Daredevils and Flying Pancakes
Daredevils and Flying Pancakes
Skywalkers: A Love Story, Warner Bros. Discovery sale, Marlon Brando’s agent, Zachary Quinto’s brilliant mind, and I, Robot.
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Skywalkers: A Love Story, Warner Bros. Discovery sale, Marlon Brando’s agent, Zachary Quinto’s brilliant mind, and I, Robot.
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Let’s go!
Today’s cover story today features an interview I conducted with director Jeff Zimbalist of the Sundance breakout documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story.
Jeff Zimbalist has done something quite incredible.
The Emmy-winning director managed to have two docs premiere simultaneously that seem to be diametrically opposed:
Skywalkers: A Love Story (2024)
A daredevil love story about two star-crossed rooftoppers who summit the highest skyscrapers
Distributor: Netflix
Theatrical: IMAX
How to Come Alive With Norman Mailer (2024)
Cerebal biopic about a great American writer
Distributer: Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist
Theatrical: 50 city release
But the unifying factor is each of the subject’s threshold for courage.
I asked Zimbalist to explain how he mapped this through to Norman Mailer. He explained:
“Each chapter [of the doc] has a rule for how to come alive based on Mailer’s life, and often he's very inspiring, and often he crosses the threshold into doing just terrible, repulsive things… he often would double down when things got more controversial…”
That documentary puts into prime focus our being dulled through technology, our gross domestication.
It’s something that spurred a young Zimbalist to go rooftopping himself.
He discussed:
“The only way to escape [in my teens/early 20s] was to find the nooks and the crannies under the city or above it, where these are unknown spaces; they're sort of transcending the culture bubble.”
It’s what initially drew him to the main subject of Skywalkers, Angela Nikolau, a rare female rooftopper.
Not just because of his infatuation with escapism but because Nikolau brought a sense of artistry to her rooftopping:
Flying (still)
Balancing Act (still)
Leap of Faith (still)
But the film is not just about Nikolau and her rooftopping partner reaching new heights (whcih they do). It’s not even about the fear of falling.
In Zimbalist’s words:
“I see this as a film about the fear of falling in love… using extreme climbing to symbolize romantic trust and take some of those messages into our own relationships.”
Both projects overcame a high degree of risk to be told. And both are equally satisfying for different parts of your brain.
Skywalker's: A Love Story is available now on Netflix.
How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer will be available on VOD on AppleTV, Amazon, iTunes, etc., in September.
For More:
Skywalker's: A Love Story trailer is death-defying. It’s like The Walk on cocaine.
Watch how the war wages inside this great American writer. How to Come Alive With Norman Mailer trailer.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Warner Bros. Discovery is looking to sell some assets. Right now, the following are on the chopping block:
TVN (Polish broadcaster)
$3.5 bn value
Warner Bros. Games*
$5.6 bn value
*Not the entire thing but some percentage stake
Although they had considered ceiling CNN ($6bn value), the dauntless legal challenges and the asset’s strategic importance stopped them.
The company is facing massive challenges:
67% stock drop since WarnerMedia merged with Discovery in 2022
$39 bn debt
To combat this, they’ve already begun selling assets and conducting layoffs:
All3Media (UK Production company) - Sold
CNN laid off 100 employees
1000 employees across the company set to be laid off
Internally, CEO David Zaslav believes the company is worth $60bn vs. the current market value of $18bn.
More to come in their Q2 earnings call today at 4:30 pm EST.
Move over Suits—a new legal drama is taking over Netflix! The streamer has secured the rights to Hurt People, a spec script by Melissa London Hilfers.
The plot of the upcoming film, written during last year’s strike, has yet to be revealed. Greg Berlanti (Dir: Fly Me to the Moon) and Sarah Schecter (Prod: Fly Me to the Moon) are attached to produce.
Hilfers, who previously worked as a litigator before entering the industry, began her career with primarily crime-centered projects, such as writing the legal mystery thriller script Undone (currently at Black Bear) and the Supreme Court drama script Unfit (currently at Amazon).
However, her most notable work actually has nothing to do with the courtroom. Fox TV’s Monarch, a country music drama starring Susan Sarandon, was created by Hilfers, who also wrote and EP’d the short-lived series.
From Monk creator Andy Breckman, CBS announces a new drama pilot, Einstein, based on a former German series.
The plot will follow the famed physicist’s great-grandson, who is a “brilliant but directionless” college professor. When he gets into trouble with the law, he’s pressed into helping a police detective solve her most puzzling cases.
Breckman who has signed on to write and serve as a show-runner on Einstein will work alongside his Monk alum Randy Zisk who is attached to direct and EP.
The announcement follows more news from CBS regarding their upcoming catalog of shows in development, including comedies DMV from creator Dana Klein (Friends) and Eternally Yours from the team behind the network’s most popular sitcom, Ghosts.
Tidbit:
Two Generations of Levy: The real-life Father-son duo of Schitt's Creek Fame Eugene Levy (American Pie) and Dan Levy are currently discussing an Emmy-hosting team-up. The duo has previously co-hosted an episode of Ellen together and notably were the first father-son duo to win Emmys at the same time for Schitt's Creek's final season, which took home nine in total. While nothing has been confirmed, we here at The Industry think that would be a fun time.
The 76th Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on Sept. 15.
IATSE has successfully unionized another group of visual effects workers at Apple Studios. Twelve workers on several shows voted unanimously to join the union. Matt Loeb, IASTE international president, stated:
“The VFX union movement has been decades in the making, and now is the time.”
IATSE and Apple now have five days to raise objections before the election results are certified.
Jay Kanter, legendary producer and agent, has passed away at 97. Here are Kanter’s top clients:
Marlon Brando
Who Kanter met at 22
Grace Kelly
Marilyn Monroe
Gene Kelly
Warren Beatty
He co-founded The Ladd Company, where he oversaw the production and distribution of:
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Body Heat (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
He will be missed.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
They’re all going to network TV.
With tides ever-changing in the film industry, we are seeing an increasing number of Hollywood Stars and Starlets making the jump over to network TV. With streaming services tightening their belts (e.g., Dan Lin’s Netflix’s Film Boss new brief to cut down the number of films, and Apple sending signals out to the industry that they’re no longer a big spender), we are increasingly seeing these network shows reeling in silver screen talent, here's a few that have made the jump:
Zachary Quinto: best known as Spock in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek Series. Recently acting along with Jacob Elordi in He Went That Way (2023).
Will be starring in NBC’s Brilliant Minds. Quito has transformed into a Neurologist inspired by the real-life Oliver Sacks (trailer).
Eddie Redmayne: Best known for starring in the Fantastic Beasts Harry Potter spinoff series and winning Best Actor for his role of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014).
Will be starring in: Peacock's The Day of The Jackal a cat and mouse thriller series where he will play the titular assassin in the middle of a manhunt (trailer).
Dakota Fanning: Known since she was a toddler for I Am Sam and more recently in The Watchers (2024) and a creepy cameo in Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019). She most recently starred opposite Andrew Scott in Netflix's Ripley, playing as antagonist as she and Scott go after the same man (trailer).
Will be co-starring in: Peacock’s All Her Fault.
Tidbits:
Ryan Murphy’s next project, All’s Fair, for Hulu, is getting some new cast:
Sarah Paulson
Very fun in Oceans 8 (clips)
Naomi Watts
Don’t watch the trailer, just watch Mulholland Drive
Recently great in Feud (2024)
Teyana Taylor
Masterful in A Thousand and One (trailer)
Magnetizing in Fade (music video)
This comes as Halle Berry exited the cast, which also includes Kim Kardashian and Glenn Close in a rare TV role for the Oscar winner.
Patricia Arquette (Severance, Boyhood) and Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) join Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh (director/writer: Belfast) in his latest project, The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde. Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) has already been cast as the lead.
Production is currently started in the UK.
FESTIVALS
NYFF just dropped its main slate.
Here’s a breakdown, including the majority of the Cannes and Berlin winners plus David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds; Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada and Brady Corbet’s 70mm Adrien Brody film The Brutalist:
https://theindustry.co/p/nyff-main-slate
TIFF dropped its Centrepiece lineup which includes 43 films from 41 countries. We’ll do a deeper breakdown on this soon but we’re excited by the inclusion of Steven Soderbergh’s Presence and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Young Canadian director Xavier Dolan, after several years away from directing, says a new period horror film set in France is currently in the works.