Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Hugh Jackman’s Hood, Sydney Sweeney’s Maid, and Two-Face.
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Hugh Jackman’s best work is playing broken heroes. So we’re a bit giddy that Jackman will play the titular character in A24’s The Death of Robin Hood.
This is not the fairy tale version from your childhood, or the more majestic depictions by Russell Crowe (trailer), Kevin Costner (trailer), or Sean Connery (trailer). But instead, one that has gone through the A24 sieve that cuts out any residue of bland heroicness.
This is the strain of character that Jackman excels in.
We don’t see him there that often, at that perfect apex of majestic and tattered, but when we do, it hits the sweet spot.
We saw it in Logan (2017), his pitch-perfect depiction of a stoned-out, disgruntled Wolverine who’s done making even meek attempts to socialize. And most recently in a more terrestrial character in Song Sung Blue (2025). There, he taps into the kind of quaintness that he so easily can channel, as a heroic small-town musician.
That depiction is tinged with a wonderful kitschiness, amidst the horror.
The danger I see in this new Death of Robin Hood movie is that it is overtly dark, just for effect, à la Jackman in Reminiscence (2021).
One thing giving me hope is that Michael Sarnoski directs. His debut feature, Pig (2021), is a shining example of turning a lonely man into a legend. Really using isolation to individually examine a character.
If Sarnoski brings restraint, this won’t be “dark A24 Robin Hood,” it’ll be a mythic folk hero forced to face himself.
For More:
The Death of Robin Hood trailer.
Logan trailer.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
The Housemaid 2 is happening w/ director Paul Feig and possibly Sydney Sweeney.
Universal’s action film Limited Edition stars Ludacris.
CAA agent Adam Schweitzer officially moves to WME, taking clients.
Jenn Levy becomes Amazon MGM Studios’ head of unscripted and doc TV.
Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish) signs a multi-year first-look overall deal with Fox.
Dave Filoni is positioned to take Kathleen Kennedy’s role at Lucasfilm.
Netflix has expanded its WWE partnership.
Warner Bros. names Erik Ellner to lead business affairs.
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson partners on true-crime doc series Gang Wars.
Mary J. Blige signs a 3-pic deal w/ Lifetime.
Sebastian Stan is in talks to play Harvey Dent/Two-Face in The Batman Part II.
Sigourney Weaver joins Amazon MGM’s live-action Tomb Raider series.
NBC is developing legal comedy Last Chance Lawyer starring Henry Winkler.
David Harbour exits Tony Gilroy’s Searchlight feature Behemoth!.
Director Béla Tarr has passed away at 70.
Black Bear hires distribution exec Frank Patterson as general sales manager.
Disney+ adds Oscar-shortlisted animated short Retirement Plan.
Australia’s Madman acquires local rights to doc Common Wealth.
Warner Bros. Discovery will shut down Discovery+ in Canada on Feb. 17.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
A sequel was inevitable after The Housemaid brought in $133M worldwide at the box office since its December release.
Author Freida McFadden’s second novel in her bestselling thriller series, The Housemaid’s Secret, will once again be adapted by Lionsgate, with Paul Feig returning to direct.
While not yet official, Sydney Sweeney is expected to reprise her role, taking down every abusive husband in the neighborhood, kind of like Promising Young Woman, but she lives in your house.
Production on the sequel is expected to begin later this year.
Ludacris isn’t feeling the pain. He will star in a new film called Limited Edition, which has a stellar team:
Dir/Wri: Dan Berk & Robert Olsen (dir: Paramount’s Novocaine)
Star: Ludacris
Prod Co: 87North (Bullet Train, The Fall Guy, Nobody)
Studio: Universal
Not much is known other than it’s an action film. But Berk and Olsen have a unique sense of comic book tilting action, that’s gory while altogether humanizing and a bit funny. We could see Ludacris fitting into this world. He has a flippant attitude similar to that of Jack Quaid in Novocaine.
As we previously reported, CAA agent Adam Schweitzer is leaving for WME. It’s now official that he’s taking with him a high-profile list of clients:
Cillian Murphy
Rebecca Ferguson
Rachel Zegler
Christoph Waltz
Cooper Hoffman
Tom Hollander
Diane Kruger
Two other CAA agents also made the jump: Matt Martin (clients: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen) and Trevor Astbury (clients: Will Smith, Ridley Scott).
Tidbits:
Former Netflix and Bravo exec Jenn Levy (Vanderpump Rules, Love Is Blind) is Amazon MGM Studios’ new head of unscripted and documentary TV. From the record-breaking hits like Beast Games to cooking competition shows such as America’s Test Kitchen, Levy’s hire underscores how unscripted programming has become a key part of Amazon’s content strategy. She will also run MGM Alternative, which has produced hugely successful non-scripted content like Survivor and The Voice.
Tracee Ellis Ross has signed a multi-year first-look scripted and unscripted overall deal with Fox Entertainment Studios. The Black-ish actress will serve as an EP on a slate spanning reality TV shows as well as scripted comedy and drama series. This new agreement sees a network shift for Ross who previously had a scripted overall deal with ABC Signature. This is being done through her Joy Mill Entertainment banner.
Mini Tidbits:
Kathleen Kennedy’s exit
Netflix’s WWE partnership
Warner Bros. new head of business affairs
Animation Workers Unionize
For all the above mini tidbits and more, click here:
https://theindustry.co/p/kathleen-kennedy-wwe-warner-bros
Celeb IP Deals:
The man who became a brand: Kevin Hart has struck a long-term brand partnership with Authentic Brands Group under which the two will co-own and manage the Kevin Hart brand. Hart also becomes a shareholder in Authentic, which oversees more than 50 brands and generates roughly $32 billion in annual retail sales. Kind of dystopian, but hey, at least it’s not AI.
Mary J. Blige signed a new three-picture deal with Lifetime. The first film, Be Happy, premieres on February 7 and is directed by Gabourey Sidibe (Precious).
Trailers:
Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen
X-Men-centric Teaser
Release: December 18, 2026
Netflix’s Museum of Innocence
Release: February 13, 2026
Netflix’s Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials
Cast: Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex), Martin Freeman, Helena Bonham Carter
Release: January 15, 2026
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Sebastian Stan is two-faced: The longtime MCU fixture is in talks to join The Batman Part II. Stepping into one of Batman’s greatest villains, Two-Face, aka Harvey Dent.
Stepping into the role once embodied by a grumpy Tommy Lee Jones, and in a much more grounded Dent in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, played by Aaron Eckhart.
Though we can all gossip about the Marvel DC crossover, this could be a great role for Stan. Stan’s career has been notably eclectic outside of superhero fare, with turns in films like I, Tonya and The Apprentice and Emmy-winning television work on Pam & Tommy.
For the most part, his screen identity has been anchored for more than 15 years by his role as Bucky Barnes, but with the eclectic fare he chooses as side projects, we now see a very wide range of Stan’s ability, which feels perfect for the extreme dichotomy of Two-Face. My only hope is that we get more of a peek at the villain in action in Reeves’ version.
In fact, that’s not his first two-faced role. Read our deep dive on his performance in A24’s A Different Man: https://theindustry.co/p/a24s-new-face.
Tidbits:
Sigourney Weaver (Alien) is set to play Evelyn Wallis in Amazon MGM’s live-action Tomb Raider series. Wallis appears to be some kind of newly created character positioned as a powerful, enigmatic figure who takes a keen interest in Lara Croft’s abilities. That sounds kind of villainy to me. Jason Isaacs is also confirmed to join, playing a character from the games, Lara’s uncle, Atlas DeMornay. Tomb Raider: A tale of two mentors.
Better call Henry: NBC is developing Last Chance Lawyer, a legal comedy starring and executive-produced by Henry Winkler. Written by Mike Gagerman and Andrew Waller, the series follows an unconventional criminal defense attorney who champions underdogs. This will be Winkler’s return to NBC since Parks and Rec ended in 2015.
Mini Tidbit:
Greg Tarzan Davis (Top Gun) will star in Snare, a psychological thriller about a mycologist fearing cancer recurrence who enters a dangerous love triangle. Currently shooting in LA.
The Studio and Abbott Elementary’s Keyla Monterroso Mejia is the newest addition to Bad Monkey‘s upcoming second season. The cast of Apple TV’s Vince Vaughn-led comedy has really expanded, telling a completely new mystery in a new tropical location expected to premiere late this year.
David Harbour, fresh off Stranger Things’ emotionally heavy yet ambiguous conclusion, has exited Tony Gilroy’s Searchlight feature Behemoth!, a drama following a cellist.
FESTIVALS AND RESOURCES
The upcoming Sundance-premiering feature If I Go Will They Miss Me has just found an international sales rep in Salaud Morisset (TIFF’s To a Land Unknown). The film is based on the 2022 short (video), which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
Synopsis:
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant struggles to connect with his father when he begins to see surreal, almost spectral visions of boys drifting around his neighborhood. Their presence reveals a link between father and son, laying bare the threads that bind family, legacy, and place.
Josh Peters (prod: Dìdi, EP: The Last Showgirl) is producing.
Screenplays:
Read Neon’s No Other Choice screenplay, written by Park Chan-Wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Jahye Lee, and 20th Century’s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere screenplay, written by director Scott Cooper.
Plus seventeen more prospective Oscar scripts:
https://theindustry.co/p/prospective-best-screenplay-academy-dbf
INDIE FILM SPOTLIGHT
A visionary in the arthouse world, Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr has passed away at 70.
One of the first directors to master depictions of everyday life, Tarr’s monumental seven-and-a-half-hour-long epic Sátántangó (1994, trailer) made him widely known for his hypnotic, long black-and-white takes, unlike anything done before. From his haunting Berlin jury prize-winning Werckmeister Harmonies (2000, trailer) to his final film, The Turin Horse (2011, trailer), a father-daughter tragedy also in his trademark style, Tarr has influenced generations.
While he has left a very clear impact on cinema and will be very missed.
Tidbits:
Black Bear (distro/prod co: Christy) has ambitious plans to distribute up to 12 films/year in the US. To that end, they’ve hired Frank Patterson as General Sales Manager. Patterson has been in the distribution game for 30 years, moving from Paramount, to Miramax, to Disney, to, most recently, Sony, looking after their theatrical releases in the South. Post-Christy, we hope Black Bear fares better with Patterson’s know-how.
…And Out Comes the Wolf, a punk film inspired by 90s Punk band, is hoping for a theatrical release after some promising showings at Warped Tour events. Billed as an indie drama following two best friends struggling to survive the 1990s East Bay punk scene, confronting poverty, drugs, and violence, inspired by Rancid’s album of the same name. They have recently announced an accompanying graphic novel, and you can check out the trailer here.
Disney+ has added Oscar-shortlisted
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