Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Jordan Peele’s God, Justin Lin’s Hell, and NBC’s Truth.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Sony adapts Helldivers video game with Justin Lin attached as director.
Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi co-produce Portrait of God for Universal.
Paramount ad-chief John Halley exits. Jay Askinasi steps in as CRO.
Netflix in talks for rights to The Power Broker with Matthew Rhys attached.
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi sentenced to 1 year in prison.
Amazon MGM taps Frederick E.O. Toye (Fallout, Shōgun) to direct God of War.
NBC develops Truth, a forensic pathologist drama series.
Max Jacoby joins Jaume Collet-Serra’s Jadis Collective to develop Netflix slate.
CBS comedy pilot Eternally Yours casts Ed Weeks as a 500-year-old vampire.
NBC’s Brilliant Minds adds Sarah Steele (Elsbeth) in a recurring role.
Garrett Abdo will direct a gay zombie horror-comedy.
Kino Lorber acquires TIFF Platform title The Currents.
Mad Distribution acquires MENA rights to Moroccan thriller Behind the Palm Trees.
Sony Pictures Television inks overall deal with unscripted vets Simon Shalgosky & Daniel Brookes.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Another exciting collaboration is happening with Sony, adapting the video game Helldivers with director Justin Lin (Fast & Furious franchise, Star Trek Beyond) and horror writer Gary Dauberman (It, Annabelle) attached.
The sci-fi game follows a unit of soldiers battling hostile alien forces across multiple planets.
Combining Lin’s ability to handle large-scale, high-stakes action and Dauberman’s knack for horror intensity, Helldivers may not only satisfy loyal gamers looking for a faithful adaptation but could also draw in general audiences as a genre-bending horror-drama that stands out from typical video game-to-movie fare.
From Arrowhead Game Studios, a co-production between Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions, this marks their second collaboration after working on the $407M box office earning Uncharted (2022), led by Tom Holland.
A collision of horror titans, Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi will co-produce Portrait of God, a feature-length expansion of the viral short by emerging director Dylan Clark for Universal Pictures.
The short is centered on a mysterious painting, either seen as a black void or a horrifying figure, with the primary question being “What does God look like?”
With Peele’s talent for socially charged psychological horror (Get Out, Us), Raimi’s signature gothic intensity (Drag Me to Hell), and writing from Clark and Joe Russo (The Inheritance), the project seems to have the potential to redefine religious horror altogether.
Cannes and Gotham winner Jafar Panahi (dir: It Was Just an Accident) has been sentenced to one year in prison in Iran.
He attended The Gotham Awards last night in person, where he won 3 awards. But he plans to return to Iran after the awards season to serve his punishment. He will also be banned from travel for two years.
Iran has consistently chosen to punish their filmmakers (Mohammad Rasoulof, dir: Seed of the Sacred Fig, was sentenced to eight years in prison). It’s important that the international community continue to support these artists and their work.
Tidbits:
While Netflix still tries to secure the rights, The Americans’ Matthew Rhys is all in on the first screen adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker. The biography follows the rise of Robert Moses, a powerful public official who helped shape twentieth-century New York, with Rhys attached to star as the multidimensional visionary. Despite the author, Robert Caro, happily relinquishing the rights, the holdup for the streamer lies in negotiations with the book’s publishers.
Paramount is undergoing a major ad-sales transition as longtime advertising chief John Halley exits after nearly two decades. His departure follows the hiring of Jay Askinasi as chief revenue officer, who will now lead the division. Halley, credited with advancing Paramount’s streaming-era ad strategy, will stay through March to advise during the broader corporate restructuring.
Amazon MGM Studios’ adaptation of the video game God of War gets a Herculean boost. Frederick E.O. Toye, known for directing episodes of Fallout and Shōgun, is set to direct the first two episodes, with pre-production plus casting underway. Amazon has already ordered two seasons.
The once horror-focused Dark Castle Entertainment (Orphan) is tackling a new kind of terror, adapting the true-crime book Burn Boston Burn, the largest arson case in U.S. history, into both a feature film and documentary. The adaptation is in collaboration with Compelling Pictures (Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody).
NBC is developing Truth, a forensic-pathologist drama inspired by D.C.’s youngest chief medical examiner. The series follows Xavier “Truth” Hall, who uncovers how people die while working in the morgue, which forces him to confront the wounds of the living. We hope this is like a supernatural Six Feet Under.
Mini Tidbits:
Update on the Warner Bros. Sale. Netflix made a “mostly cash offer” for Warner Bros. Discovery. As predicted, they’ll bid for the studios and streaming portions.
Caitlin Hughes (Indie Publicist: for Drafthouse Films, Oscilloscope) is starting a new PR company, Sound & Vision, that will continue focusing on indies.
Turkey-stuffed patrons helped AMC get its biggest week in 2025. AMC drew nearly 7M moviegoers over Thanksgiving 2025, driven by Zootopia 2 and Wicked: For Good.
Paramount+ is expanding its true crime catalog with a 3-part doc series, Handsome Devil: Charming Killer. The doc will look at Florida man, aka the Deadpool Killer.
Carry On director Jaume Collet Serra’s production banner Jadis Collective adds Max Jacoby (Knight Rider) as an executive to help run the company. Through the Collective’s overall deal with Netflix, Jacoby will develop a slate of action and thriller.
Trailers:
Sophia
Premiere: Marrakech International Festival
Sales Rep: MAD Solutions (The Double, Goodbye Julia)
Sky’s Gomorrah - The Origins
Release: Early 2026
Netflix’s Sean Combs: The Reckoning
Release: Dec 2
Netflix’s Run Away
Cast: Minnie Driver
Release: Jan 1
Fathom Entertainment’s Moses the Black
EP: 50 Cent
Cast: Omar Epps, Wiz Khalifa
Release: Jan 30
First look:
A24’s Mother Mary
Dir: David Lowery
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer
Release: April 2026
Disney+’s The Artful Dodger (S2)
Release: Feb 10 2026
Release dates:
Paramount’s Top Gun 40th anniversary re-release
Release: May 13, 2026
Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
A hybrid live-action/animation reboot not connected to Mutant Mayhem or its 2027 sequel
Release: Nov. 17, 2028
Untitled Sonic the Hedgehog film
A new Sonic project that is planned after Sonic 4
No details on casting or if this will be a spinoff
Release: 2028
Also… here’s an epic VFX breakdown (scroll to the bottom of the page) of Apple TV’s The Lost Bus.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
CBS’ vampire comedy pilot Eternally Yours casts Ed Weeks as Charles, a 500-year-old vampire navigating modern life from Ghosts showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman.
A compelling vampire exudes confidence and a quiet threat, which will no doubt come into play as Charles reluctantly grapples with his daughter dating a human.
Drawing on his role as the self-absorbed yet irresistibly charming Dr. Jeremy Reed in The Mindy Project (scene), Weeks can deliver a vampire who can both seduce and slyly mock, bringing along his sardonic humor to make eternal life look effortlessly entertaining.
The new single-camera sitcom is set to start filming in early 2026.
HBO’s award-winning medical drama The Pitt has just expanded its cast, adding four recurring guest stars.
Brittany Allen (The Boys)
Bonita Friedericy (Chicago Med)
Taylor Handley (Mayor of Kingstown)
Jeff Kober (The Walking Dead)
The Pitt’s sophomore season premieres on Jan. 8th only on HBO Max.
Tidbit:
NBC’s Brilliant Minds adds Sarah Steele (The Good Fight) in a recurring guest role in season two of the Zachary Quinto-led medical drama. Taking a break from her turn in CBS’s Elsbeth, Steele will play a new patient suffering from a medical mystery that Quinto’s Dr. Wolf struggles to work out.
FESTIVALS
Now entering its second year, Indonesia’s JAFF Future Project has 10 films in development vying for $74K in support.
Here’s one that caught our eye:
Evil Underground
Dir: Adriyanto Dewo
Synopsis:
Two sisters with a broken relationship must unite to survive shape-shifting creatures in a trade center basement after performing a fatal ritual.
Indonesian horror is some of the scariest, and my guess is a project will soon break out across the global market.
Full list of JAFF projects here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Gay Zombies. Garrett Abdo’s 2nd feature is Zombois, a wild pivot into horror-comedy.
The film centers on college seniors who uncover a secret contagion in the North Georgia Mountains, unleashing campy, chaotic, gay zombie survival mayhem.
Look, I could be wrong here, but I don’t think we’ve seen gay zombies before. Do we need it? No. But we didn’t need Pride and Prejudice and Zombies either. And that did well $16.5M worldwide (trailer).
Abdo has a good sense of silly story ideas. His first feature, Exit Interviews, is very DIY, but it tells the story of a gay man who, after sleeping with 100 dudes, decides he’s going to do “exit interviews” for all his lovers (trailer).
Tidbits:
Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Milagros Mumenthaler’s psychological drama The Currents, which premiered in TIFF’s Platform section. The film follows an Argentine designer traumatized after a near-drowning at a Swiss awards event. It’s poetic, restrained, and slightly absurdist (trailer). With a strong performance by Isabel Aimé González Sola (La Revolución). Kino Lorber will release it theatrically in 2026, then on multiplatform.
Kristen Stewart is clearly prioritizing directing, as the actress is already planning her sophomore feature. Her directorial debut, The Chronology of Water (trailer), premiered this year at Cannes to acclaim for its intimate, bold visuals, marking a strong first impression as a director. She has yet to reveal anything about her new project besides that it will begin filming in the coming months.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Shortly following its premiere at the Marrakech Film Festival, Mad Distribution (Palestine 36) has obtained MENA rights for Behind the Palm Trees, a thriller feature from Moroccan director Meryem Benm’Barek (Sofia). The film follows a love triangle set against the backdrop of an ultra-conservative society. Mad will play the film during its theatrical showcase, CineMAD, beginning later this month.
Sony Pictures Television Nonfiction has signed an overall deal with veteran unscripted producers Simon Shalgosky and Daniel Brookes (The X Factor), effective in 2026. As part of the agreement, the pair has launched Rebel Minds Media, a new label focused on bold, high-concept global formats. Their backgrounds include major U.K. franchises such as The X Factor, Love Island, Britain’s Got Talent, and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
Viaplay Group Sweden has named Jonas Karlén as EVP and CEO, replacing co-CEOs Johan Johansson and Christian Albeck, who are switching to other roles. Karlén, who previously held a leadership position for Viaplay Sweden, is returning to the streamer that is behind acclaimed productions like Dreams, Love, and Sex to help guide its broader Nordic content slate.
Two-time Venice winning title On the Road (En el Camino) has been acquired by Madman Entertainment for distribution in Australia and New Zealand. The Mexican realist drama follows a young hustler and a trucker whose unexpected bond sparks a heart-rending journey. Trailer.
ON THIS DAY
1988. Naked Gun premieres.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram
Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co