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Nolan, Netflix, NYFF.
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Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey shares shades of Memento, Inception, and Dunkirk.
Yet, Memento, Inception, & Dunkirk are all influenced by The Odyssey.
Let me explain this paradox…
Watching Nolan’s The Odyssey, I interface with all of his older films, like Guy Pearce in Memento, who uses his memory loss as a tool to clear his conscience. I see the liminal spaces of forgotten time from Inception. And the ship battles in Dunkirk.
And in the ever-growing pantheon of Odyssey takes, Jon Stewart saw Oppenheimer and Manohla Dargis saw The Prestige.
Perhaps, in a very Nolan-esque way, this type of thinking is backward: it is all of Nolan’s work that has always been influenced by Homer’s epic.
A true statement, if we are to take Joseph Campbell (author: The Hero with a Thousand Faces) at his word:
“The great Homeric epics… [Campbell lists other texts as well] were the support of all human life and the inspiration of philosophy, poetry, and the arts.”
Perhaps what we’ve been watching in Nolan, whose thematic interests tackle the way time dislocates us, is a core essence not just of his 13 features, but an idea as old as storytelling itself.
The Odyssey, in other ways, feels very modern. But that is best left for another cover story once more people have seen his masterwork.
Now in theaters.
For More:
The Odyssey trailer.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Netflix reported $12.56bn in Q2 revenue and $3.4bn in profit.
Ava DuVernay’s Netflix documentary 14th will examine the 14th Amendment.
Julius Avery will direct 20th Century Studios’ Crush, a real-time thriller.
Rose Byrne & Jenna Ortega star in Mary Bronstein’s WB gymnastics drama Nasty.
Rufus Sewell will star in Netflix’s Queenstown.
Chloe Fineman is exiting Saturday Night Live after seven seasons.
Venice will open with Danny Boyle’s Ink, NYFF with James Gray’s Paper Tiger.
Amazon MGM hires Chris Besseling to lead theatrical marketing in the U.K.
Bell Media signed a first-look development deal with Jeff Frost’s Bristol Circle.
Yesterday’s correct answer: Jonathan Pryce, villain in Bond/ G.I. Joe.
46% got it correct.
Or to make your case for another Nolan film, email us at hello@theindustry.co
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Netflix continues to prove why they’re the king of streaming. The company delivered its full Q2 report, with a rising revenue fueled by subscription growth, advertising, and, of course, higher pricing:
$12.56 bn Q2 revenue
↑ 13.6%
$3.4 bn Q2 profit
↑ 9% from Q2 2025
Projections:
$51bn - $51.4bn full-year revenue
vs. $45.18 bn (2025 total)
$3 bn ad revenue by end of 2026
↑ 100% from 2025
Most-watched Q2 titles:
His & Hers with 104M views
Alan Ritchson’s War Machine with 146.9M views
Netflix said viewers watched 97bn hours, up 2% from the same period in 2025, yet it gained only 2.7M new subscribers in Q2, short of its 5M forecast.
Netflix stopped reporting sub numbers quarterly, but they will be published annually in Q1 of each year, beginning in 2027.
Tidbits:
Everyone is trying to get a piece of the Odyssey. An independent European-American TV series, Odysseus, is in the works, produced by Tanweer (Greece Distribution: The Odyssey). Karl Gajdusek (EP: Stranger Things S1) is the showrunner. The show is being described as a muscular rendition of the Odyssey with an emphasis on the real history of the war. The drama will be shot on location in Greece and Armenia.
Ava DuVernay (Selma, Origin) is returning to Netflix. Following her Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, her new doc 14th will explore the Equal Protection and Citizenship Clauses. DuVernay’s ability to weave history and politics into compelling cinema is no tiny feat, with 14th a clear continuation of the conversations she began through her filmography over a decade ago. 14th will premiere on Netflix this fall.
Julius Avery (Dir: The Pope’s Exorcist starring Russell Crowe) is making a python thriller, Crush, for 20th Century Studios. The film will follow a woman hiking alone in the Everglades who finds herself coiled up by a massive python, told primarily in real time. Avery is a director who knows how to blend different genres within the horror/thriller space. His second feature – Paramount’s Overlord (2018, trailer) – was a bloody action horror film about American soldiers fighting Nazi zombies behind enemy lines with strong elements of body and sci-fi horror.
Mini Tidbits:
Jon M. Chu’s (Dir: Wicked) production company Electric Somewhere hires Jana Helman as Head of Television and Aimee Rivera as SVP of Motion Pictures. Electric Somewhere has been trying to expand into other areas of content, under its new Film and TV deal with Paramount.
Vox Media Studios (Prod Co: Netflix’s Full Swing) signs a multi-year first-look deal with 20th Television. The studio will be making scripted and unscripted TV content through all platforms with 20th Television, focusing on developing shows that resemble the format of Vox Media properties like New York Magazine.
Renewals:
MGM+’s Robin Hood (Renewed for S2)
CW’s Sullivan’s Crossing (Renewed for S5)
Cancellation:
BBC’s The Claudia Winkleman Show (Canceled after S1)
Trailers:
Paramount+’s Lioness S3
Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman
Release: Aug 2
Starz’s Power: Origins
Release Dates:
Rich Spirit’s If I Go Will They Miss Me
Premiere: Sundance
Release: Sept 18
Apple TV’s Stillwater S5
Release: Aug 21
BritBox’s Cooper & Fry S1
U.K. Release: Nov 18, 2026
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
One Oscar nomination later, Rose Byrne is reteaming up with filmmaker Mary Bronstein (dir. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You). From a massive hole in the ceiling to an absolute food tube nightmare, things got pretty hairy in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs… but none of it compares to their next collaboration, a feature film titled Nasty.
Set to be released by Warner Bros’ indie label Clockwork, Nasty follows a young athlete fighting for a spot on the Olympic gymnastics team who realizes her greatest opponent is her coach.
Byrne delivered one of my favorite performances of last year in Bronstein’s sophomore feature, as a mother and therapist stretched so impossibly thin that it felt like any interaction could send her over the edge. Rarely leaving the screen, Byrne carried her character’s anxiety in her posture, voice, and increasingly frayed composure, showcasing a physicality unlike anything we’ve ever seen from the actress.
In Nasty, Jenna Ortega has also been cast, presumably as the young athlete, and if Byrne can channel the same all-consuming intensity into playing a coach obsessed with perfection, Ortega’s path to Olympic glory will be anything but easy.
Cameras will pick up this fall with an expected 2027 theatrical release.
“The greatest love stories aren’t always romances.” Sophie Nélisse (Heated Rivalry) has become one of television’s brightest young stars, and now she’s leading the feature adaptation of Carley Fortune’s bestselling novel This Summer Will Be Different.
The story follows the reckless Lucy (Nélisse), who breaks the ultimate girl code by sleeping with her best friend Bridget’s younger brother.
Nélisse’s breakthrough role as young Shauna in Paramount’s Yellowjackets shares DNA with Lucy. Just as Lucy risks her closest relationship by falling for the one man she swore to avoid, SPOILER: Shauna’s affair with her best friend’s boyfriend became the Yellowjackets’ defining betrayal.
Production on This Summer Will Be Different kicks off in Prince Edward Island and Toronto this summer.
Tidbit:
Rufus Sewell (The Man in the High Castle) will star in Netflix’s new drama series Queenstown, set in Queenstown’s luxury ski scene, where a privileged family and their employees collide over power. No info on Sewell’s role as of now. Whether it be a powerful ambassador in The Diplomat or a high-ranking Nazi official in The Man in the High Castle, Sewell’s charisma makes him an intimidating and somewhat sinister person in power, a perfect fit for a piece about the clash of social classes.
Casting Tidbits:
Chloe Fineman
Hamish Linklater
Taylor Ortega
All those casting tidbits and more here.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
Venice. TIFF. NYFF.
It’s that time of the year when all the fall festivals are coalescing and offering an early look at their line-ups.
Venice is opening with Ink, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Guy Pearce. There is a direct line from his movie, about two young newspaper owners, to the modern media landscape. I saw the opening scene at CinemaCon, and Boyle uses a unique cinematic style, so this will be a very dynamic take.
NYFF will open with Neon’s Paper Tiger, directed by James Gray. Adam Driver and Miles Teller play brothers trying to make a quick buck, which gets them deeply involved with the Russian mafia. Scarlett Johansson internalizes her family's fear, disappointment, and rage, which boil up within her in the most profound and distressing ways.
TIFF announces four films:
Love of Your Life
Dir: Rachel Morrison
Star: Margaret Qualley
Neon’s The Housewife
Star: Naomi Watts
Amazon MGM’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother
Star: Mahershala Ali
Alpha Gang
Dir: Zellner brothers (Sasquatch Sunset)
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Jon Hamm, Léa Seydoux
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Papa Greengrass takes his shaky kinetic camera right to the Middle Ages with The Uprising.
It’s the new Focus Features film starring a very, very angry Andrew Garfield, who, despite some of the spit and fire and self-righteousness of some of his previous work, e.g., The Social Network or even tracking back earlier, the British series Red Riding, hits his zenith here. There’s a very specific type of malice that burns deep in his current work, which sees him lead a rebel uprising against a solipsistic king.
The trailer very quickly moves into just pure action, which is often one of the pitfalls of Greengrass’s work, where the characters get swallowed by the world. Sometimes that can be to great effect, like Matthew McConaughey enveloped in large thickets of smoke for Apple’s The Lost Bus.
In this, though, the battle imagery feels a little bit more conventional, and thus we’re hoping that even though the trailer foregrounded the action, the heart of the movie foregrounds Garfield.
Trailer. Releasing September 11th.
Mini Tidbits:
Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Atonement is picked up by Kino Lorber. It’s an Iraqi war drama starring Kenneth Branagh and Succession’s Hiam Abbass. Directed by Reed Van Dyk in his directorial debut.
Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s (Dir: Infrarouge) French thriller Sambre is picked up by MHz Choice (Streamer: The Art of Crime). Based on a novel of the same name, the series follows an investigation after multiple women are sexually assaulted along the same road by the Sambre River. The show broke records, garnering 13M total views per episode.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Amazon MGM hires Chris Besseling as Head of Theatrical Marketing, U.K. & Ireland. Besseling previously was the Head of Theatrical Distribution at True Brit Entertainment, bringing extensive knowledge of the U.K. theatrical landscape. Unlike streaming rivals Netflix and Apple, Amazon has embraced wide theatrical releases, finding box-office success with its latest blockbuster, Project Hail Mary ($683.9M WW). And watch out for their upcoming film Verity, starring Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway.
Canada’s Bell Media (Heated Rivalry) signs a first-look development deal with Pluribus producer Jeff Frost’s Bristol Circle Entertainment. The former president of SPT Studios, Frost, is now focused on his own production banner, creating original scripted series for CTV and Crave.
ON THIS DAY
1959. North by Northwest premieres in LA.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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