Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Dwayne Johnson’s machine, Charlie Brooker’s detective, and a trio.
Let’s go!
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Dwayne Johnson is trying to rip apart your conception of him as a 4-quadrant action star.
At TIFF earlier this week, Johnson took to the stage minutes after his newest project, Lizard Music, from director Benny Safdie, was announced.
He described his character as:
“A whimsical and eccentric man called ‘The Chicken Man’ and his best friend is a 70-something-year-old chicken.”
The synopsis is even wilder:
A young boy stumbles upon strange lizard musicians on late-night TV [pictured above], leading him to befriend a peculiar man (Johnson).
There’s an irony to these new projects. Johnson’s face is recognized worldwide for Moana and Jumanji. Yet for Lizard Music and A24’s upcoming The Smashing Machine, he is hiding his face, body, and voice.
He described the process of preparing for his role in The Smashing Machine, which involved heavy prosthetics, large weight changes, and vocal coaching.
“[My character, UFC champion Mark Kerr] is a beast of a man, beautiful human being, so soft spoken, so kind and gentle and tender.”
Johnson’s vocal coach taught him:
“I speak from the ground up. Mark speaks from the throat up, very soft.”
The effect is that Johnson disappears into a tender, soft-spoken man who can’t quite get a grip on anything outside the ring. But his performance slips so much into interiority that the prosthetics and vocal change are almost a disservice to the fine work he is doing.
The real trick of the movie comes later, when his character’s appearance changes to something more closely resembling The Rock. In this moment, what emerges is The Rock as a man grappling with what it means to lose.
The announcement is clear: The Rock can act and doesn’t need a mask to do so.
For More:
The Smashing Machine's new trailer. Out Oct 3rd.
Another fighter film at TIFF? Check out Sydney Sweeney in Christy. Sweeney’s character grows up assuming the worst in everyone but herself. Her journey is about gaining external confidence while her mental health erodes. It’s a long, beautiful, harrowing journey.
You’ll never guess it, but The Smashing Machine and Christy have something in common with another film at TIFF. The post-WW2 film Nuremberg (trailer). All three have epilogue title cards. They range from unnecessary to perfunctory to sensational. The best of the three provides a piece of historical info that launches the character to an unexpected place and provides a final kiss of dramatic irony.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror) is developing a dark detective series for Netflix.
David F. Sandberg (Until Dawn) to direct new Amityville Horror at Amazon MGM.
HBO greenlights The Conjuring series.
Guillermo del Toro plots a violent My Dinner with Andre-type film starring Oscar Isaac.
Legendary is adapting Kate Weston’s How to Make a Killing.
Paramount Comms exec Justin Dini exits after 7 years.
Homeland writer Ted Mann dies at 72.
John Travolta joins AI horror Ed, now filming in Atlanta.
Row K Entertainment acquires Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire.
Music Box Films takes US rights to François Ozon’s The Stranger.
Dark Deception, a survival horror game, is being adapted for film.
Magnet Releasing acquires Scream and Cry Horror Movie Review series.
Myriad Pictures picks up international rights for select Buffalo 8 titles.
Orion picks up Harness, a sports-betting thriller.
Cineverse acquires Bloodsuckers and The Grimoir.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Black Mirror True Detective. Charlie Brooker, creator of Black Mirror, is creating a detective series for Netflix.
Synopsis:
A gritty detective from the bleak Northern town of Bleakford heads to London, pursuing a ritualistic murderer in a desperate race to stop their killing spree.
It makes sense that Brooker, the modern Rod Serling (Creator: Twilight Zone), is trying to move into new genres. The 6th season of Black Mirror tilted far into horror, much to the dismay of fans.
And yet the best and bleakest Black Mirror episodes cross genres. San Junipero (sappy romance), USS Callister (fantasy), and even the pilot, National Anthem, had tenets of a detective story. Bottom line: Brooker is brilliant, and we’re hoping this new show allows him to tap into his talents.
David F. Sandberg will direct a new Amityville Horror film at Amazon MGM Studios.
He’s fresh off directing Sony’s Until Dawn (2025).
Scripted by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing (The Nun II). The project follows closely behind Amazon’s horror success with The Conjuring: Last Rites ($187M worldwide) and its announced series (more on that below).
The real-life murders were adapted into Jay Anson’s 1977 bestseller The Amityville Horror, and then the 1979 film has since become one of horror’s most enduring haunted house tales, spawning numerous sequels, spin-offs, and now reboots. This joins another Amityville movie from Joseph & Vanessa Winter (Deadstream).
Warner Bros. Discovery greenlights HBO's The Conjuring series. No big surprise with their box office success this weekend. Nancy Won (Tiny Beautiful Things) is coming on as showrunner and EP. Peter Cameron and Cameron Squires (Agatha All Along, WandaVision) are joining as writers. The series will be a direct continuation of the Conjuring film franchise, currently totaling 9 films.
Guillermo Del Toro’s post-Frankenstein project? My Dinner with Andre as a slasher film starring Oscar Isaac, where people are killed after every dish.
The original film (trailer) follows Wallace Shawn (Princess Bride) and Andre Gregory (Demolition Man) during an extended dinner where they break down everything from the trouble with long-term relationships to traveling to the Sahara Desert to the meaning of life.
Del Toro likes his films bloody, but there’s a magical fantasy element that usually keeps us from squirming. His best work is grounded in the terrestrial (Pan’s Labyrinth); this seems to be tracking that way.
Mini Tidbits:
Legendary Television (HBO Max’s Dune Prophecy) is adapting Kate Weston’s dark comedy real estate novel How to Make a Killing. Selling Sunset meets Dead to Me, the book follows a real estate agent and popular mom-fluencer who becomes a suspect after a woman is found dead at her open house.
Jason Fuchs will write Netflix and Legendary’s live-action My Hero Academia, directed by Shinsuke Sato. The hit manga follows a powerless teen gifted with superpowers and sent to superhero school. Fuchs also co-created HBO’s It prequel Welcome to Derry and appears in A24/Peacock’s Crystal Lake series.
Believe it or not, Law & Order is growing. NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution and L&O producer Wolf Entertainment launched an ad-supported streaming channel specifically for the cult following crime drama. The channel debuted yesterday with seasons five through ten (1994-2000) available.
IMG veteran Robbie Henchman has been appointed the President of WME Group’s 160over90, the company’s in-house marketing and branding agency. 160over90 represents companies like Coca-Cola, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Verizon, and Visa.
Following Paramount’s similar RTO notice last week, NBCUniversal will mandate a four-day in-office schedule for hybrid employees starting Jan. 5, 2026. Staff must work onsite Monday–Thursday, with optional Friday flexibility.
Paramount’s Communication exec Justin Dini is leaving the company. Dini joined when the company was known as Viacom back in 2017 and handled communications when it merged with CBS Corp. No word where Dini will go next.
Paramount Television’s latest series hails from acclaimed crime novelist Michael Connelly (Bosch). He is taking his experience as a crime reporter in Florida’s Daytona Beach to make this Untitled Florida Task Force series. TV writer Jim Leonard (wri: Ray Donovan) is the showrunner.
Homeland and NYPD Blue writer Ted Mann has passed away at 72. The Emmy winner worked on countless TV shows as a producer and head writer.
Adeline Leonard Seakwood has died at 102. She served as production coordinator on Annie (1982) and Three Days of the Condor (1975) and dozens of other films.
Trailers:
Netflix’s Nouvelle Vague
Theatrical release: Oct 31
Streaming Release: Nov 14
First look:
Netflix’s The Rip
Cast: Ben Affleck & Matt Damon
Lice (horror comedy)
Cast: Emile Hirsch
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Hugh Jackman's Singing Again.
After bringing back his iconic Logan in Deadpool and Wolverine, the star has turned his sights on to his true passion, the next big silver screen musical.
He and Kate Hudson are set to star in Focus Features’ Song Sung Blue, a musical about two hopeless romantics who start a Neil Diamond cover band. The musical takes heavily from the previous documentary of the same name by Greg Kohs about real-life couple Mike and Claire Sardina, "Lightning & Thunder."
The two midwesterners took their love of diamonds and desire for a second shot and turned it into local stardom in their small town.
It looks like it’s aiming for a Christmas release. The new trailer has a lot of heart and just a bit of cheese, the chemistry is electric, and there is an underlying sadness that seems to be swept up in the couple's little victories.
With some Hollywood sheen, even a little bar gig can look like a stadium.
Trailer here.
Casting Tidbits for the following projects:
Robert Zemeckis’ The Last Mrs. Parrish
John Travolta’s Ed
MGM+’s The Westies
For all that and more click here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Row K Entertainment, a new indie distributor, picks up its first film: TIFF and Venice’s Dead Man’s Wire.
Directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Al Pacino, Bill Skarsgård, and Colman Domingo.
Synopsis:
On February 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis entered the office of Richard Hall, president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off shotgun wired with a "dead man's wire" from the trigger to Tony's own neck.
Row K is founded by industry vets Christopher Woodrow (EP: Birdman, Hacksaw Ridge, The Long Walk) and Raj Brinder Singh (EP: John Wick, Sing Street). No word on release date.
But we’re seeing a ton of new indie distributors enter the market. Willa popped onto the scene last year with the Rooney Mara-starring La Cocina and has already partnered with Lionsgate. Black Bear is expanding into US distribution.
Tidbits:
Music Box Films has picked up US rights on François Ozon's (Swimming Pool) adaptation of The Stranger, starring Benjamin Voisin (Summer of 85) and Rebecca Marder (The Crime Is Mine), after its Venice premiere. Gaumont is handling international sales. Based on Albert Camus’ The Stranger.
The survival horror game Dark Deception is being adapted into a feature film by Adrian Speckert and Cory Todd Hughes of So It Goes Entertainment (Wolf Creek: Legacy). The game, with 6.5M units sold and 58M players, mixes arcade gameplay with psychological horror. Clearly inspired by Five Nights at Freddy’s, with the goal of capturing Gen-Z audiences. Game trailer.
Magnet Releasing, the genre division of Magnolia Pictures, has acquired global rights to Scream and Cry Horror Movie Review. A very campy horror-comedy series featuring goth host Scream (Mimi Torres) and a puppet rat, Cry (voiced by E.G. Daily) premieres its first eight episodes on Magnolia Selects and Monsters & Nightmares on September 25, with four more arriving later this fall. The original promo trailer was two years old, glad it finally found a place.
Mini Tidbits:
Amazon MGM’s Orion Pictures has picked up Harness. Set in the sports betting world of the 80s, the thriller is from writer-director Leigh Janiak (Fear Street films). Currently in the middle of casting, the horror auteur is making a pretty distinct shift from her past works with Harness.
Myriad Pictures (American Sweatshop) has acquired international rights to select Buffalo 8 titles, highlights include Atrabilious, horror film Bundy Manor, and A Hundred Lies.
Bloodsuckers and The Grimoir, a new horror movie, has been acquired by Cineverse (Terrifier 3) to be released on the genre-exclusive streaming platform Screambox this October.
Academy Award-winning writing duo Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (The Fighter) are brought on to pen a script about Ukraine’s supreme soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk and their remarkable origin story.
Kunal Nayyar’s (The Big Bang Theory) Good Karma Productions is adapting the viral novel The Inheritance for TV with Geeta Vasant Patel (dir. House of the Dragon) attached to direct. The book follows an affluent family reunion where the patriarch is said to announce his anticipated succession plan.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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