Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Noah Hawley’s Horror, Bleecker Street’s Darkness, and an Electric Kiss.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Noah Hawley will direct Warner Bros.’ supernatural horror film Terrified.
Sony Pictures Entertainment is laying off hundreds.
Beef creator Lee Sung Jin & writer Joanna Calo will rewrite Marvel’s X-Men reboot.
Amazon MGM is developing Funny Business, an animated coming-of-age comedy.
Netflix is making a two-part Lego One Piece animated special.
Netflix has picked up rom-com pitch Court Date from writer Michael Montemayor.
Charlie Covell is adapting So Gay for You as a series for Amazon MGM.
UCP TV is developing Isabel Klee’s Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About.
Paradigm has launched a new Physical Production Division.
Minnie Driver will lead Paramount+ bank-siege thriller series The Day.
Playtime boards Cannes opening film The Electric Kiss.
Bleecker Street has acquired When Darkness Loves Us, starring Emilia Clarke.
Netflix is opening new offices in Buenos Aires.
Disney is expanding ESPN on Disney+ across Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Yesterday’s correct answer: Exit 57, Colbert’s first show as creator.
26% got it right.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Noah Hawley, the showrunner behind FX’s Fargo and Alien: Earth, will direct Warner Bros.’ horror film Terrified. Based on an Argentinian film of the same name (trailer), the film will follow a police officer as he investigates a series of supernatural incidents.
The original film is now distributed by Shudder and won Best Horror Feature at 2018’s Fantastic Fest.
Hawley already excels at supernatural horror. There’s a slew of great, gory, bloodbath body horror scenes in Alien: Earth (clip). Plus, that show was a big hit with 9.2M views in 1 week. This will be Hawley’s second feature film after Fox Searchlight’s Lucy in the Sky (2019), starring Natalie Portman.
Warner Bros. is doubling down on horror after the smashing success of their 2025 horror trio: Sinners ($370M WW + 4x Oscar wins), Final Destination: Bloodlines ($318M WW), and The Conjuring: Last Rites ($500M WW).
Sony Pictures Entertainment lays off hundreds. Top execs hit:
John Zaccario (President of Game Show Network)
Consolidating GSN under Sony’s Game Show Group
Colin Davis (EVP Comedy Development at Sony Pictures TV)
They’re also closing their Studios Costume Departments. These cuts are so they can double down on:
Crunchyroll (and other anime projects)
Game show IP
E.g., more spinoffs like Amazon Prime’s Pop Culture Jeopardy!
Video Game Adaptations (from PlayStation, which they own)
E.g., more God of War and Helldivers
YouTube capabilities
SPE’s financials last quarter were less than stellar, with revenue (↓ 12%), profit (↓9%), and theatrical revenue (↓60%) and TV revenue (↓10%) all down. Meanwhile, their biggest box-office earner was Chainsaw Man, which took in $117M WW (as of the end of the year).
Marvel’s X-Men reboot is bringing in some serious Beef. Netflix’s Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and writer Joanna Calo will rewrite the upcoming film, also reuniting with the show’s director Jake Schreier.
The trio is not new to the MCU, having worked as co-writers on Thunderbolts* (2025), a film that successfully recaptured the MCU’s earlier charm by bringing a ragtag group of superheroes together.
With the new creatives on board, the new X-Men film could get a more serious take on the Mutants’ introduction into the MCU. Thunderbolts surprisingly tackled the deeper themes of mental health issues, and we are excited to see what they bring to the table.
This combination can be exactly what Marvel needs right now: a sharper emotional edge to their characters.
Tidbits:
Amazon MGM Studios is getting into some Funny Business. The screenwriting brother duo behind Comedy Central’s Cursed Friends (2022), Aaron and Will Eisenberg, have a new pitch described as an animated coming-of-age comedy following both funny and evil clowns. Jon Hurwitz’s Counterbalance Entertainment (Cobra Kai) is set to produce the indie comedy marking the duo’s second original feature with Amazon and the studio with their R-rated family comedy Sporkinfeesten also in the works.
Netflix picks up Rom-Com feature pitch Court Date from writer Michael Montemayor (Disney+’s upcoming Cinderella adaptation, Stepsisters). His style seems edgy and cutesy, with the film centering on a Shakespearean tale of two young lawyers on opposing sides who fall madly in love. He started off his career, fittingly, as Dana Fox’s (writer: Wicked, Cruella) assistant.
Two Book adaptations:
The End of the F***ing World showrunner Charlie Covell is teaming with Amazon MGM Studios on a series adaptation of instant bestseller So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, and the Show That Started It All. Written by Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey, stars of the six-season drama The L Word, the actresses are set to lead the new series focused on female friendships in a post-fame world. Moennig and Hailey will each EP alongside Covell and Jessica Rhoades (Black Mirror).
UCP (Peacock’s Ted) is moving forward with Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About, the debut memoir from social media creator Isabel Klee, known for her canine content. Klee’s story, with the help of her many foster dogs, follows her search for true love in NYC. Working on a set with dogs is never easy, but the memoir has been so well received the series is being developed before it even hits shelves later this month.
Mini Tidbits:
Paradigm is launching a new Physical Production Division. It will be led by Gil Harari & Jonathan Silverman, whose clients over the years have included Valerie Bleth Sharp (prod: Netflix’s War Machine), Rob Cowan (prod: Aquaman), Michael Svitak (camera op: Top Gun: Maverick), and John Brister (Prod Manager: Greenbook, Scarpetta).
Hulu has greenlit a 3-part doc on 50 Cent, following his rags-to-riches story.
Renewals:
Paramount+’s Canada Shore (for S2)
Trailers:
A24’s The Invite
Dir: Olivia Wilde
Cast: Wilde, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, Penelope Cruz
Release: June 26
HBO’s Half Man
Creator/Star: Richard Gadd (Baby Reindeer)
Release: April 23rd
Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty (S9)
Release: May 24
Netflix’s Lego One Piece (animated special)
Release: Sept 29
First look:
Apple TV’s Dark Matter (S2)
Release: Aug 28
Award ceremony dates:
PGA Awards (2027)
Feb 27
Netflix’s Actor Awards (2027)
Feb 28
ABC’s The Oscars (2027)
March 14
PGA Awards (2028)
Feb 19
Netflix’s Actor Awards (2028)
Feb 20
ABC’s The Oscars (2028)
March 5th
100th Oscars
Release dates:
IFC’s Idiots
Previous title: The Shitheads
Premiere: Sundance 2026
Cast: Dave Franco
Dir: Macon Blair (Toxic Avenger)
Release: Aug 28
Fox’s Doc (S2 finale)
Co-starring Judd Hirsch
Release: April 14
Paramount+’s Divorced Sistas
Creator/Director/Writer: Tyler Perry
Release: April 15
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
At the heart of The Day is Minnie Driver.
Paramount+’s newest heist thriller series unfolds over a single day with the Good Will Hunting actress as a hostage negotiator at the center of a bank siege that rapidly spirals out of control.
Whether it’s a fiercely determined mother in ABC’s Speechless or a glamorous swindler on Emily in Paris, the new show puts Driver squarely in her element: cool under pressure and handling high-stakes with ease.
Production is ongoing with Paramount+ not yet setting a premiere date.
Mini Tidbits:
David Zayas (Dexter) and Stephen Bishop (Moneyball) join the cast of ABC’s R.J. Decker. Scott Speedman (Underworld) stars as R.J. Decker, and the series centers on a “disgraced newspaper photographer and ex-con who starts over as a private investigator.”
This Is Us actor Chris Sullivan has joined Amazon MGM Studios’ new thriller, Ally Clark, led by Viola Davis. He joins an ensemble of characters that lead Davis’ titular investigator closer to solving the death of her close friend as she travels across the country looking for answers.
Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba) joins the cast of Hulu’s Count My Lies. He will play Paul, the boyfriend of Katherine LaNasa (The Pitt). The series is a Gone Girl-esque psychological thriller, starring Shailene Woodley and Lindsay Lohan.
Obit:
Actor from New Orleans-set horror J.D.’s Revenge, Carl W. Crudup, has passed away at 79. The Mississippi native began his career on Broadway before primarily starring on the small screen in shows like ER, Criminal Minds, and, most recently, Netflix’s A Man on the Inside.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
Cannes tidbits:
Sales Rep Playtime (Eagles of the Republic) takes international sales on The Electric Kiss, the opening film of Cannes.
Cannes Festival’s Frontières Platform, an international co-production market between Fantasia International Film Festival and the Marché du Film, selects 13 genre-proof-of-concept projects. Check them out here.
Cannes Investors Circle selects eight projects from top international directors. One of them includes Magnus von Horn (Dir: Mubi’s The Girl with the Needle). Check out the full list here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Bleecker Street doubles down on horror. The indie studio has acquired a new horror film starring Emilia Clarke, When Darkness Loves Us. Based on Elizabeth Engstrom’s 1980s novel of the same name, the film follows a pregnant young woman (Clarke) as she becomes trapped in an underground cave system totally devoid of light for 15 years.
This is a cool pick-up for Bleecker Street, the studio pre-2025 rarely distributed horror films, with notable exceptions being Soderbergh’s Unsane (2018) and Out of Darkness (2022). But with the new horror trend minting wild box office returns, Bleecker Street tossed its hat in the ring when it grabbed Bone Lake (2025) out of Fantastic Fest, which made $1.4M domestically last October.
We’re hoping that Clarke, with her Game of Thrones fame, will drive this even higher when it’s released in 2027.
We have high hopes creatively, too. When Darkness Loves Us is directed by James Ashcroft, who created a blistering psychological tension in his previously ingenious nursing home set-horror The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024), starring John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush (trailer).
Tidbits:
Grant Mohrman’s (prod: Sovereign) new sales and production company, Gravel Lake Entertainment, debuts with the upcoming psychodrama The Thing That Hurts. From César award-winning director Arnaud Desplechin (Kings & Queen), the film sees both guilt and love collide among strangers bound together by a haunting secret. Gravel Lake is handling all international sales.
Netflix opens new offices in Buenos Aires. Netflix has also announced a slate of productions for Argentina in 2026 and 2027, which includes the Mafalda animated series, based on the iconic Argentine comic strip character of the same name that has been translated into 30+ languages.
Rosie Gurtovoy promoted to run Peters, Fraser + Dunlop’s (talent agency: Michael Caine and Bear Grylls) Film and TV division. She will take the role of Head of Media Rights with a focus on future strategy and growth. Gurtovoy joined PFD in 2018 and helped broker deals with Paramount+, Netflix, and A24.
ESPN will now be available on Disney+ in Europe and Asia-Pacific territories, with the service now immediately ready in over 50 countries in 100 markets worldwide. The expansion signals Disney doubling down on live programming and sporting events as they become a major part of their studio’s portfolio.
ON THIS DAY
1990. Twin Peaks premieres on ABC-TV.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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