Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Guillermo del Toro’s Labyrinth, Legendary TV’s Bible, and a spoon.
Let’s go!
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While much of Cannes is about the future of film, this year, Guillermo del Toro offered a critical look at his cinema’s past.
It was an apt topic, given that the first film to screen at Cannes, before even the opening-night movie, was his: the 20th-anniversary 4K restoration of Pan’s Labyrinth.
At the screening, del Toro shared that when it premiered in 2006, it got a 23-minute standing ovation, the longest in the festival’s history. Yet, he withered:
“Despite my great body, I cannot accept adulation. It’s very hard for me to take love. And Alfonso Cuarón (producer of Pan’s Labyrinth) was there with me, and he said, ‘Let the love get in.’”
It was a striking mirror to his film’s central character. He continued:
“Like the girl of Ofelia, in Pan’s Labyrinth, if we can just leave a mark, if we can put our faith against our faith and our strength against our strength, there is hope. And the last thing: if we can give over to one of the two forces. We can give to love, or we can give to fear. Never, never, never give to fear.”
At the afterparty, del Toro was still hesitant to accept too much praise.
I chatted with Guillermo for 25 minutes about his experience making the film, about how it’s so smartly balanced. The brutality with the fantasy.
He said, looking back at it right now, he felt like it was almost too clean. He would have made it a little bit messier structurally, and he’d over-outlined it. And he also felt he was a bit overindulgent with his crane shots.
That inability to fully let the love in, to settle, even after making one of the defining fantasy films of the century, is part of what keeps del Toro’s creative spirit bursting.
For More:
The 4K restoration is coming to theaters in the U.S., in 3D, via Cineverse in October.
StudioCanal just picked up rights in the UK, France, Germany, and 2 other territories.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Netflix wins The Remembered Soldier, w/ Olivia Newman directing.
Legendary TV and Eva Longoria’s Hyphenate adapt sorority-recruitment drama.
Amazon MGM names Mandy Schaffer Head of TV Business Affairs.
Conan O’Brien returns to host the Oscars for a third straight year.
Xin Zhilei will play Anna May Wong in Sunset Boulevard: The Anna May Wong Story.
Steve Zahn joins Javier Bardem and Kate Hudson in Amazon MGM’s Hello & Paris.
Betty Gilpin and Alec Baldwin join Oscar Isaac in Netflix’s The Romans.
Connor Storrie boards Halina Reijn’s mysterious new A24 film Please.
Michael Ealy leads MGM+’s The Magnificent Seven remake.
Yeon Sang-ho’s Cannes Midnight title Gun-Che (Colony) sells to Well Go USA.
Netflix picks up Diego Luna’s Ashes for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.
Rebel Wilson’s The Deb lands U.S. distribution with Sunrise Films.
Cineverse acquires Tyler Shields’ IMAX-shot thriller Chapter 51.
Leone Film Group develops a Sergio Leone origin film.
Yesterday’s correct answer: 4 seasons of Westworld.
47% got it right.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Four Book Adaptations:
The company behind The Testament of Ann Lee, First Gen, is developing a feature film based on the metafiction horror novel The Third Hotel. Set in Havana, the surreal story follows a grieving widow who begins seeing a man identical to her late husband, blurring the line between mourning and memory. Isa Mazzei (wri. Faces of Death) will adapt the screenplay.
Another horror novel may be getting the film treatment with Gary Dauberman’s Coin Operated (Until Dawn) securing the rights to Rest Stop, a novella by Nat Cassidy. Green Room meets Gerald’s Game, the story follows a young musician who finds himself locked inside a gas station, forced to listen to the horrors on the other side of the door.
Netflix is holding onto Olivia Newman, the writer-director behind the streamer’s wholesome hit Remarkably Bright Creatures, who is set to helm a feature adaptation of the award-winning novel The Remembered Soldier. Won in a competitive bidding war, the Dutch historical thriller novel is set in the aftermath of WWI.
Legendary TV (Dune: Prophecy) and Eva Longoria’s Hyphenate Media Group are getting into Greek life. A series is in the works based on The Rush Bible, a book written by sorority recruitment coach Trisha Addicks. The drama will follow a fictional consulting firm where experts guide young women through the unnecessarily cutthroat world of college sorority recruitment.
Tidbits:
Amazon MGM Studios announces Mandy Schaffer as Head of TV Business Affairs and Craig Muhlrad as Head of Film Business Affairs. Schaffer has worked as Head of Original Series at Netflix for the past decade before this move. Muhlrad has worked at Prime Video and was the Head of Business Affairs.
Twice wasn’t enough; Conan O’Brien will officially return to host the Oscars in 2027 for the third straight year. The 99th Academy Awards will air on ABC and Hulu on Mar. 14.
Three obits:
Rex Reed
Barry Blaustein
Michael Clemente
Read here.
Greenlit:
BET’s Lot Patrol
Security guard comedy mockumentary
Trailers:
Prime Video’s Every Year After
Cast: Sadie Soverall, Matt Cornett
Release: Jun 10
Apple TV+’s Propeller One-Way Night Coach
Dir/Wri: John Travolta
Release: May 29 (premiering first at Cannes)
First Look:
Apple TV’s Sugar S2
Cast: Colin Farrell, Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Barry)
First Look at Farrell
Channel 4’s Up to No Good
Cast: Glenn Close, Richard E. Grant
First look at Close
Disney Upfront announcements:
Hulu’s The 69th Grammy Awards
Release: Feb 9
Marvel’s VisionQuest
Release: Oct 14
Disney Channel’s Camp Rock 3
Release: August
Star Wars’ Ahsoka S2
Early 2027
Release Dates:
Madonna’s Confessions II
A visual film accompanying her upcoming album, followed by a conversation with Jimmy Fallon
Premiere: Tribeca Film Festival (Jun 5)
Prime Video’s The Man with the Bag
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Ritchson
Release: Dec 5
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Chinese actress Xin Zhilei has enormous shoes to fill, set to portray Hollywood’s first Chinese star, Anna May Wong, in a biopic, Sunset Boulevard - The Anna May Wong Story from Fundamental Films (American Hustle).
Zhilei won the Best Actress award at the 2025 Venice Film Festival for The Sun Rises on Us All (trailer), delivering a quietly riveting and truly underrated performance as a woman drowning in her grief, guilt, and the weight of her deeply buried secrets.
Wong was notoriously passed over for leading roles, but despite missing out on top accolades and quality characters, she became a trailblazer for refusing to play insulting stereotypes, a beacon of representation for Asian Americans in both film and TV.
While an ambitious role to take on, Zhilei certainly has the talent and the intensity to carry a film centered on racial prejudice and systemic exclusion that ran rampant in 1920s Hollywood.
The film is currently in pre-production.
Steve Zahn (Anaconda) joins Amazon MGM’s romantic comedy feature Hello & Paris. Based on Deborah McKinlay’s novel That Part Was True, the film follows the romance between an independent landscape architect and a crisis-ridden bestselling author in Paris.
Javier Bardem and Kate Hudson are the two leads of the film, and Elizabeth Chomko (What They Had) will direct.
No info on Zahn’s role yet, but we would love to see him once again in an off-beat yet endearing role that he is best in, like his scene-stealing role in That Thing You Do! (1996).
Mini Tidbits:
Christopher Nolan confirms that Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) is Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra in The Odyssey (2026).
Casting Tidbits:
Alec Baldwin
Connor Storrie
Michael Ealy
All those and a Revenge of the Nerds obit here.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
Pre-Cannes premiere pickups:
No surprise here: Train to Busan (2016) director Yeon Sang-ho’s claustrophobic nightmare film Gun-Che (Colony), ahead of its Midnight screening at Cannes, has secured several global deals. Well Go USA (The Awakening) takes North America, StudioCanal acquires the U.K., and a number of other European and APAC territories get distribution.
From being one of the stars of Netflix’s hit Narcos: Mexico to the streamer buying his fifth feature as a director, Ashes, marks a full-circle moment for Diego Luna. Netflix secured the deal for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, with Luxbox (A Poet) making the sale, just ahead of the film’s world premiere in the Special Screenings section.
Plus:
Rebel Wilson’s The Deb is getting a second life. The “outrageous” Australian musical comedy has landed U.S. distribution with Sunrise Films (Last Swim), announced by Protagonist Pictures’ (The Brutalist) boutique banner Protagonist Picks (Modern Whore) who is relaunching the film at Cannes.
Cannes Market additions, including films with Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Rooney Mara (Carol), Paul Walter Hauser, and Simon Rex. Full breakdown here.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Mubi is strengthening its grip on international cinema.
Paris-based investment firm Entourage Ventures is partnering with Italy’s Mediawan-owned Our Films (Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland) to co-finance films produced under Mubi.
The partnership expands the three-year co-production, financing, and distribution agreement previously in place between Our Films and the global streamer, strengthening the financial pipeline behind European productions while providing financial backing earlier in development.
Beyond Fatherland, Mubi is one of this year’s more aggressive Cannes players through both their acquisitions and their own production studio.
Tidbits:
Cineverse (U.S. Distribution for Terrifier 3) acquires the North American rights for indie comedic thriller Chapter 51, directed by Tyler Shields (Final Girl). The film stars Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Colman Domingo (Michael). The film will follow the events years after three actresses are murdered during a $500M film shoot, as a former FBI agent reopens the case and uncovers the killer behind the production. Tyler Shields wrote, directed, and shot the film – an incredible feat, especially because the film was shot on multiple large-scale formats, including IMAX, VistaVision, and Ultra Panavision 70.
Italy’s Leone Film Group, the company behind one of this year’s major Cannes titles, Paper Tiger, is developing an origin movie on Sergio Leone’s extensive, legendary shoot of Once Upon a Time in America (1984). The Italian directorial duo Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana (Prime Video’s The Bad Guy) are set to direct the film that will follow Leone’s 15-year fight to get the ambitious movie made.
Shortly after the exit of HBO Max Spain's longtime chief José Maria Caro, the executive has taken on the role of CCO at Secuoya Studios (Zorro). Taking over for CEO Brendan Fitzgerald, in Caro’s new position, he will lead all creative development and oversee sales plans for the studio’s international slate.
Mini Tidbits:
Vietnamese production company Bluebells Studios reveals a slate of three new films, following its record-breaking success of Phi Phong: The Blood Demon. Phi Phong earned $7.3 million in the Vietnamese box office this year and was the second-highest-grossing film in Vietnam in 2026 and the highest-grossing Vietnamese horror film of all time.
Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark in Game of Thrones) and Conor MacNeill (Industry) join the cast of Channel 4’s drama Close to Home. The show follows a young Belfast man who must deal with the consequences of assaulting a stranger at a party after coming back home from university.
ON THIS DAY
Lena Dunham and Robert Pattinson turn 40.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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