Daniel Radcliffe’s Renaissance
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Daniel Radcliffe’s Trust, Matthew McConaughey’s Rage and a Smurf.
Let’s go!
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We’re overdue for a Daniel Radcliffe renaissance.
The boy who lived is starring in a new film, Trust The Man headed to EFM, and it may be his most volatile role yet.
Here’s the synopsis:
An ambitious Army Intelligence officer during the Vietnam War assigned to investigate a decorated soldier with a mysterious past. As surveillance and interrogation deepen, the line between loyalty and obsession blurs, leading both men into a dangerous and uncontrollable connection.
Lucas Hedges (Honey Boy) will co-star.
It’s easy to see Radcliffe in the “ambitious army intelligence officer role.” Since his Potter days, he’s taken on role after role where he breaks strict systematic boundaries:
Swiss Army Man (2016)
Role: Dead Body that upends everything we knew about life
Escape from Pretoria (2020)
Role: An imprisoned South African who refuses to be locked away
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)
Role: Weird Al, as he reshapes the music industry one parody song at a time
Radcliffe has never lost his hyper-intensity. In fact, he gets called out in Escape from Pretoria by the warden for having too intense a stare.
It’s what makes him seem like he’s about to spontaneously combust with some zealous emotion at every turn (in fact, he literally combusts in Swiss Army Man).
He also has a remarkable ability to command scenes; in Weird, the best moments come when the power goes to his head, and he is tyrannical to everyone in his path.
Radcliffe’s intensity feels tailor-made for the paranoia and psychological warfare of a Vietnam-era thriller. Some of cinema’s most electrifying performances—Sheen in Apocalypse Now, Dafoe in Platoon, De Niro in The Deer Hunter—have come from films set during this war.
If Radcliffe taps into that same ferocity, we could be in for something unforgettable.
For More:
Kill Your Darlings (trailer) Radcliffe is marvelous as poet Alan Ginsberg in his first post-Potter indie.
Radcliffe is a fearless performer, right after the Potter series concluded he made his Broadway debut in Equus, playing a character sexually attracted to horses.
Three Daniels and a Dead Body. Swiss Army Man is the exception that proves the rule that Radcliffe is best when he’s hyperactive (trailer).
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Rihanna plays Smurrfette in the new Smurfs movie.
Lionsgate Q1 earnings. The film studio is up $80 M from last quarter.
Amazon highlights the success of Red One in their quarterly report, citing it drew 50 M worldwide viewers in four days.
Derek Hoffman has been appointed as Lucasfilm's new VP of Development.
Documentarian Alex Gibney has sold a majority stake in Jigsaw Productions to billionaire philanthropist Wendy Schmidt.
Joe Wright (dir: Darkest Hour, Atonement) will direct the hot AI spec script Alignment for Fifth Season.
Hasbro is developing a Magic: The Gathering Movie.
Matthew McConaughey will star in Paul Greengrass’s upcoming The Rage. McConaughey will play a peasant who leads an uprising in 1381.
Guy Pearce has two projects launching at EFM: Blurred and Mr. Sunny Sky.
Some new additions to EFM: George MacKay in a time travel film, Jean Reno in The Butler, and Mélanie Laurent in a spy thriller. Full breakdown here.
Netflix has acquired one of the biggest standouts from this year’s Sundance lineup, The Perfect Neighbor, a documentary feature from Geeta Gandbhir, for $5 M.
Mubi buys the film Lurker out of Sundance with plans for a full theatrical release.
John Renck (dir: Adam Sandler’s The Spaceman) is in talks for a new film, A Ladder To The Sky.
Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Stranger Eyes, a surveillance-themed psychological thriller.
In 2024, investment in UK Film and Television has shot up a hefty 31% since 2023, hitting $7B (£5.6B).
Sony Pictures Classics acquires Unidentified from Saudi Arabian female filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a Smurf: The new iteration of those blue little bastards has dropped a trailer, focusing heavily on popstar Rihanna's involvement and voicing the single woman in the group- Smurrfette.
Directed by Chris Miller (Puss in Boots), NOT Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie), there is a sort of irreverent not giving a “smurf” from the wide net of talent in its voice cast. I heard Nick Offerman, Nick Kroll, and Octavia Spencer, among others, and they all kind of get what this is, but they are by no means phoning this in.
Really, it's the exact opposite: everyone is diving headlong into the ridiculous premise and having as much fun as they can. The gratuitous use of the smurf expletive is one of those fun choices.
As we continue to approach a tidal wave of upcoming IP-based franchise films, it seems very millennial to undercut the blatant corporatism with a dry acknowledgment that they are in on the joke with us. There may come a time when that stops being cute, but for now it's still got some charm.
Smurfs is out July 18.
Lionsgate Q1 earnings, as compared to last year:
$970 M revenue
↓ .5%
↑ 2.3% from last quarter
$21.9 M net loss
↑ $107.4 M loss
$83 M studio profit
↓30%
But up from last Q’s 2.6M
CEO Jon Feltheimer said:
We approach the separation of the studio and STARZ with a record performance from our library, our Motion Picture Group converting a number of midbudget films to profitability.”
Lionsgate is recovering from seven straight box office disasters (Borderlands, The Crow, etc.) with the recent The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ($40 M domestic).
On the flip side, Lionsgate’s big Michael Jackson biopic Michael had to reshoot its third act due to a legal dispute and may be pushing its release to next year.
Amazon doesn’t break out Prime Video separately, but there was one interesting tidbit from their Q4 2024 report:
Drew 50 M worldwide viewers to Red One in its first four days, making it Amazon MGM Studios’ most-watched film debut ever on Prime Video.
Remember, this is the Dwayne Johnson film that carried a $250 M budget and grossed $185.9 M worldwide. The real question is, even though it drew 50 M worldwide viewers (Amazon has a reach of 200 M ad-supported global Prime Video users), how many sign-ups did it generate?
I love that Amazon is still willing to take big swings at theatrical, but I would prefer it was spread out over a bunch of indies.
Tidbits:
Derek Hoffman has been appointed as Lucasfilm's new VP of Development, overseeing live-action projects. He succeeds Rayne Roberts, who departed last year, possibly due to backlash and financial strife brought about by The Acolyte.
He has over 24 years of experience; he worked as an AP on X-Men: Days of Futures Past and acted as an executive co-producer on the delightfully weird secret X-Men show Legion. Legion was great TV, vastly underrated, and willing to go pretty dark and scary, but not so dark that it lost its fun. That sounds like a pretty exciting development for Star Wars.
Documentarian Alex Gibney has sold a majority stake in Jigsaw Productions to billionaire philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, aiming to secure the company's future amid a challenging documentary market. Gibney will continue leading Jigsaw, which plans to expand to Los Angeles and focus more on climate change and ocean health topics.
When Fifth Season snapped up the AI thriller spec script Alignment for a cool $3 M, there was an unanswered question: who will direct? Stepping into what was apparently a highly desired role is Joe Wright (dir: Darkest Hour, Atonement).
Here’s the synopsis:
A tech company whose new AI model starts manipulating markets and fueling international conflicts, forcing a board member and an engineer to convince their colleagues to shut it down.
Wright seems like a great fit, as apparently, the script is hypertechnical, and Wright has a wild attention to detail for historical accuracies, which will serve him well for speculative fiction.
No word on production dates.
Spin Master Entertainment has enlisted Brad Peyton (dir: Rampage) to write, direct, and produce a live-action Bakugan movie. Based on the hit toy line and anime series. In order to explain what Bakugan is I am going to have to split this in two parts.
1. The actual toy is a marble that, when you roll it onto a magnetic card, a little action figure pops out.
2. The show itself was a lot like Pokemon, or more so Yu-Gi-Oh, where everyone in the world was just obsessed with this game, to the point it affected education and governance.
Here's the thing: where are they going to go with this? Are the marbles going to transform into little CGI creatures? That's just Pokemon, folks. Even weirder would be if they decided just to embrace the "game” and have the world be obsessed with these little dinky plastic micro figures.
You are now hitting what I'd like to term the nerdom dilemma with these new movies based on once-popular things. If you change too much, you anger the diehards. On the opposite side of the spectrum you have to acknowledge that some media is just too goofy for the mainstream, this might be the hurdle that Bakugan rolls into.
Hasbro Taps a Magic The Gathering Movie: Hasbro has begun development for a cinematic universe, expanding into TV and other media. based on the incredibly popular and wildly intricate card game Magic The Gathering. That's all we know right now, but I'd sure like to Scry 1 on the script, if you know what I mean.
Mini Tidbit:
Ezra Edelman (Dir: O.J.: Made in America) has a new doc about Prince that will never see the light of day. Netflix officially canned the 9-hour doc after Edelman spent five years breaking his back, making what is said by the very few who have seen it a masterpiece.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Matthew McConaughey is revolting! In Paul Greengrass’s upcoming The Rage, McConaughey will play a peasant who leads an uprising in 1381.
This will be the second time in a row McConaughey has worked with Greengrass (The Lost Bus):
https://theindustry.co/p/matthew-mcconaughey-and-a-flaming-bus
McConaughey excels at roles where he is self-righteous (True Detective S1) and violent (True Detective S1).
But the last time he played a historical revolutionary was Free State of Jones (2016, trailer), which was truely masterful. He was a Confederate soldier turned outlaw, turned leader of the guerilla resistance.
If he can have a similar balance of compassion and zeal, The Rage will be all the rage.
Blumhouse Productions is the production company, and FilmNation is the sales rep for EFM, CAA, and WME (domestic).
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Double Guy Pearce. After his sensational turn as the bombastic patron in The Brutalist, Pearce is now rolling into EFM with two projects:
Dir: Matt Chambers (The Bike Thief)
Cast: Pearce + Rufus Sewell (A Knight’s Tale), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso)
Sales Rep: Bankside (prod company: Rabbit Trap, sales rep: Talk to Me)
Synopsis:
Leonard, a once-famous singer now performing at a modest hotel in the Canary Islands, meets Shirley, and they connect instantly. However, Shirley's husband is a dangerous man, plunging their blossoming romance into chaos and violence.
Blurred
Dir: Ben Cookson (Waiting for Anya)
Cast: Pearce + Alex Pettyfer (Magic Mike)
Synopsis:
A neo-noir, erotic-thriller set in New York's fashion world and the city's underbelly.
No word on who Pearce is playing in these, but he’s also having a bit of a career renaissance.
FESTIVALS
EFM (European Film Market) is the premier market for getting films financed. With many splashy projects, it will be a post-Sundance litmus test if the film industry is surviving or thriving.
Here’s our running list of the latest and greatest projects. Some new additions are George MacKay in a time travel film Rose of Nevada, Jean Reno in The Butler, and Mélanie Laurent in a spy thriller.
https://theindustry.co/p/bad-boys-old-pals
Tidbit:
Night Stage, debuting at Berlin in the Panoramas section, just sold its Germany/Austria rights. The trailer is propulsive.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Netflix has acquired one of the biggest standouts from this year’s Sundance lineup, The Perfect Neighbor, a documentary feature from Geeta Gandbhir for $5 M.
A truly inventive film, The Perfect Neighbor, follows a petty disagreement between Florida neighbors that takes a fatal turn, shot entirely from police body cam footage. The film details the real killing of Ajike “AJ” Owens, a middle-aged Florida native who was shot by her much older neighbor, Susan Lorincz.
Pushing the boundaries of nonfiction storytelling, Gandbhir explained how she approached the footage, saying:
“We got our hands on the body cam footage, and we realized how critical it was to show the before of this story. We often see the aftermath of such a tragedy, right? But how rarely do we see the community and the family as they were before?”
The film begins with the horrific murder, and instead of showing the disruption it caused after the fact, it shows the moments that led up to it, highlighting issues like racial tensions and community divisions throughout.
Beginning in narrative work, Gandbhir has seen most success through documentary work with her short film from the HBO series Through Our Eyes, which won a 2022 Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary. Netflix is yet to announce a streaming date for The Perfect Neighbor.
Mubi buys Lurker out of the Sundance Film Festival. Here’s the synopsis:
A retail employee infiltrates the inner circle of an artist on the verge of stardom. As he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.
Alex Russell, who served as a supervising producer on Beef and The Bear, is making his directorial debut. No word on deal terms, but this one is getting a big theatrical release.
Recently, Mubi received an undisclosed investment from a billionaire. And no company was more explosive than them at Cannes 2024, buying a trio of films:
The Substance
The Girl With the Needle
Bird
They made aggressive moves into the US market with the theatrical release of The Substance, which opened at $3.2 M and snagged $16.4 M domestic, and made $78 M globally.
While streamers like Apple and Netflix are shelving their theatrical distribution strategies, I’m hopeful that Mubi will fill the market gap and conquer.
Tidbits:
From Space to The Sky. John Renck (dir: Adam Sandler’s The Spaceman) is in talks for a new film, A Ladder To The Sky.
Here’s the synopsis:
An ambitious, handsome young writer who manipulates, seduces, and plagiarizes his way to literary stardom.
The project has a strong pedigree: Fifth Season (production company), Edward Berger (producer). If this all comes together, it will be great to see Renck take another bite at feature directing. Spaceman (trailer) was a wild concept (Paul Dano plays a giant spider alien), but the film gets bogged down in thinly defined flashbacks when the most interesting story was in the present.
Sydney-based production company Causeway Films (The Babadook) has appointed Black Bear’s VP of Film and Television, Sleena Wilson, as Head of Development. Wilson joins Causeway after over five years with Black Bear, most recently a part of the producing team behind Oscar nominee Sing Sing (2023). Next on the slate, Causeway Films is behind A24’s Bring Her Back expected later this year.
Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Stranger Eyes, a surveillance-themed psychological thriller by Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua, which competed for Venice’s Golden Lion in 2024. The film follows a Singaporean couple whose baby disappears, leading to a chilling mystery involving surveillance footage and a suspicious neighbor. Trailer here.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
In 2024, investment in UK Film and Television has shot up a hefty 31% since 2023, hitting $7B (£5.6B). The breakdown of domestic shows, movies, and co-productions saw the majority of money put towards high-end TV at 62% but film is what saw the most drastic increase, skyrocketing by 56% with a total of £2.1B.
Some productions made across the UK in 2024 included:
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)
Netflix’s Peaky Blinders film (2025)
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
How to Train your Dragon (2025)
Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight (2025)
Baby Reindeer (2024)
The Gentlemen (2024-2026)
Lower numbers in 2023 were to be expected given the numerous Hollywood strikes that impacted the industry so extensively, yet production in the UK was able to majorly rebound and, for the first time since the pandemic, be ahead of its pre-COVID levels, according to the British Film Institute.
Tidbit:
Sony Pictures Classics acquires Unidentified from Saudi Arabian female filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour (The Perfect Candidate). The true crime drama begins with the discovery of a teenage girl’s lifeless body in the desert, with no one claiming the body, and becomes a full-fledged mystery movie. Described as a “contemporary Saudi-language thriller”, Unidentified is currently in post-production.
Spanish director Carla Simón is reteaming with MK2 Films (Anatomy of a Fall) on her next film and third feature, Romería. This film follows her Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film Alcarràs (2022), telling the story of orphaned 18-year-old Marina, who is confronted by her past when traveling through Spain to meet her paternal grandparents for the first time. Hélène Louvart, the cinematographer of La Chimera (2023) and The Lost Daughter (2021), is lensing Romería, a film paying tribute to Simón’s parents.
ON THIS DAY
1940. Disney's Pinocchio premieres in New York City.
That’s all for the week! See you Monday.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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