Gene Hackman: The Institution Breaker
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Gene Hackman, Alicia Vikander and Sean Durkin.
Let’s go!
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Gene Hackman loved to tear everyone apart, including himself.
The double Oscar-winner passed away yesterday at the ripe age of 95. He often played men brutalized by the institutions they served—or the ruthless enforcers of those institutions' brutality.
In films like The French Connection (1971), Mississippi Burning (1988), and Unforgiven (1992), he was a cop, FBI agent, sheriff, whose fight for justice often held a mirror to the very definition of getting even, blurring the line between law and ruthless retribution.
In his pursuits for justice, there was always a physical or psychic tearing of his very soul that would push him to the brink. Look no further than what I consider his greatest role, The Conversation (1974, winner Palme d’Or). What starts as a surveillance job for hire strikes within him the deepest levels of paranoia ever committed to the screen.
What Hackman did was play into his everyman looks, somehow always weary, always tired, always beaten, and then use that as a driving force to move through scenes with such a powerful violence that you could see the demons bubbling from within him.
This was not an average Hollywood star with a million dollar smile. He had a gut and a balding head that would take you to the heart of men worn down by the world’s they served.
And when that moment came, Hackman’s characters did what he did best: they refused to go down without a fight.
For More:
The Conversation trailer.
The motivational speech to end all motivational speeches (Hoosiers clip).
There are some suspicious circumstances in Hackman’s death. More on that in a NY Times article.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Warner Bros. Discovery Q4 2024 results.
Miramax announces The Beekeeper 2 starring Jason Statham.
Fresh off Bob Marley: One Love Paramount renews its first-look deal with the creator’s production company State Street Pictures.
Shrek 5 teaser w/ Zendaya, Minecraft trailer w/ Jack Black.
The Umbrella Academy screenwriter Jesse McKeown is working on an untitled supernatural creature series for Netflix.
Academy award winning Alicia Vikander is completely deranged in the eerie dystopian trailer for Magnolia Pictures’ The Assessment.
Oscar Nuñez will reprise his role as neurotic, but sweet accountant Oscar Martinez in Peacock’s upcoming The Office follow-up series.
Nathan Fielder returns with Season 2 of The Return.
Kelly Marie Tran stars in Control Freak, a Hulu horror film.
Krysten Ritter will play a serial killer in Dexter: Resurrection.
Bill Nighy joins Prime Video’s action-adventure series Ride or Die, starring Octavia Spencer.
Vertical is releasing the Michael Cera buddy comedy Sacramento.
Sean Durkin (Dir: A24’s Iron Claw) has just set up his new project, Deep Cuts with Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler.
Mubi picks up Paolo Sorrentino’s latest film La Grazia.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Warner Bros. Discovery Q4 2024 results. And the change from last year:
$494 M net loss Q4
↑ 24% from $400 M loss Q4 2023
$3.66 bn studio income (↑16%) Q4
↓9% theatrical revenue Q4
$2.72bn EBITDA
↑10%
$950 M studio EBITDA (↑75%)
116.9 M subs (57.1 M domestic)
↑ 6.4 M Q3 2024
$409 M profit streaming
Up from a $55 M loss Q4 2024
$1.92 bn profit linear division Q4
↓ 13% overall
↓ 16% ad revenue
DTC is up as WBD tries to pivot away from Linear, which is declining.
In a shareholder letter WBD stated:
“In 2024, we launched Max in more than 70 countries, added 19 million DTC subscribers, and generated nearly $700 million in DTC Adjusted EBITDA. Based on our strong momentum, we expect the DTC segment to deliver approximately $1.3 billion of Adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
WBD ended the year with $34.6 billion of net debt.
Jason Statham keeps Beekeeping: By beekeeping we mean shooting and punching people. Miramax (production company/financier) has announced a sequel to the 2024 hit The Beekeeper starring Statham.
Timo Tjahjanto (Nobody 2) directs from a script by Kurt Wimmer. David Ayer, who directed the original, is in talks to return as a producer. The original differentiated itself from other Wick-like films by embracing its silly premise:
A beekeeper goes on a murder spree of tech bros after his friend is scammed out of all of her money and kills herself. But this beekeeper is also a BEEKEEPER, a special forces agent outside of the law to “protect the hive”.
Look, Statham is great at a couple of things, being menacing and killing people, that's what you got with this one, and that's what you will get with this other one. Seems like fun, turn your brain off, TV.
Filming begins this fall, with Amazon/MGM Studios likely handling domestic distribution after the first one took $162.6 M worldwide. Here's the original trailer.
Tidbits:
Paramount is still feeling the love: Fresh off Bob Marley: One Love’s $180 M windfall Paramount Pictures has renewed its first-look deal with creators George L. Tillman Jr. and Robert Teitel and their production company State Street Pictures. This re-up will extend their partnership that began in 2020. Tillman Jr. and Teitel, known for The Hate U Give, the Barbershop franchise, as well as Bob Marley: One Love, will continue developing films with Paramount, with executives Robert Prinz and Lawrence Mott leading their TV and film divisions. They have not yet announced their next project.
All the trailers:
Shrek 5 (Universal)
Cast: Zendaya, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy
Release: Christmas 2026
A Minecraft Movie (Warner Bros. Discovery)
Cast: Jack Black, Jason Momoa
Release: April 4th
Working Man (Amazon MGM)
Cast: Jason Statham
Release: March 28th
Screamboat
Release: April 2nd
Bosch: Legacy (Prime’s final season)
Release: March 27th
Renewals:
Apple TV+’s Where’s Wanda (Season 2)
Three projects on the horizon: Baby Reindeer’s stage company inks a deal for TV, The Umbrella Academy screenwriter lines up a supernatural project and Netflix goes full vampire:
https://theindustry.co/p/reindeer-umbrella-vampire
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Academy award winning Alicia Vikander is completely deranged in the eerie dystopian trailer for Magnolia Pictures’ The Assessment (IMDb).
In the trailer, a set of wannabe parents played by WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olson and Yesterday’s Himesh Patel are subjected to a series of harrowing tests from Vikander’s cold and childlike Virginia. She is to live with them for a full week, embodying a gauntlet of potential parenting nightmares that will result in the couple either being given the permission to have a child or not. Things take a dark turn when the uninhibited Virginia begins to psychologically torment the couple.
Vikander has experience playing manipulative characters in the sci-fi genre with her AI robot, Ava, in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014, scene), an unhinged and deeply deceptive character.
The Assessment premieres in theaters everywhere on March 21st.
Vikander is next set to star alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming romantic thriller titled Remain (IMDb). No word yet on production dates.
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Oscar Nuñez will reprise his role as neurotic, but sweet accountant Oscar Martinez in Peacock’s upcoming The Office follow-up series. The show, rumored to be titled The Paper, follows staffers at a struggling Midwestern newspaper, filmed by the same documentary crew from The Office, which may explain Oscar’s connection to the story. Though it should be clarified he will not be the central character but will be a part of the ensemble. Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, the series features a new cast, including Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina) and Sabrina Impacciatore (White Lotus), with producers leaving open the possibility of additional cameos from the original Office cast.
Best of Oscar Marinez Clips.
Tidbit:
Oh sequel city over here: God of weaponized cringe Nathan Fielder returns with what I consider to be his magnum opus. Season 2 of his hyper meta, maybe real, maybe not, reality show, psychological experiment? It's hard to place what The Rehearsal is but it is steeped in the darkest humor you could imagine follows Fielder as he creates painstaking 1 to one recreations of situations for the subject to rehearse, what starts as winning bar trivia, ramps up quickly to creating a drug overdose and ended on a cliffhanger that could only be described as sinister. It's also one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The Rehearsal season 2 will be released on 4/20 and here is a teaser.
Season 1 started off fairly normal, but this scene in the first episode hinted at the craziness that was coming. Clip.
Mini Tidbit:
HBO’s Lanterns has begun production, starring Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre as John Stewart. The DC series follows intergalactic cops (Lanterns) investigating a murder. First look, if you squint you can see the rings!
Kelly Marie Tran stars in Control Freak, a Hulu horror film debuting March 13. She was always perhaps unfairly tied to the latest batch of Star Wars films, but she's a capable actress and it's cool to see her in something so mature and dark. Trailer here.
Krysten Ritter kills. In Dexter: Resurrection she will play a sommelier serial killer. It’s a role that Ritter will have a lot of fun with. But much power comes when Ritter is completely still.
Bill Nighy joins Prime Video, Teresa Palmer stars alongside Liam Neeson and a LOTR scoop:
https://theindustry.co/p/nighy-palmer-lotr
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Vertical is releasing the Michael Cera buddy comedy Sacramento. The film has strong vibes of A Real Pain with a sorta happily married dude (Cera) adventuring with one that’s suffered a big loss (Michael Angarano), trailer.
Here's the official logline:
When free-spirited Ricky suddenly reappears in father-to-be Glenn’s life, the two former best friends embark on a spontaneous road trip from LA to Sacramento.
The movie, directed by Michael Angarno, will also star Kristen Stewart. Maya Erskine co-stars, and as per usual, steals all her scenes.
Sacramento will be released April 11th.
Sean Durkin cuts deep. The Iron Claw, Martha Marcy May Marlene director has just set up his new project:
Deep Cuts
Dir/Wri: Durkin
Cast: Saoirse Ronan And Austin Butler
Studio: A24
Producer: Eli Bush (Lady Bird, Uncut Gems)
Producer: Josh Safdie (Good Time)
Producer: Ronan
Source material: newly released novel
Synopsis:
Two music-obsessed twentysomethings navigate the messy realities of ambition, belonging and adulthood over the course of era-defining decades.
The film, “examines the nature of talent, obsession, belonging, and above all, our need to be heard.”
Durkin is quite good at depicting relationships where people cannibalize each other. In A24’s Iron Claw, it is the Von Erich brothers’ obsession to make their father proud that causes the family extreme pain. In Martha Marcy May Marlene, belonging to a community becomes a core tenant of manipulation.
No word on production dates.
Helsinki and London-based investment fund manager IPR.VC has been given €25M ($26M) from the European Investment Fund (EIF) aiming to boost movies and TV series “made predominantly in Europe”. The independent company has had long-term collaborations with top companies:
A24’s Causeway (2022) and Alex Garland’s Civil War (2024)
XYZ’s BlackBerry (2023) and Run Rabbit Run (2023)
MK2 Films’ upcoming Belly of the Beast with Ben Stiller and Colin Farrell
IPR.VC has raised €200 M ($210 M) financing more than 50 productions across Europe and beyond.
Mubi picks up Paolo Sorrentino’s latest film and also sets a release for a Sundance/Berlin hit:
https://theindustry.co/p/mubi-sorrentino
ON THIS DAY
1948. Mike Figgis (dir/wri: Leaving Las Vegas), born in Carlisle, England.
That’s all for the week. Happy Oscars weekend. We’ll see you Monday!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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