Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Legendary’s Magic School Bus, Netflix’s The Everlasting, and Marlene Dietrich.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Elizabeth Banks will star as Ms. Frizzle in Legendary’s Magic School Bus movie.
Netflix wins rights to adapt Alix E. Harrow’s fantasy series The Everlasting.
Paramount+ is making Tulisa: The Reckoning, a docuseries.
Media Res names Kristen Kuroski EVP, Head of Business Affairs & Legal.
Glen Powell will star in Craig Gillespie’s AI erotic thriller Homewreckers.
Glenn Howerton & Meghann Fahy reunite in scripted dramedy The Girlfriend.
Chase Stokes and Michael Rooker join AMC’s NASCAR drama Thunder Road.
Ron Perlman cast in Prime Video’s Cross Season 3.
Lloyd Braun and Mark Stern launch AI-driven studio.
Jeremy Slater (Wri: Mortal Kombat II) will make his directing debut.
Agnieszka Holland will direct a Marlene Dietrich biopic.
Friday’s correct answer: Yes, Jim Carrey has starred in a horror film, Once Bitten (1985).
66% got it correct.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
“Please let this be a normal field trip.” With Elizabeth Banks? No Way!
Legendary Entertainment and Scholastic Entertainment are officially revving their engines on a live-action feature adaptation of The Magic School Bus with Elizabeth Banks attached to produce and play the eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle.
The project was originally announced by Universal in 2020 and is now moving forward at Legendary, with Rob Letterman (dir: Detective Pikachu) brought on to write and direct.
While specific plot details are unknown, the adaptation celebrates the 40th anniversary of the beloved children’s books that inspired the classic, long-running PBS animated series, in which every day was a field trip into space or inside the human body. Remember when they get stuck inside Ms. Frizzle’s immune system (scene)?
From directing a bear high on cocaine in Cocaine Bear (2023) to being accidentally shrunk to 6 inches tall in Peacock’s The Miniature Wife, Banks has built a career embracing the wonderfully absurd. With an infectious comedic energy and a fearless commitment to larger-than-life characters, The Hunger Games actress is the perfect person to step into Ms. Frizzle’s colorful shoes.
The Magic School Bus has a massive nostalgia factor for me, and I remember being enamored by how ambitious and bold all the children were to travel in that wild, magical bus. I believe it will resonate with younger and older audiences.
Tidbits:
Netflix is in a time loop. In a competitive bidding war, the streamer has won the rights to The Everlasting, a fantasy series from author Alix E. Harrow. Writer Daphne Ferraro (Amazon’s Maxton Hall) is attached to pen the series adaptation, all about the legend of the female knight, Sir Una Everlasting, whose legacy lives on in songs and children’s stories. The truth of Una’s life is discovered by a failed soldier who becomes tangled in time, determined to rewrite the famed knight’s story.
Paramount+ is making a docuseries, Tulisa: The Reckoning, about the rise and fall of singer-songwriter Tulisa. The unscripted series will follow the former pop star as she reflects on her journey from the success of N-Dubz to the drug scandal that crashed her career.
Kristen Kuroski becomes the EVP, Head of Business Affairs & Legal at indie studio Media Res (Prod Co: Apple TV+’s Pachinko). Kuroski joined the company in 2025 after working at MRC Television (Netflix’s Ozark) for six years.
Cancellations:
Peacock’s Ponies (after S1)
Trailers:
A24’s The Debut
Dir/Wri: Jesse Eisenberg
Cast: Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti
Apple’s The Dink
Cast: Jake Johnson, Ben Stiller
Release: Jul 24
Neon’s Sheep in the Box
Dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters)
Premiered at Cannes
Release: Jul 24
HBO Max’s Stuart Fails To Save the Universe (Big Bang Theory spinoff)
Release: Jul 23
Sky’s Possession
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki)
Warner Bros. Animation’s Batman: Knightfall Part 1
Warner Bros. Digger
Retrospective Clip (Digger at 2:30)
Cast: Tom Cruise, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed
Dir: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Release: Oct. 2
Release Dates:
Lionsgate’s Blair Witch Project Reboot
Prod. Co(s): Atomic Monster, Blumhouse Productions
Release: Sept. 24, 2027 (clip)
Disney+ and Hulu’s Adventure Time: Side Quests
Release: Jun. 29
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Glen Powell may have found his darkest role yet.
Powell is starring in an AI erotic thriller, Homewreckers, directed by Craig Gillespie (Dir: Supergirl).
The film will follow a struggling couple, Beth and Henry (Powell), as Beth accepts a surreal opportunity to reignite a romance between a younger version of Henry through advanced AI technology. Described as Unfaithful (2002) meets Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014), this is yet another erotic thriller that follows the success of Sydney Sweeney’s The Housemaid (2025).
Yet plot-wise, it actually seems more similar to Dreamquil, the SXSW film starring Elizabeth Banks and John C. Reilly from Paramount’s Republic Pictures.
Powell has made a name for himself in darkly comedic roles with a movie star charisma, whether it be a disinherited man out for murder in A24’s How to Make a Killing (2026) or a man desperate to survive a deadly game show in The Running Man (2025).
But his physicality and suaveness in Hit Man remind us of the erotic thriller icons of the 90s, such as Richard Gere or Michael Douglas.
Craig Gillespie is a master at creating memorable, larger-than-life characters with a hint of trauma, as in Cruella (2021) and I, Tonya (2017), so Powell should have fun with this one.
Tidbits:
A Sirens reunion. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Glenn Howerton is set to star in the feature The Girlfriend from his own script, alongside Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus), his co-star from Netflix’s limited series Sirens. The film follows a woman who relocates to Alabama for her husband Elliot’s (Howerton) dream job. When he sees her isolated and miserable, he secretly hires an escort (Fahy) to become her new best friend. Not long after Howerton’s transformative performance in XYZ Films’ BlackBerry, the studio is reuniting with him for the dramedy film. They are producing it with Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps (Stranger Things). Filming on The Girlfriend will begin this summer.
Mini Tidbits:
Chase Stokes (Outer Banks) joins AMC’s NASCAR drama series Thunder Road, starring Dennis Quaid (The Substance). The show follows the multi-generational story of a fictional Whitlock family deeply associated with stock car racing. Stokes will play Ronnie Whitlock, who was a promising pro racer before he got booted from the game.
And… The Walking Dead’s Michael Rooker will also take on a recurring role as the veteran racer and tough-minded Lucas. Thunder Road is set to premiere sometime next year.
Ron Perlman (Hellboy franchise) joins Prime Video’s Cross Season 3. The show follows Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge), who is a brilliant homicide detective. Season 3 kicks off when Alex Cross starts to dig deeper into Officer Herschel Zamora’s (Perlman) secrets and reveals that he might be hiding something more sinister than just PTSD.
The untitled Daniels’ feature has added emerging young actor Sean Kaufman to its growing cast. Breaking out as the clumsy brother on Amazon’s YA adaptation series The Summer I Turned Pretty, Kaufman will be joining Matt Damon, Sandra Oh, and Charles Melton in the secretive sci-fi comedy.
Italian actress Giorgia Moll (The Quiet American) has passed away at 88. Most famously seen in Jean-Luc Godard’s classic romance Contempt, a movie-within-a-movie, she played the secretary and interpreter for the boorish American film producer, iconically played by Jack Palance.
TECH SECTION
Former head of ABC Entertainment Lloyd Braun and previous Syfy exec Mark Stern are teaming to launch Intelligent Animation, an AI-driven studio focused on producing cheaper and faster shows through the use of AI tools. The company already has six projects in active development, like a book adaptation of C.J. Young’s book The Dragon Prince’s Bride.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Jeremy Slater (Wri: Mortal Kombat II) is making his directorial debut with horror thriller Summoner, starring Kevin Bacon. The film follows an exorcist named Jefferson Haddock (Bacon), who is called to an isolated witness-protection property when the owner is haunted by a terrifying demon. The script was penned by Slater himself, and Andy Muschietti (Dir: It franchise) will produce the film through Nocturna (Prod Co: Warner Bros.’ They Will Kill You).
Slater has experience with the horror thriller genre, having written The Lazarus Effect (2015, trailer) that followed a medical team that creates a serum that can bring dead people back to life – but with supernatural consequences. The film’s main source of horror was the telekinetic ability and hallucinations conjured by the resurrected Zoe (Olivia Wilde), with masterfully executed death scenes like the crushing closet scene that left audiences clawing at their seats.
Mini Tidbit:
Indie distributor Abramorama (The Beatles: Eight Days A Week) has acquired North American rights to Never Stop Chasing, their newest climate documentary. Following famed storm chaser Reed Timmer, the inspiration for Glen Powell’s Twisters character, the film is described as “a 20-year reckoning with obsession, loss, and the relentless pull of violent weather.” The doc will hit select theaters in the U.S. on Aug. 21.
Never Stop Chasing trailer
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Some lives are too contradictory for a conventional biopic. Oscar-nominated Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa) is gearing up to direct Berlinweh – Yearning for a Home, a feature film chronicling the extraordinary life of actress, singer, and anti-Nazi revolutionary Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel).
The German-born Hollywood star was iconic on screen and off, blending glamour and androgyny, artistry and activism. Dietrich redefined what a movie star could be. The film will unfold across four pivotal days in four different decades, charting her evolution from actress to political trailblazer.
From the Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool, Czech production company Marlene Film Production (Green Border), Irish producer Mike Downey (Holland’s Franz), and German writer Ingo Rasper attached to pen the screenplay, Berlinweh has become quite the international affair.
Tidbits:
Ted Lasso actor Nick Mohammed is joining forces with BBC Studios Kids & Family to adapt his The Young Magicians books into an animated series. Based on his first love, magic, the two books The Thieves’ Almanac and The 24-Hour Telepathy Plot follow four young friends who uncover secret conspiracies hidden deep in London’s most exclusive club: The Magic Circle. The adaptation comes from London-based Blink Industries’ (Children Vs Battle SuperStars) first-look deal with BBC Studios.
Mini Tidbits:
Disney+ is solidifying its Scripted UK team, bringing on producer Ron O’Berst (BBC Three’s What It Feels Like For a Girl) as new Director of Scripted Originals and Laura Klimke (prod. BBC Three’s Wreck) as Development Manager. The new hires will help to ramp up investment in local UK originals for Disney+.
Encore Films (Distribution: Dragon Blade starring Jackie Chan) acquires worldwide rights to director Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer. The film will be the long-awaited spin-off to his cult classic Shaolin Soccer (2001, trailer) and will follow an all-women squad of footballers/martial arts masters.
Passion Paris (the Parisian animation studio Not a Box) is adapting a South Korean webtoon. Although the webtoon's title has not been specified, it is said to have garnered over 80M views worldwide.
The number of movie theatergoers dropped 4.4% across Europe in 2025.
ON THIS DAY
1971. Warner Bros. releases McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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