Jordan Peele’s Horror Show
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Him, X, Larry.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
Jordan Peele is producing a new horror film, Him, for one of our favorite indie directors, Justin Tipping.
That’s a name you may not recognize because his feature debut, Kicks, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival almost a decade ago in 2016 and is criminally underseen.
Kicks is an astonishingly poetic tale of an inner-city kid who gets robbed of his prized pair of sneakers and goes on a wild journey to rescue them—and win his manhood in the process.
Oh yeah, and there’s an astronaut who serves as the young teen’s escapist fantasy, a way for him to float above the poverty and find a bit of transcendent beauty.
The film shares more than a little DNA with Moonlight (2016).
The two films were released one month apart, and in both, Mahershala Ali co-stars as a quasi-father figure to an inner city kid. Of course, Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar while Kicks faded into indie film obscurity.
That’s why we’re jazzed to see Tipping make a strong comeback with Him.
Here’s the synopsis:
A promising young football player joins an isolated compound to train under a dynasty team's aging quarterback.
Him distorts the idea of achieving greatness in sports, which we’ve seen done excellently in cinema history from Raging Bull (1980) to more recently The Iron Claw (2023). Instead, Tipping twists the deep desire to be top of your game into a cult-like fetishistic ritual that bloodies the heart of anyone who grinds for greatness.
The film stars Marlon Wayans, making his own dramatic acting comeback.
Release date Sept 19th.
For More:
Kicks (trailer) was criminally underrated.
Him trailer, first half plays like a GQ ad, second half plays like a horror film.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Ryan Coogler is in talks for an X Files reboot.
Darth Maul returns in Maul: Shadow Lord, a new animated Star Wars series.
Conan O’Brien returns in Conan O’Brien Must Go Season 2 trailer.
Taika Waititi’s Star Wars film remains in development, with Tony McNamara (writer: Poor Things) now scripting.
Zoë Kravitz (dir: Blink Twice) is in talks to direct How to Save A Marriage for Sony.
Dark workplace comedy Don’t Tell Larry is a breakout role for Kiel Kennedy.
Corey Stoll has joined Imperfect Women, a psychological thriller series for Apple TV+.
The new teaser for The Toxic Avenger featuring Peter Dinklage makes it seem like a lush, campy cinematic nightmare.
Alice Rohrwacher (dir: La Chimera) has been chosen to chair the Jury of the Caméra d’Or.
Tony Kaye’s The Trainer has been boarded by worldwide sales rep 13 Films.
HI! YOU ARE CURRENTLY BEING RECORDED is a psychological surveillance short film playing in a 24/7 non-stop loop.
Apple TV+’s French series Carême combines fine-dining, pleasures of the flesh, and a literal beheading.
5th highest-grossing movie of all time, Ne Zha 2, is getting an English dub… maybe with some A-listers.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Could special agents Scully and Mulder be needed for another case? On the heels of the critical and commercial success his vampire horror flick Sinners is receiving, director Ryan Coogler has started talking again about his potential next project… an X Files reboot.
The Black Panther (2018) director has allegedly already spoken with the long-running series’ lead actress, Gillian Anderson, and shared:
“I’m working on X-Files. That’s what’s immediately next. I’ve been hyped about it for a long time, and yeah, if we don’t mess it up, some of the episodes might just scare the crap out of people. We’re gonna try to make something really great, and really be something for the real X Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
The paranormal Fox series lasted nine seasons from 1993 to 2002, and was so popular it led to two feature adaptations, The X Files (1998) and The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008) as well as a two season revival from 2016-2018.
This Coogler X Files project is happening amid the director’s five-year exclusive deal with Disney Television through his Proximity Media Banner.
Coogler has a deep interest in the paranormal (Sinners) and the technological (Black Panther), both of which he portrays on screen with an obsessive truth. If it’s out there, Coogler has found it.
Mini Tidbits:
Zoë Kravitz (dir: Blink Twice) is in talks to direct How to Save A Marriage for Sony. Robert Pattinson is slated as a producer. No plot details are known. But it’s said to be edgy like Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice.
Conan O’Brien returns in Conan O’Brien Must Go Season 2, joined by Javier Bardem and Taika Waititi, O’Brien visits New Zealand, Austria, and Spain. Premiering May 8 on Max, New episodes air Thursdays, concluding May 22.
Star Wars trio tidbits:
Taika Waititi’s Star Wars film remains in development, with Tony McNamara now scripting. Kathleen Kennedy says delays are due to Waititi’s schedule, not creative issues, and expresses continued optimism. May the force be with you both.
Darth Maul returns (again) in Maul: Shadow Lord, a new animated Star Wars series announced at Celebration Tokyo. Voice actor Sam Witwer reprises the role, continuing Maul’s story post-Clone Wars as he rises in the criminal underworld. Streaming in 2026 on Disney+.
Lucasfilm capped Star Wars Celebration Tokyo with major announcements: Star Wars: Visions returns Oct. 29 with nine new shorts, including a continuation of the first season's standout anthology The Ninth Jedi. A full spinoff series called Visions Presents: The Ninth Jedi.
Cancellations:
Prime’s Clean Slate (EP: Norman Lear) - Season 1 trailer
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Dark workplace comedy Don’t Tell Larry is a breakout role for Kiel Kennedy (the guy whose head is the largest on the poster).
Kennedy plays a gloriously unhinged office worker who retaliates against his boss, Ed Begley Jr., for not inviting him to his office birthday party. Kennedy kills Begley Jr. by shoving him out of an office window.
Except that no one in the office can quite prove it, leaving Kennedy’s office “friends” to play nice for fear of retribution.
Kennedy is amped up with an operatic smile that exerts its own gravitational force.
The cast is also led by Patty Guggenheim, who’s had a number of supporting roles in shows like Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Matlock, and iCarly, making Don’t Tell Larry her first lead feature role.
The film comes from indie directors Greg Porper (Worst Birthday Ever) and John Schimke (Red Table Talk), based on their 2018 short.
Watch the chaotic trailer ahead of its theatrical release on June 20th.
Corey Stoll has joined the cast of Imperfect Women, a psychological thriller series for Apple TV+ based on Araminta Hall’s novel. He will play Howard, the husband of one of the three women. The series, starring and EP’d by Elisabeth Moss and Kerry Washington, explores buried secrets, guilt, and betrayal within the three women's long-standing relationship.
Peter Dinklage leads The Toxic Avenger remake as Winston Gooze, a sickly janitor turned gory vigilante after a corporate betrayal. The newest trailer gives us a glimpse into the life of Winston, superimposed with his mutated transformation, fighting crime and ripping arms out of sockets.
Campy, infomercial-like trailer here, with Cineverse (distributor: Terrifier 3) working its marketing machine magic.
Opens in U.S. theaters August 29.
Three new actors have been added to the upcoming series following the infamous Murdaugh family. The newly announced additions include Kathleen Wilhoite (Gilmore Girls), Saturday Night’s Tommy Dewey, and Jim Carrey’s best friend in The Truman Show, Noah Emmerich. Randy Murdaugh, the more prudish of the brothers, will be played by Emmerich, who is the “complete antithesis of his wild card sibling. The three add-ons will be joining Severance’s Patricia Arquette, Succession’s J. Smith Cameron, Zero Dark Thirty’s Jason Clarke, and others.
With more and more news coming out about the untitled series, we should be expecting a release date sometime soon.
FESTIVALS
Alice Rohrwacher (dir: La Chimera) has been chosen to chair the Jury of the Caméra d’Or. This award honors a first feature film playing at the festival.
Rohrwacher stated:
“First times are always important and they stay with us for the rest of our lives. Like entering an unfamiliar room, approaching one’s beloved for a first kiss, or landing on a foreign shore. There’s something golden that haloes these moments in our memory. Is that why the most prestigious award for first films is called Caméra d’or?”
Rohrwacher is one of cinema’s great young talents, with her latest La Chimera (2023) a magical realist vision of Josh O’Connor as a hunter of archeological treasures, and the sources of his own misery.
The Trainer, premiering at Tribeca Film Festival’s Escape from Tribeca section, starring Vito Schnabel, Julia Fox, and Bella Thorne, has been boarded by worldwide sales rep 13 Films, behind A Nice Indian Boy (2024) and Adrien Brody’s Manhattan Night (2016).
Our interview with Tony Kaye on The Trainer, his Punk Marvel movie
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Not many films play on a continuous loop. One of the most famous is The Clock, a 24-hour film that is a video art piece that features clocks and timepieces from cinema history that are synchronized to the time you’re watching (so the film itself becomes a clock).
Following in the footsteps is the short, HI! YOU ARE CURRENTLY BEING RECORDED, directed by Anna Maguire and Kyle Garrett Greenberg (Head of Marketing & Distribution at Utopia).
I spoke with Anna and Kyle about how they conceptualized their psychological surveillance short film, which follows a woman (Maguire) who walks around her neighborhood and is increasingly disturbed by the prevalence of surveillance systems.
Because the film is playing on a continuous loop, it’s like an old-school broadcast where you can pop in for a certain time. The effect feels like the viewer is spying on the woman, who feels like she’s being watched, creating a haunting voyeuristic relationship. By jolting the film out of narrative continuity, it enhances the feeling of watching and of being perceived.
Tap in here.
This one is very, very French. Combining fine-dining with the pleasures of the flesh, with literal beheading, is Apple TV+’s Carême.
Here’s the synopsis:
Born into the tumult of the French Revolution, Antoine Carême would rise from poverty to become one of history's most acclaimed chefs, crossing paths with such figures as Napoleon, Tsar Alexander, and the Rothschilds.
The trailer is full of pleasure. Streaming April 30th.
Tidbits:
The record-breaking success of the Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 (trailer) just keeps going, with “well-known” talent said to be involved in an English-dubbed version being made to further stretch its reach. Ne Zha 2 has already grossed $2.11bn, maintaining its status as not only the highest-grossing animated film of all time but the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time. There is no word yet on when the hugely successful fantasy film will be available to North American audiences.
On the eve of Cannes, producer Patrick Wachsberger and Legendary’s 193 (Dune) hired Sara Ghorra from AGC Studios as the new VP of sales. The company also hired longtime film and TV executive Tyler Knell, naming him VP of creative affairs.
In the doc 1-800-ON-HER-OWN, we watch as angry punk folk singer Ani DiFranco softens with age (trailer). Playing at Film Forum.
ON THIS DAY
1989. Field of Dreams premieres in Dubuque, Iowa.
See you tomorrow!
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