Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Disney’s hub, Sony’s cinema, and an Aubrey Plaza personality.
Let’s go!
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Disney released their Q3 2025 results with a not-so-big shocker. Hulu, which Disney now owns 100%, is going to be folded into Disney+.
To be clear, you’ll still be able to get a separate Hulu subscription, but it’ll just be done through Disney+.
But the company is a multi-headed hydra. With a dizzying amount of divisions and subsidiaries. And a combination of everything under one unified App will have many advantages:
reduction in churn
reduction in redundant employees
At the same time, having content centralized will increase users' time spent on the app, thus centralizing customer data, which Disney will leverage to get better ad rates. And of course, eventually raise prices.
You can see why Disney is leaning so hard onto streaming; it’s their most profitable division that makes content:
Q3 2025 w/ the change from last year:
$10.7bn entertainment revenue (Disney+, Hulu + Linear)
↑ 1%
$697M entertainment operating profit
↓ 28%
$2.3bn Linear revenue (ABC, FX, Nat Geo)
↓15%
$587M Linear profit
↓14%
127.8M Disney+ subs
↑1.8M from Q2 2025 all from international subs
45.2% US (57.8M - flat from last quarter)
54.7% International (69.9M)
51.2 M subs - Hulu (not including live TV)
↑0.9M from Q2 2025
$346M streaming profit (not including sports)
↑ from $19M loss last year
$21M loss - Content Sales/Licensing and Other (e.g., Theatrical + TV Licensing)
Down from $254M gain last year
CEO Bob Iger emphasized on the earnings call:
“The company is taking major steps forward in streaming with the upcoming launch of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer service, our just-announced plans with the NFL, and our forthcoming integration of Hulu into Disney+.”
Some Disney consolidation updates:
Hulu will replace Star, the international content hub under Disney+
Fubo will merge into Hulu’s live TV business
Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN are going to stop reporting their subscriber numbers à la Netflix
Disney's upcoming film slate:
Tron: Ares (October)
Zootopia 2 (November)
Avatar 3: Fire and Ash (December)
Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts* were creatively the best Marvel films in years - but the over-saturation of Superhero films is causing these pictures to have massive week 2 drops at the box office and top out well below what they would have at the start of the Marvel era.
With Avengers Doomsday (Starring new Marvel darlings The Thunderbolts*) coming in 2026, along with a new Toy Story, and a new Star Wars film, you can see Disney drawing on the pillars of their strongest IPs in order to stabilize a wobbly ship to drive more theatrical revenue for their Content Sales/Licensing and Other division.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Paramount Skydance adds 2 execs, 5 EVPs, 2 DTC leads. + 2 exits.
Sony Pictures drops 59% in theatrical.
Salli Richardson-Whitfield renews HBO overall deal.
Lois Smith stars in The Steel Harp.
Aubrey Plaza will play Heidi Fleiss in a biopic.
Liam Neeson co-stars in the gross-out zombie comedy Cold Storage.
Apple’s Prodigies adds Tobias Menzies & Reece Shearsmith.
Joe Swanberg returns with an Alaska-set romance starring Dakota Fanning.
All3Media revenue drops 10%.
Studiocanal takes minority stake in Brock Media (prod co: The Outrun).
Tubi and Sony Pictures Canada struck a licensing deal.
Estonia’s Beatrice sci-fi drama begins filming in 2026.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Sony Pictures Entertainment Q1 2025 results. Plus the delta from last year:
$2.3bn revenue
↑ 4%
$129M profit
↑ 76%
$132M theatrical revenue
↓ 59% (from $322M)
$841M TV Productions revenue
↑ 38%
28 Years Later and Karate Kids: Legends did not deliver for theater revenue. The former was a great film, but a big misdirection as it played more as a coming-of-age story.
Paramount Skydance Corp. leadership continues to take shape. Additions include 2 executives, 5 EVPs, 2 confirmed additions to DTC, + two exits.
Full breakdown: https://theindustry.co/p/skydances-leadership
Actress, director, and producer Salli Richardson-Whitfield has extended her overall deal with HBO. Notably, she is an EP and directed five episodes of the Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) created historical drama The Gilded Age. She also made history as the first Black woman nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (2022). Under her new two-year extension, she will continue to executive produce content exclusive to HBO.
Mini Tidbits:
Oh, thank god. AMC announces plans to cut its monumental 30-minute pre-shows after enough people and shareholders complained. A fun little statistic, apparently, 80% of audiences didn't get to their seat until 4 minutes before trailers started. We should start seeing changes as early as this year.
Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood) joins as DP on Marvel's Punisher special. Starring the already Marvel-entrenched Jon Bernthal, this special hopes to flesh out Disney+'s version of The Punisher a bit and could possibly act as a bridge between the Daredevil show and his recently announced appearance in Spider-Man Brand New Day.
Sunnyvale Trailer Park will never be the same. After a 7-year hiatus, The Trailer Park Boys have officially wrapped shooting on their 13th season.
Red, White, and Blue (2023) producer Sara McFarlane has acquired the short story So Late in the Day for film rights from author Claire Keegan (Small Things Like These).
Don't worry, everyone, Francis Ford Coppola assures fans that he is well after a brief hospital stint in Rome.
Dune: Part 3 is being shot partially on 65mm film.
Trailers:
A24’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Cast: Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Conan O’Brien
Release date: October
Paramount’s Adulthood
Dir: Alex Winter
Cast: Josh Gad
Release: Sept 19
Universal Pictures’ Him
EP: Jordan Peele
Dir: Justin Tipping (Kicks)
Release date: Sept 19
Vertical’s Eden
Dir: Ron Howard
Cast: Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney
Trailer (English language, finally!)
Release: Aug 22nd
Netflix’s The Wrong Paris
Release: Sept 12
Paramount+’s Tulsa King (S3)
Release: Sept 21
We all hate those fake YT AI-generated trailers. Here’s a real trailer for a fake movie, directed by Eli Roth: The Piano Killer (trailer). Sensationally campy.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
That’s Madam Aubrey Plaza to you.
Plaza is set to produce and star in the titular role in The Heidi Fleiss Story, a biopic centered around the infamous “Hollywood Madam.”
A known TV personality, Fleiss was caught running a notorious escort service and the world’s largest prostitution ring. The film will follow the time ahead of her trial as she attempts to blackmail her way to freedom.
Fleiss, known for being alluring and elusive, seems right in Plaza’s wheelhouse as the actress has become known for her compellingly dry charisma and understated magnetic presence. In the Neon dramedy Ingrid Goes West (2017, clip), Plaza plays a deeply unstable woman who lives a double life. While not quite as stalkerish, in the indie Black Bear (2020, trailer), Plaza stars as a toxic and emotionally manipulative woman whose motives are intentionally hard to decipher.
Plaza has made a career out of playing morally ambiguous (often unhinged) multi-layered women, making this biopic a perfect match. Just watch this clip of Heidi Fleiss and tell me you can’t imagine Plaza.
Lois Smith is a legend. At 94, she is starring in The Steel Harp.
Her character description is perfect:
A cantankerous nonagenarian who patrols the Golden Gate Bridge every day and intervenes when people get too close to the edge.
The film revolves around Smith stopping an equally stubborn youngin (Kelly O’Sullivan) from committing suicide. Of course, they form a bond. That’s what’s great about all of Smith’s roles: how she can be commanding yet intimate. Her filmography includes East of Eden, Five Easy Pieces (as Jack Nicholson’s eccentric sister), and Lady Bird.
The Steel Harp is directed by O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson (Sundance’s Ghostlight).
Three series + one film make casting additions:
Apple TV+’s Prodigies
USA Networks’ Anna Pigeon
Prime’s Vought Rising
52nd State (EP: former CEO of Netflix)
New additions here: https://theindustry.co/p/prodigies-anna-pigeon-vought-rising
Mini Tidbits:
Logan Marshall-Green joins Y: Marshals, a CBS Yellowstone spinoff starring Luke Grimes, continuing his role as Kayce Dutton. The two will play former Navy SEALs training to become Marshals.
Kelley Mack, best known as Addy on The Walking Dead, died at 33 from a rare CNS glioma. Really sad to lose someone so young.
Netflix’s Harrison Osterfield joins Maia Novi in Invasive Species' London transfer, a semi-autobiographical play based on Novi's own experiences.
Sky and Starz dramedy Sweetpea has added Overcompensating’s Rish Shah and Tamsin Greig (Green Wing) to the cast for its second season. The show (S1 trailer) follows a killer wallflower played by Fallout’s Ella Purnell, with filming on its second season underway in London.
Rob Lowe makes his return to filming L.A. to star in The Musical, a dark indie comedy with Gillian Jacobs and Will Brill. Recently, Lowe bemoaned Hollywood's increasing habit of shooting at locations outside of California, so he's probably pretty happy about this one.
New CBS legal drama Cupertino marks an Evil reunion between Mike Colter and show creators Robert and Michelle King. Cupertino is described as a “David vs. Goliath story set in Silicon Valley” with Colter set to play a steadfast lawyer. CBS has not yet officially greenlit the series.
FESTIVALS
Well Go USA (Daniela Forever) has just picked up North American rights to Yeon Sang-Ho’s (dir: Train to Busan) new film The Ugly. Premiering at TIFF, the trailer seems to imply the film is about a blind killer. Release date: Sept. 26.
Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) stars in Legend Of The Happy Worker. David Lynch served as an EP before he passed. It’s every bit as weird a Western as you’d want it to be. Premiere: Locarno.
Sales Rep: Luxbox (All We Imagine as Light) has picked up one of the only films world premiering at NYFF: Gavagai (dir: Ulrich Köhler). Full lineup for NYFF here: https://theindustry.co/p/the-nyff-2025-lineup
CBS’s Boston Blue from the Blue Bloods universe will premiere at Cannes at MIPCOM on Oct 12th. It will debut Oct 17th.
TIFF Centrepiece and Docs line-up: https://theindustry.co/p/the-tiff-2025-lineup-pt-2
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Give me a zombie outbreak with an extra side of gore: Cold Storage starring Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, and Liam Neeson looks pretty fun.
The dark comedy follows a fungal-style zombie outbreak, but turns up the head popping and the green goo. Having Liam Neeson mess with these two geeky kids is already looking very promising.
Johnny Campbell (BBC’s MI-5 TV series) directs, and David Koepp (Writer of Jurassic Park) wrote the book and will produce. With plenty of gross-out stoner comedy moments, Keery seems to have a pretty good path forward after Stranger Things ends.
Joe Swanberg turns to romantic drama. The Chicagoan mumblecore director, most known for Drinking Buddies (2013) and Digging for Fire (2015), is directing his first film since 2020!
The cast is great:
Dakota Fanning
Jake Johnson (a Swanberg regular)
Cory Michael Smith
No word on plot, but it’s set in Alaska. Swanberg has a way of creating a naturalistic friendship with his characters that pulls us into the minutiae and joy of their lives.
We look forward to seeing how this trio gets along.
Neon acquired North American rights to Exit 8, Genki Kawamura’s thriller based on the very creepy 2023 Japanese indie game. The story follows a man trapped in an endless subway corridor. It was snatched up by Neon after its Cannes premiere, and it's currently heading to TIFF.
Could this be another off-kilter horror win for Neon, like Longlegs?
The video game is freaky.
Tidbit:
Jeffery Scott Collins has finished shooting horror thriller The Caged, starring Tamzin Merchant (The Tudors). This also signals a major investment by him into This Seems Reel Entertainment.
Black Fawn (Vicious Fun) has sold Gabriel Carrer’s Motorcycle thriller Death Cycle to Uncork’d for U.S./Philippines; Canadian release set for 2026. It also premieres at FrightFest. A stylish slasher that makes its ultra-crisp digital shots look foreboding (trailer).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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