Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Disney’s comic, Black Bear’s Shelter, and a silent driver.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Disney+ is developing Afterlife with Archie.
Paramount names Josh Silverman president of Global Products & Experiences.
Mattel & Amazon MGM set live-action Shani series.
Prime Video adapting YA thriller series The Lying Game.
Apple TV+ extends Peanuts deal through 2030.
FilmLA’s president Paul Audley steps down after 17 years.
Oscar-winning makeup artist Michèle Burke (Dracula) dies at 75.
Range Media Partners promotes Kevin Hussey to partner.
Olivia Colman leads psychological romance Wicker.
Mel Gibson co-stars in Coyote alongside Esai Morales.
David Harbour in talks to join Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!
On the End, starring Tim Blake Nelson, premieres at Hamptons Int. Film Festival.
Black Bear and Jason Statham re-team for action film Shelter.
Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) will co-write a film on the band the Replacements.
Mongolia submits Silent City Driver for Oscars.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Disney+ is developing Afterlife with Archie, a dark hourlong drama based on the best-selling Archie horror comic by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (he also wrote Sabrina & Riverdale scripts) and Francesco Francavilla. It follows a zombie outbreak in Riverdale; to be clear, this is separate from the currently in development Archie comics movie by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
Josh Silverman, formerly of Disney, Marvel, and Mattel, has been appointed president of Global Products & Experiences at Paramount. He’ll oversee consumer products, live experiences, publishing, partnerships, and e-commerce. Paramount has had quite a shake-up recently. It’s good to have someone experienced at the wheel, but it’s all becoming a bit of an amalgam.
Mattel and Amazon MGM Studios are developing a live-action Shani series, based on the 1990s doll line created to address Barbie’s lack of diversity. Janine Nabers (Swarm, Atlanta) will serve as showrunner under her Amazon deal. Described as a family dramedy, the project would be Mattel’s first premium scripted TV series.
Prime Video is loving YA adaptations. Amazon’s MGM arm is adapting Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game into a YA series, with Killing Eve writer Suzanne Heathcote tapped to pen the scripts. The thriller will follow four former boarding-school friends haunted by a lie from their past, a psychological unraveling fueled by betrayal, memory, and the truth.
Mini Tidbits:
Apple TV+ has extended its deal with WildBrain, Peanuts Worldwide, and Lee Mendelson, the team behind Peanuts, to 2030. They will retain the Peanuts library, producing new specials and developing a second animated film. The first film, The Peanuts Movie (2015), made $246.2M at the box office.
FilmLA leadership changes. FilmLA President Paul Audley, who held the post for 17 years, is leaving. Succeeding him is CFO/COO Denise Gutches, who has held her post for 9 years. This comes as FilmLA will be seeing a massive influx of new permitting due to CA doubling the tax incentives.
Included in Lifetime’s “Love of a Lifetime” slate, Eric Jerome Dickey’s 1997 novel Friends and Lovers is getting adapted into two features. The novel follows a pair of best friends whose love lives challenge the makeup of their friendship. Part one will premiere only on Lifetime on Nov. 15th.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) cost $419M. The original budget number of $300M had been underreported. Forbes revised its report after finding a financial statement by Disney.
Range Media Partners (management company clients: Tom Hopper, Benicio del Toro) promotes Kevin Hussey (Clients: Casey Affleck, Ben Foster) to partner.
Oscar-winning makeup artist Michèle Burke, known for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, and Cyrano de Bergerac, died last week at 75. When she won her first Oscar for Quest for Fire, she was the first woman to ever win.
Renewals:
Paramount+’s Lioness (For S3)
Trailers:
Apple TV+’s Mr. Scorsese
Premiere: NYFF
Release: Oct 17
Prime’s Hazbin Hotel (S2)
Release: Oct 29
F*** My Son
Trailer (NSFW/Depraved)
Premiere: TIFF
Release: Oct 17
Paramount+’s Landman (S2)
Release: Nov 16
Tubi’s R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead
Release: Oct 17
SkyShowtime’s The Tribute
Teaser (Spanish-language)
Release: 2026
Sky’s The Death of Bunny Munro
Cast: Matt Smith
Release: Nov 20
EuropaCorp’s Hell in Paradise
French Release: Nov 26
Netflix’s Frankenstein
Release: Nov 7
Release dates:
Not Without Hope
Dir: Joe Carnahan (The Grey)
Cast: Zachary Levi, Josh Duhamel
Release date: Dec 12
Studio Inaugural Entertainment (Afterburn)
Lionsgate’s Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Dir: Tarantino
Release date: Dec 5
Gkids’ Kokuho
Japanese Oscar Entry
LA/NY Release date: Nov 14/21
First look:
Amazon MGM’s Playdate
Cast: Kevin James and Alan Ritchson
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The Sweet Idleness
First movie directed by an AI
Prod: Andrea Iervolino
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Dudley Dursley dominated. Harry Melling is probably best known for being Harry Potter’s fat Muggle bully of a cousin, Dudley. Melling has slimmed down in recent years and landed critically acclaimed roles in The Pale Blue Eye (2022) and The Queen’s Gambit (2020).
Melling plays the love interest of Alexander Skarsgård in Pillion.
Here’s a summary:
Colin, a timid man (Melling), meets Ray (Skarsgård), a confident biker gang leader, who initiates him into a submissive relationship, challenging Colin’s mundane existence and prompting personal growth through their unconventional dynamic.
In the trailer, Melling’s meekness is quite multi-dimensional. At points it’s pathetic, and at others it’s electrifying.
Pillion premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard, where it picked up Best Screenplay.
Oscar-winning Olivia Colman is enough to pique my interest, but the ensemble announced to be joining her in the recently wrapped Wicker is sensational.
The psychological romance film stars Alexander Skarsgård, the award-winning Elizabeth Debicki, and Peter Dinklage.
Official Synopsis:
A fisherwoman (Colman) lives on the fringes of a seaside village; she is unmarried, stinky, and constantly teased. One day, sick of her stuffy, narrow-minded neighbors, she orders a wicker husband for herself.
The film, while sounding outrageously perfect for Colman’s usual quirky characters, excitingly sees Skarsgård not long after his compelling performance in A24’s Pillion (see above).
Based on a twisted short story by author Ursula Wills-Jones, the film was shot by the Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley. With a strong source material and a major award-winning cast, Wicker should definitely be interesting. No premiere date has been set.
Tidbits:
Mel Gibson and Renata Notni (Zorro, El) will star alongside Esai Morales (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One) in Coyote. The border thriller directed by Per Prinz (The Cello) follows Hernán Barroca (Morales), a weary ex-smuggler forced back into danger when he helps Julia (Notni) and her daughter cross treacherous terrain, drawing the ire of traffickers. Gibson will play Jack Bradley, a U.S. Army veteran and father of a Border Patrol agent. The director Prinz has praised Gibson’s intensity. For Gibson, this could be a monumental momentum shift with his Passion of the Christ sequel currently in production.
David Harbour, fresh off Stranger Things’ upcoming conclusion, is negotiating to star with Pedro Pascal in Tony Gilroy’s Searchlight feature Behemoth! a drama following a cellist. Harbour’s role has not been announced, but the man has a surprising throughline of music, most famously until recently being married to musician Lily Allen. Harbour also plays piano and had a 2011 music project called Lava Lamps. Everyone is excited to see Gilroy’s first post-Andor work, especially after the recent Emmy win.
Casting Updates for:
Amazon’s The Boys
FX’s Untitled Witness Protection pilot
Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent (S2)
An indie sci-fi
For casting updates on all the above projects and more, click here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Tim Blake Nelson has a face you can’t forget.
Nelson stars as the lead in a new indie drama, On the End, from first-time feature director Ari Selinger, which will premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival this Saturday.
Official synopsis:
Tom (Nelson), a down-on-his-luck mechanic, finds unexpected love with a fellow outcast named Freckles, but their romance is put in jeopardy when the town of Montauk conspires to forcibly remove him from his home.
Interestingly, Nelson just finished filming another role that shares a lot of DNA: Asleep in My Palm, in which he plays an outcast who lives on society’s fringes (trailer).
We don’t often see Nelson in a lead role, and even rarer in a romance. But his ability to play both grounded and unhinged is a fruitful combination that will allow the small-town set film to seem Shakespearean.
Tidbits:
Where Lynne Ramsey goes, others follow. Pablo Bossi (prod: SPC’s Nine Queens) has picked up the rights for Unfit (author: Ariana Harwicz) for feature adaptation. If Harwicz’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she penned Die My Love, Ramsey’s Cannes film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson (trailer).
Black Bear + Jason Statham re-team. Black Bear, the financier/prod co for Sing Sing and Christy, is continuing to fill out its slate of 12 films/year in the US. On Jan 30th, 2026, they will release Shelter starring Jason Statham and directed by Ric Roman Waugh (Greenland). Black Bear as the Prod Co and international sales rep for A Working Man (2025) also starring Statham. The film made $98.1M worldwide on a $40M budget.
Finn Wolfhard is moving on from his Stranger Things family with his real family. Finn and his dad will co-write a screenplay based on Trouble Boy: The True Story of the Replacements, the acclaimed biography from author Bob Mehr. It follows the Minneapolis punk band that shaped American alternative rock from the 80s on. Wolfhard has also pursued music himself between seasons of the Netflix hit, making the film feel like a natural fit as Wolfhard’s next big venture.
Mini Tidbits:
Utkarsh Ambudkar, the star of CBS’s ultra-popular Ghosts, is directing his first episode for the new season. We believe Ambudkar has the hardest job in TV. Just read our interview with him https://theindustry.co/p/the-hardest-job-in-tv
Les Arenas, a soccer thriller directed by Camille Perton and starring Édgar Ramírez (Gold), has sold to 9 territories, including HBO in Eastern Europe. The film centres on a promising young footballer.
Jim Carrey will receive the French equivalent of an honorary Academy Award. He will receive a César Award during the ceremony in February. Last year’s recipient was Julia Roberts.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
On the last day to qualify, Mongolia has chosen Silent City Driver (trailer) as its submission for the 98th Academy Awards. The heartwarming drama comes from native filmmaker Janchivdorj Sengedorj (The Sales Girl). Chronicling the life of a man freshly out of prison after over a decade, the film follows the colorful characters he meets as he tries to adapt to his new life. The shortlist for International Films drops on December 16th.
Forty countries have submitted to the Oscars. Full list here.
Movistar Plus and the French-German broadcaster Arte have unveiled La Mesías: The New Year’s, a hallmark collaboration solidifying their push into high-end global TV drama. The project merges Spanish sensibility with European arts prestige, aiming to attract international audiences and grow each network’s footprint in premium original storytelling across borders.
Dynamic Television (Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia) has acquired global rights to drama series Till Death Do Us Part (Tills döden skiljer oss) from one of Sweden’s biggest screenwriters, Veronica Zacco (Top Dog). The L.A. and Stockholm-based distributor is setting up an early 2026 premiere.
Mini Tidbits:
Paramount veteran Ricardo Cortes has been promoted to EVP, International Theatrical Distribution and Head of Latin America. Cortes will oversee Paramount’s theatrical distribution strategies across markets while also leading studio operations throughout Latin America.
The coming-of-age drama The World of Love from Parasite (2019) producer Barunson E&A secures distribution deals for multiple Asian territories like Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The TIFF title will have its U.K. premiere at the BFI London Festival on Oct. 14th.
Period dramedy A Remarkable Woman brings on British producer Pat Tookey-Dickinson (Netflix’s 1899). Described as “Fleabag in a corset,” the series will follow a young woman destined for stardom who, unfortunately, learns her lung disease is terminal.
ON THIS DAY
1957. The Bridge on the River Kwai is released.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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