to one of the 1990s’ greatest films, which starred Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer.
Michael Mann (original film director) will return with Leonardo DiCaprio “circling” Val Kilmer’s character in Heat.
You can read our whole Heat 2 project breakdown here, but suffice to say it’s a sequel and prequel film based on Mann’s book Heat 2.
For me, what stuck out in the original film was the 6-minute dialogue scene between two of the greatest screen actors of all time, De Niro and Pacino.
In that scene, De Niro, a high-class bank robber, and Pacino, a LA police veteran, have a chance meeting in a diner. It’s the ultimate cat-and-mouse scene. De Niro brilliantly oscillates between bank robber and monk. Displaying an innate ability to listen, empathize, and then light it all on fire.
With the possibility of Bale and DiCaprio both being cast, we’re already envisioning a similar sequence.
Heat 2 may shoot in the summer of next year.
Tom Cruise got an Oscar… an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
Presenting the award was Alejandro Iñárritu, who just wrapped a film with Cruise, stating:
“What’s truly defined Tom Cruise is how far is not how far he runs or how high he jumps. It’s how precisely he decides to move. Those tiny calibrations, the tilt of a chin, the half breath before a sprint, the millimeter between silence and revelation... That’s where his real and invisible craftsmanship lives.”
Iñárritu’s full awards speech here. It’s quite powerful.
Cruise is a worthy Oscar winner. Read our full take here: https://theindustry.co/p/tom-cruise-gets-his-oscar
Starz has expressed interest in buying Disney and Hearst’s A+E Global Media. That’s the parent company for the following linear channels:
A&E Network
History
Lifetime
Vice TV
The timing makes sense for Disney and Hearst at least, as linear channels are tanking industry-wide. But Starz buying them could be an opportunity for them to stabilize their sinking ship. They posted a $52.6M net loss, 8% loss in revenue, and dwindling subscriber numbers this quarter. Plus $600M in debt.
Tidbits:
Emmy-winning writer-producer John Wells is developing a new drama for Netflix called The Aisle. No stranger to political storytelling, Wells is best known as an EP of NBC’s The West Wing and became the main showrunner after Aaron Sorkin’s departure. The series dominated TV screens for years, and drawing on that West Wing legacy, The Aisle is expected to take a closer look at D.C. dynamics, idealism, and the high-stakes tension on the Hill. Wells is collaborating with Phoebe Fisher, showrunner of Amazon’s Cruel Intentions.
Vice’s Pulse Films is shutting down its iconic TV and film division after 20 years. Vice is laying off a number of employees in their London office, with Pulse (Gangs of London, American Honey) now transitioning into a full commercial, music video, and branded entertainment production company only.
Paradigm agent Jennifer Millar is moving to Brillstein Entertainment Partners to become a manager. Millar’s top client is Sydney Sweeney, who will now be in a prime position to look for new representation if she chooses to. My hope is that even if she leaves Paradigm for CAA, WME, or UTA, she’ll still take on challenging roles, like Christy.
Trailers:
Disney’s Moana (live action)
Trailer - Live Action but VFX heavy
Release: July 10, 2026
Sneaky Films’ Bunny (Australian horror)
Premiere: SXSW Sydney
Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man
Limited Theatrical Release: Nov 26
Streaming release: Dec 12
Ruby Max Entertainment’s Starbright
Coming-of-age action fantasy fable
Co-star: John Rhys-Davies (Indiana Jones)
First look:
Sony/Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda (live action)
Release dates:
CBS’s Y: Marshals
Creator: Taylor Sheridan
Premiere: March 1
CBS’s Watson (S2)
Premiere: March 1
CBS’s CIA
Premiere: Feb 23
Focus Features’ Sense and Sensibility
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones
Release: Sept 11, 2026
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Daisy Ridley (Star Wars) will star in action-thriller The Good Samaritan, directed by Pierre Morel (dir: Taken) from an original script by Matthew Ian Cirulnick (Rambo: Last Blood).
The story follows Dr. Rosalind Carver (Ridley), whose act of rescuing a wounded stranger off the coast of Indonesia triggers a deadly conspiracy involving pirates, corrupt officials, and the disappearance of her husband.
Post-Star Wars, Ridley has been really trying to diversify, taking on everything from roles where she’s near-comatose (Sometimes I Think About Dying) to a frazzled older sister to a developmentally disabled brother (The Cleaner).
Ridley has always had a really amazing and visible emotional life, yes, even in Star Wars, you could see what was bubbling under the surface (intense Ridley interrogation scene).
The Good Samaritan feels like a standard action film, but Ridley is sure to bring a ton to the surface.
Tidbits:
Heart Eyes star Mason Gooding is leading a new film, Last Resort. From Thunder Road Productions (John Wick series, Monkey Man), Gooding will play a former Marine suffering from PTSD who has to save his friends from cartel killers on spring break. Gooding is great at imbuing hard genre films with some irony. In Heart Eyes, he stayed pretty affable through all the bloodshed of a Valentine's Day killer (trailer). Last Resort is shooting in Spain. This almost seems like the reverse, where he has to step up but is crippled emotionally.
Luke Kirby, the Emmy-winning actor (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), will star alongside SNL newbie Veronika Slowikowska in Close to Nowhere. Slowikowska plays an aspiring artist who fabricates psychic abilities to impress Kirby’s character, a visiting author. With SNL just getting its footing, this is a fairly fast crossover for a cast member to film. While it’s always been an avenue for cast members to make films during the breaks in between seasons, it’s pretty rare for a first-year cast member to make this jump so early, though Slowikowska’s 1M+ social followers probably helped seal the deal.
Amazon and Ron Howard’s military drama Alone at Dawn casts Betty Gilpin (GLOW) to join Adam Driver and Anne Hathaway. Gilpin’s role in the Afghanistan-set war story has not yet been disclosed, but she can be seen currently in the new Netflix series Death by Lightning. Alone at Dawn is gearing up to start shooting shortly.
TECH SECTION
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is pushing technical boundaries, becoming the first narrative film shot entirely with IMAX cameras.
IMAX cameras have been historically noisy and thus relegated to capturing action sequences.
But a new IMAX camera system allows for quieter shooting.
Nolan explained:
“You can be shooting a foot from [a performer’s] face while they’re whispering and get usable sound. What that opens up are intimate moments of performance on the world’s most beautiful format.”
More technical info here.
The History Channel is launching a Norwegian semi-AI-generated short-form series, Straten van Toen (Streets of the Past).
Essentially, a real-life historian, Corjan Mol, will take us back to different periods of Dutch history. The historical backgrounds won’t be physical sets, or even traditional VFX, but instead AI-generated from historical imagery/footage. The AI work will be done by Particle6 (creator: Tilly Norwood).
Already History Channel has embraced AI with some historical recreations (both video and stills) on its popular series The Curse of Oak Island.
The AI work on these is pretty rudimentary, but I see this as a slippery slope for populating more and more of what we’re seeing on TV as slop.
We already have another announcement today of a new series starring an outer space social media personality, Alyssa Carson, that promises to:
“blend cinematic storytelling with scientific accuracy and AI visualization to explore future human space exploration.”
What we risk here is having a culture that is flush with AI videos that present a world that, on the surface, looks much better than the reality we actually experience in day-to-day life.
The issue is that we live in the real world, with real people. And when our media diet shifts to AI-generated videos, we’re going to be living in a culture that is no longer based on human creation, but that of machines.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Gabriel Beristain (DP: The Beekeeper, Black Widow) will direct Mia: See Clearly, a psychological thriller from Golsa Enterprises led by Golsa Sarabi (The Persian Rug).
Co-written by Sarabi and Beristain, it follows a former intelligence operative hunted across Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans by a perception-manipulating syndicate and an AI doppelganger.
With his frantic on-the-ground style and eye for realistic action, not to mention a penchant for globetrotting films, this seems like a bit more of the same from Beristain’s usual style, but it’s a style he is very good at.
Production begins Feb 2026.
SXSW-premiering Arrest the Midwife is playing today at Doc NYC.
Synopsis:
When trusted midwives are arrested in a tight-knit Amish and Mennonite enclave, a quiet community is thrust into turmoil.
It’s rare for a film to get this kind of access to the Amish community. The best comp is on the narrative side, like Harrison Ford in Witness (1985).
Find more details on Arrest the Midwife here.
Tidbits:
Cannes Palme d’Or-winning short film, I’m Glad You’re Dead, is now being boarded by Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara as EPs. The film follows two brothers who return to their childhood island. There’s a wonderful eeriness to the trailer. And this is the third film in the past few months that Phoenix has boarded as EP, recently including The Voice of Hind Rajab, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice, along with A24’s Architecton director’s new film Trillion.
Playwright Lila Raicek is teaming up with Severance’s Fifth Season and Made Up Stories (HBO’s The Undoing) for erotic thriller series Night Float. The Vampire Diaries’ star Nina Dobrev is acting and producing in the show based on Raicek’s New York City-set play Vertebrae, a deceitful story of power and obsession. Raicek’s 9 Parties is also in development with Fifth Season and Made Up Stories.
Mini Tidbit:
Mexican director Pancho Rodríguez has shockingly passed away at 50. His 2007 film Calling An Angel won the Audience Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival, and his most recent credit, Mexican heist comedy Abracadaver (trailer), premiered at the same festival last year to rave reviews. He will be missed.
Kino Lorber’s MHz Choice has acquired the Icelandic crime Canneseries Reykjavík for North American rights. Severance and Somebody Somewhere’s Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is producing and starring as a chef trying to rebuild his life after being wrongly imprisoned. Reykjavík will debut sometime next year.
Lyrical Media (Onslaught, The Death of Robin Hood) has acquired Line Mileage and launched Lyrical Animation to expand into adult animated features. Upcoming projects include Hell Followed With Us from the Matrix’s Lilly Wachowski and an upcoming anime Death Stranding adaptation.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment (57 Seconds) is partnering with Italy’s Publispei on a 2026 feature adaptation of Roberto Costantini’s The Perfect Wife.
Could Freeman be eyeing a role?
Upgrade to a paid subscription for more details.
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.