Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Emmy 2026 Breakdown, Focus Features’ Oscar and BTS.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
The Emmy nominations continued to cement who owns prestige TV.
HBO came out on top with a massive 122 nominations.
Netflix, which eats everyone’s lunch in terms of monthly viewing, watch time/day, and subs, came in second with a staggering 111 nominations.
Interestingly, both studios were down from the previous totals last year: HBO ↓20 noms, Netflix ↓9 noms. Apple is nibbling into their lunch with a studio record of 87 nominations (↑6 from last year). Apple’s shows represent 38% of all nominated shows in the Outstanding Comedy and Drama series category. Not bad for a seven-year-old studio.
Prime made a bit of a comeback this year, after no ATL noms last year, it nabbed 3 biggies (Riz Ahmed for Lead Actor in Bait, Outstanding Documentary for John Candy: I Like Me, and Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series for Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, and 2x Outstanding Movie noms).
There were also some major disappointments, Paramount+ being overlooked for all above-the-line nominations for the second year in a row.
Here is a breakdown of the 2026 Emmy Nominations by the numbers:
0: nominations
Heated Rivalry (Canadian show)
Sydney Sweeney
Jeremy Allen White
Taylor Sheridan
Jamie Bell (Half Man)
Hot Ones
The Boys (0 ATL noms, 5 BTL noms)
NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
FX’s The Lowdown
1 Emmy nomination (notable)
Rob Reiner (The Bear S4, Guest Actor, posthumous)
Michael J. Fox (Guest Star in Shrinking after retiring from acting)
Lady Gaga (Wednesday song The Dead Dance)
1st: Emmy Nomination
Charles Melton (Beef)
Jeff Kober (Dr. Robbie’s motorcycle guru in The Pitt)
YouTube’s SubwayTakes (Outstanding Short Form Comedy)
Connor Storrie (SNL, Host, Guest Actor)
Peacock’s Ponies (for Title Design)
1st: Emmy Nomination in 10 years
ABC’s Dancing with the Stars (Outstanding Reality Program)
3/3 Emmy nominations
Lisa Kudrow for every season of The Comeback (S1 nom was in 2006, S2 nom was in 2015)
Zendaya for Euphoria (she won in 2020 and 2022)
5/5 Emmy nominations
Jean Smart has been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for every season of Hacks - she has won 4 out of 4.
2: nominations
Michelle Pfeiffer for Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Outstanding Supporting Actress in Comedy Series, Outstanding Comedy Series - she is an EP)
Colman Domingo for Four Seasons (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series) and for Euphoria (Outstanding Guest Actor)
Matthew Rhys for The Beast in Me (Lead Actor in Anthology) and Widow’s Bay (Lead Actor in Comedy). First actor since John Goodman in 1995 to score nominations in two main acting categories
Nick Offerman, Supporting in Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Comedy) and Death by Lightning (Limited)
Laurie Metcalf, Supporting in Monster: The Ed Gein Story and Guest in Hacks
Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Outstanding Director for a Drama Series: The Gilded Age, Task)
1 & 1: One Oscar nomination and One Emmy nomination
Elle Fanning (Supporting Actress: Sentimental Value. Lead Actress: Margo’s Got Money Troubles)
3 nominations
Noah Wyle (Directing, Best Drama Series, Lead Actor)
4 nominations
Total for the Fanning sisters (they both EP’d Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and each got an acting nom, Elle for Margo’s and Dakota for Supporting in All Her Fault)
Jason Bateman (Lead Actor and Director for Black Rabbit, Supporting Actor and Outstanding Limited Series for DTF St. Louis)
9 nominations
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (Final Season)
13 acting nominations
The Pitt S2
17: Years since last Emmy nomination
Sally Field (Remarkably Bright Creatures in 2026)
Sally Field (Brothers & Sisters in 2009)
19 nominations - most this year for any new show
Widow’s Bay
23 nominations for FX (down from 35 in 2025 and 93 in 2024)
25 nominations - most for a show this year
The Pitt S2
87 nominations for Apple (most ever)
3x nominations: Outstanding Drama Series (Pluribus, Slow Horses, and Your Friends and Neighbors)
3x nominations: Outstanding Comedy Series (Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Shrinking, and Widow’s Bay)
100-year-old nominee
Sir David Attenborough (Outstanding Narrator for 2x shows, Netflix’s A Gorilla Story and Nat Geo’s Ocean with David Attenborough)
111 nominations
Netflix (down from 120 last year)
Disney (down from 137 last year)
122: Nominations for HBO (down from 142 last year)
25 for The Pitt
24 for Hacks (most ever for Comedy Series)
13 for DTF St. Louis
Full list of the 78th Emmy nominations:
https://theindustry.co/p/emmy-2026-nominations
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Focus Features acquires Elsinore, starring Andrew Scott.
Amazon MGM Studios promotes Kara Smith to Head of Drama.
Range Select names Jake Carter and Billy Offer as partners & co-heads.
The Academy Museum opens a new horror exhibition.
Oregon’s attorney general seeks 60-day delay on the PSKY-Warner Bros. merger.
Netflix’s The Retrievals taps Andrij Parekh to direct first two episodes.
Mubi acquires Eleanor Coppola’s BTS doc on Marie Antoinette (2006).
Afreximbank launches $1bn Pan-African Film Fund.
Yesterday’s correct answer: Donnie Darko director also helmed Southland Tales.
70% got it correct.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Focus Features has acquired StudioCanal’s Elsinore, starring Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman.
Synopsis:
Dying of AIDS, actor Ian Charleson refused to give up, learning and performing Hamlet at London’s National Theatre in his final weeks, delivering an unforgettable performance before passing away shortly after.
There couldn’t be better casting. Scott has played Hamlet on stage. Just watch his To Be or Not to Be monologue (clip).
During CinemaCon, I saw some beautiful footage that nicely mirrored Scott as Charleson facing his mortality, while the character of Hamlet centers on similar themes. It’s an Ouroboros of art imitating life.
Prod Co: LD Entertainment (Bone Lake, The Grey). Expect this to vie for major award territory.
Amazon MGM Studios' scripted department is breaking into three separate groups: drama, comedy, and young adult. Longtime executive Kara Smith (prod: The Summer I Turned Pretty) was named the new Head of Drama. The holders of the other two positions are TBD, but senior programming executives, each with long tenures, Jen Chambers, Michael McDonald, and Odetta Watkins, will each be leaving the company as part of the reorg.
Mini Tidbits:
The Oregon attorney general’s office is requesting a 60-day delay in the upcoming completion of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. With the state continuing its antitrust investigation, Paramount Skydance lawyers have assured the court that the deal will not close before Jul. 22.
Netflix is big on Big Chicken. In a Super Size Me? (2004) -esque documentary, Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy will follow British comedian Mo Gilligan on a tour of the UK and the US on an entirely fried chicken diet in a 28-day experiment. The extra-crispy doc will premiere globally on the streamer on Aug. 5.
Jake Carter (finance agent: Todd Haynes’ May December) and Billy Offer (finance agent: Longlegs) join Range Select as Partners & Co-Heads. Range Select is a film finance and sales division of Range Media Partners (Prod Co: A Complete Unknown).
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is opening a new horror exhibition and screening series on Sept. 26. The exhibition features six chambers filled with original props, costumes, and production materials from iconic horror film sets.
AGC International, the sales department of AGC Studios (Prod Co: Kiss of the Spider Woman), appoints Nat McCormick and Diane Ferrandez as their Co-Heads of Worldwide Sales and Distribution.
Fathom Entertainment (distributor focused on classic re-releases) names former Disney and IMAX exec Jason Brenek as CEO.
John Lasker, SVP of ESPN+, leaves after 27 years with the company. He helped launch ESPN into the streaming era.
Greenlit:
Disney+’s The Cheetah Girls: Next Gen
Cast: Raven-Symoné, Adrienne Bailon-Houghton
Trailer:
Warner Bros’ Dune: Part Three
Dir: Denis Villeneuve
Release: Dec 18
Neon’s Hope
Dir: Na Hong-Jin
Premiere: Cannes
Korean Premiere: July 15
U.S. Release: Sept 9
IFC’s The Sun Never Sets
Cast: Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson
Release: Sept 4
Universal Pictures’ Soulm8te
Straight to VOD Release: Aug 1
Myanmar drama Fruit Gathering
Czech Premiere: July 10
Ukraine doc To Die To Live
Czech Premiere: July 10
Netflix’s Elize: Shadows of a Woman
Release: July 22
Vertical’s The Gentleman Thief
Cast: John Travolta, Lukas Haas
Release: July 28
First look:
Octet
Dir: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Rachel Zegler
Release dates:
Janus Films’ Unzipped Re-release
Cast: Isaac Mizrahi, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford
Original Release: Aug 11, 1995
Re-release: Sept 2026
PBS’ Nova: Evolution
Release: Oct 14
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Ron Perlman (Pacific Rim) and Daniel Stisen (The Siege) join fantasy thriller Angels in Darkness, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. The film follows a P.I. who tries to stop a cult from unleashing an ancient mystical force into the real world. Perlman is no stranger to dark fantasy, from the Hellboy franchise to The City of Lost Children (1995). His commanding on-screen presence and charisma make him a natural fit for this film.
Jimmy Tatro is tapped to join the live-action HBO series DC Crime as Gorilla Grodd. The show will be a Superman spinoff, taking the format of a true-crime docuseries with Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) hosting.
David Howard Thornton (Art the Clown in the Terrifier franchise) joins mockumentary Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Blue Valentine cinematographer Andrij Parekh is set to direct the first two episodes of Netflix’s The Retrievals. From Molly Smith Metzler, the writer behind two of Netflix’s successful miniseries adaptations, Sirens (2025) and Maid (2021). The new series will follow one woman’s fight against a fertility center that operated on her and almost 100 other women without anesthesia. Announced at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Parekh will also act as DP on the episodes he directs, similarly to how he did on his Emmy-winning Succession run. The Retrievals shoots this fall.
Cohen Media Group (U.S. Distribution: Bernadette starring Catherine Deneuve) acquires U.S. rights to French drama Think Good. The film follows two Jewish lovers with different levels of faith as one begins to exert control over the other. The film stars Monia Chokri (A Brother’s Love) and Niels Schneider (Curiosa) and premiered in the Cannes Premiere section of this year’s Cannes.
Sofia Coppola’s Heart of Darkness. Mubi has just picked up a never-before-seen BTS doc on Marie Antoinette (2006), shot and directed by Sofia Coppola’s mother, the late great Eleanor Coppola. If you’re not familiar with Eleanor’s work, check out Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (trailer). It’s an insane BTS doc on Francis Ford Coppola slipping into madness to make Apocalypse Now.
Indian-British novelist Salman Rushdie teases a multi-episode TV adaptation of his book Midnight’s Children. The previously announced Netflix adaptation will not move forward, but Rushdie stated that there is a renewed interest in making his magical realist epic about India’s independence from the British into a TV series.
African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) officially launches the $1bn Pan-African Film Fund, with President of One Street Books, Lavaille Lavette, as CEO. The fund will invest in various content production, infrastructure, and distribution. It will also prioritize commercially viable projects with strong international distribution potential. The launch comes as African cinema begins to break through globally, including Akinola Davies Jr.’s Nigerian-British film My Father’s Shadow (2025, Trailer), the first Nigerian film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
ON THIS DAY
1956. Tom Hanks born in Concord, California.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram
Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co