Jack Black Santa?
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
In The Industry News: The Farrelly Brothers get Dumb. AMC Q3. Netflix misses you.
Actor Spotlight: Djimon Hounsou’s shuttle. Kodi Smit-McPhee’s ride.
Festivals: AFM + Samuel L. Jackson.
Indie Filmmaker Spotlight/International News: The Grandwriter, Atrabilious and Sharknado.
Let’s go!
We had a wonderfully enlightening live event with Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. Harden. They hustled like hell to get their film The Black Sea made, and I loved their risk tolerance both with the financing and shooting. Here’s the replay:
https://theindustry.co/p/crystal-and-derrick-workshop-replay
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
The Farrelly Brothers finally get to be a little dumb again. The directing duo responsible for Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal and Me, Myself & Irene are set to return with Dear Santa.
It is a comedy that sees a dyslexic sixth-grader accidentally inviting Satan to his home instead of Santa Claus. The project was shelved for years before being revived by Searchlight, with Jack Black starring.
This marks the duo's first collaboration since 2014’s Dumb and Dumber To, as both have pursued maybe a bit more high brow solo projects, including Peter’s Oscar-winning Green Book (2018) and Bobby’s Champions (2023).
Best of the Brothers:
With Dear Santa and rumors swirling about a new Dumb and Dumber sequel, fans are eager to see if the Farrelly’s can recapture their comedic magic.
Here’s Jack Black in a diabolical teaser for Dear Santa. Release date: Nov 25 on Paramount+.
AMC Theaters Q3 earnings. Plus, the change from last year:
$1.349 bn revenue
↓ 4.1%
$20.7 M net loss
↑ $8.4 M
65.1 M attendance
↓ 8.5 M
CEO Adam Aron stated:
“Admittedly, some of our third quarter metrics of 2024 were behind those of last year. However, we believe of much greater importance is our bullishness about the impressive movie slate that is coming to our theatres in November and December of 2024, and continuing in 2025 and again in 2026.”
In comparison to last quarter, their revenues were 31% stronger, and their net loss was 37% improved.
Tidbit:
We got a teaser for Netflix's Stranger Things Season 5 returning in 2025. We now know the final season will be set in fall 1987, with eight final episodes which the teaser names, including "The Rightside Up." Key episode titles hint at connections to The Lost Boys and Dungeons & Dragons.
Teaser. Any easter eggs on this one?
The 2025 studio release dates shuffle:
Mickey 17 (Warner Bros)
Jan 31st → Apr 18th
Companion (Warner Bros)
Jan 10th → Jan 31st
Michael (Lionsgate)
Apr 18th → Oct 3rd
Warner Bros nabbed Lionsgate’s April 18th spot so that it could play Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson, on more IMAX and larger screens.
Netflix will release Missing You, a Harlan Coben (author) thriller starring Rosalind Eleazar (Slow Horses), on January 1st following the success of another show adapted from a Coben book, Fool Me Once (trailer), which garnered over 108 million views.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Just a few months after its initial announcement, production has just wrapped for Zealot, a claustrophobic thriller featuring two-time Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou and The Power of the Dog’s breakout star Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Zealot’s official logline states:
Follows a Somali-American airport shuttle driver (Hounsou) who, in a desperate attempt to make ends meet, agrees to transport a mysterious passenger (Smit-McPhee) to Chicago. However, he realizes his passenger is not who he seems, trapping him in a terrifying situation.
The film is about privilege, paranoia, and the assumptions we make about one another.
Hounsou, who is a consistently reliable actor, has not often found himself at the top of the call sheet despite stealing scenes in supporting roles in some of the greatest and biggest movies ever made. He first gained some real recognition for his moving performance in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997, clip).
Shortly after he received Academy Award nominations for his performances in:
In America (2002)
Semi-autobiographical immigration story
Blood Diamond (2006)
Role: Mende fisherman opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the war drama
I believe he was the heart and soul of director Ridley Scott’s 2001 Best Picture winner, Gladiator. Hounsou will sadly not be reprising his role as good guy Juba in the anticipated sequel, Gladiator II, but did just appear in a different role he’s already played in the prequel film A Quiet Place: Day One (scene) earlier this year.
Smit-McPhee is also an Oscar-nominated Supporting Actor for his understated but memorable work in the psychological western The Power of the Dog (2021, trailer). Beginning his career as a child actor, he seems to just now be getting his much-deserved big break, having starred in a charming role in Maria, which premiered to much adoration at this past summer’s Venice Film Festival and starred in Apple TV’s thriller miniseries Disclaimer.
Zealot hails from Dark Castle Entertainment and WestEnd Films, directed by Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog) and based on acclaimed playwright Bennett Fisher’s harrowing play Damascus who also is adapting his story for the big screen.
Normal Golightly, Co-CEO of Dark Castle said:
“The collection of talent, both in front of and behind the camera, that has been drawn to this project speaks to the caliber of this relentless and timely thriller.”
You can see a first-look photo of Hounsou and Smit-McPhee in Zealot above.
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Tidbit:
Metrograph is doing a Nicolas Cage Festival featuring some of my favorite films of his:
Moonstruck (1987)
Wild At Heart (1990)
Adaptation (2002)
Pig (2021)
Here’s the festival trailer.
FESTIVALS
American Film Market (AFM) kicks off Day 3. Here are the big new projects coming to the market:
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Andra Day & Edgar Ramirez
Dir/Wri: Wayne Kramer (Running Scared, The Cooler)
Prod: Daniel Grodnik (Pierce Brosnan’s Fast Charlie)
Domestic sales: CAA
International Sales Rep: Altitude Film Sales (Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie)
Synopsis:
Award-winning actor Nick DeFranco (Jackson) faces jail time after falling for an undercover sting operation. Impressed by his acting skills, the police captain offers him probation in exchange for teaching the team to act like real dealers.
No Way Off
Cast: Maria Bakalova (The Apprentice, Borat 2)
Cast: Peter Mullan (Children of Men, Rings of Power)
Dir: Brian Kelly (Downton Abbey)
Prod: Matthew James Wilkinson (Yesterday)
Sales Rep: Altitude Film Sales (Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie)
Synopsis:
A young mother trapped on a bus with her baby after being abducted by its sinister driver.
Protector
Dir: Adrian Grunberg (Rambo: Last Blood, Get the Gringo)
Cast: Mills Jovovich (The Fifth Element)
Prod Company: Highland Film Group (Russell Crowe’s Sleeping Dogs)
Sales Rep: Highland Film Group (Inheritance)
Synopsis:
Former war hero Nikki’s peaceful life is shattered when her daughter is kidnapped. Thrust into the criminal underworld while haunted by cops and military, she must fight to rescue her child.
Start Date: This winter in New Mexico.
Haunted Heist
Dir: Lil Rel Howery (directorial debut)
Cast: Lil Rel Howery (Get Out), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip, Haunted Mansion)
Prod Company: The Coven (Terrifier)
Sales Rep: The Coven
Synopsis:
Four estranged friends reunite at what appears to be a typical house. But one friend has ulterior motives; he plans to rob the place and needs their help to find an antique that’s worth a fortune. But the house is straight up haunted, and the group must squash their differences to survive the night and an insane pack of ghosts.
Shoot Date: January 2025.
Dir: Chris McGowan (directorial debut)
Cast: Nikki Roumel (Ginny & Georgia), Shane West (A Walk to Remember), Cameron Cowperthwaite (Fallout)
Sales Rep: Alliance Media Partners (Old Man, Good Posture)
Synopsis:
Follows a group of crime-solvers who travel to a campground to investigate an unsolved murder. Next day they find themselves in 1991, days before the murder, with a mysterious killer on the loose.
Shot on location in Illinois with a SAG- AFTRA interim agreement during the strike.
Dir. Guy Edmunds (ABC’s Hardball)
Cast: Felix Mallard (Ginny & Georgia)
Prod Company: Mushroom Studios (Fremont)
International Sales Rep: Architect (Lollipop)
Synopsis:
Isolated in a suburban home with his newborn daughter, a reluctant stay-at-home dad unearths an equally protective parent - a predatory spider. It’s killed or be killed as he must do whatever it takes to protect his family and their home.
Shoot Date: Q2 in Australia .
Dir: Joachim A. Lang (Goebbels and the Füher)
Cast: Sam Riley (Control, Rebecca), Hans Zischler (The Theory of Everything)
Prod Company: Zeitsprung Pictures (Kleo)
Sales Rep: Beta Cinema (10 Seconds)
Synopsis:
Biopic about brilliant dancer and choreographer John Cranko, who left the Royal Ballet in London and found fame in Stuttgart as its great dance creator.
Dir: Kim Jee-Woon (The Good the Bad the Weird)
Cast: Hoyeon (Squid Games), Theo James (Divergent, The Gentlemen)
Prod Company: Esmail Corp (Mr. Robot), K. Period Media (Manchester by the Sea)
US Sales Rep: CAA, UTA
International Sales Rep: The Veterans (Emilia Pérez)
Synopsis:
Owen, a successful professor living in South Korea and bedridden after a devastating car accident killed his wife, Sandy. Owen is cared for by Yuna, his Korean mother-in-law, who starts to unravel the truth behind Owen and Sandy’s marriage, only to threaten his road to recovery.
In Development.
Tidbits:
Two For One, which stars Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) and grossed $4.2 M in Germany just sold to Tull Studios (A Clever Woman) for a UK summer 2025 release.
Highland Film Group (Russell Crowe’s Sleeping Dogs) is taking on the international sales of Standing On The Shoulders Of Fate. The doc is a look at the BTS of what was supposed to be Donald Sutherland’s final film role in Fate (starring Faye Dunaway and Harvey Keitel in Sutherland’s role).
Teki Cometh sweeps the Tokyo Festival, winning Best Film, Best Director (Yoshida Daihachi) and Best Actor. The trailer starts like an Ozu film and slips into a scalding dream.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Xu Haofeng (writer: The Grandmaster) has directed 100 Yards, very much in the same poetic martial arts universe of Wong Kar-wai but very much his own creation.
Heres’ the synopsis:
Follows two bitter rivals as they duel for stewardship of a wushu academy.
The film was an official selection at TIFF 2023 and Rotterdam 2024. The trailer is a rapid-paced masterclass of martial arts. Well GO USA (Train to Butan) is releasing the film in theaters this Friday, November 8th.
Buffalo 8, the production company behind BlackKklansman has acquired the neo-noir dark comedy Atrabilious, a sophomore feature directed, written, and produced by William Atticus Parker (Forty Winks). A murder mystery story with a star-studded cast made up of actors like Leon Addison Brown (Forty Winks), Whoopi Goldberg (Sister Act), Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), and Alec Baldwin (Beetlejuice) to name a few. Atrabilious will be available worldwide through Buffalo 8, with further details on its release yet to be announced.
The Asylum, known for Sharknado and Z Nation, has sold its 300+ title library to MEP Capital (financier: Blackbird, Escape from Pretoria). The strategic partnership aims to boost The Asylum's production and distribution and of course VOD. Those who are aware of Sharknado and its sister films know it's a strange mix of B-movie horror verging on outright parody. Always a good time with friends at an active movie theater, these shlocky films are beloved in their own ugly way:
I can’t believe that last one exists.
ON THIS DAY
1976. Gone With The Wind makes its TV debut; aired over two nights; earning a then record 65% share of TV viewers.
See you Friday.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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