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Keanu Reeves Fast and Furious

The Industry

Mar 10, 2025

Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:

Keanu Reeves, Professor McGonagall and mind control.

Let’s go!

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THE INDUSTRY TLDR

Justin Lin is directing the feature adaptation of Keanu Reeves’ comic book BRZRKR.
Jon Favreau is developing a new hybrid animation/live-action series for Disney+.
Lionsgate lays off five employees in scripted TV.
Sony locks a date for the next Resident Evil from Zach Cregger (dir: Barbarians).
Adam Scott and Michelle Monaghan join Robert De Niro in Netflix’s The Whisper Man.
Taylor Russell will star in Michael B. Jordan’s The Thomas Crown Affair.
Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) is in talks to play the nurturing but stern Minerva McGonagall.
Michael Bay has a Parkour doc at SXSW.
Errol Morris directs Netflix’s Chaos: The Manson Murders.
Zeitgeist Films & Kino Lorber acquire A Photographic Memory.
CJ ENM (Parasite) hires Jung Hyun-joo as Head of Film Business.

THE INDUSTRY NEWS

Justin Lin is back in action. After his faith-tilting Sundance feature, the 5-time Fast and Furious director will helm the feature adaptation of the Keanu Reeves co-written best-selling comic book BRZRKR. Reeves will produce and star in the film for Netflix.

Here’s a condensed synopsis:

An immortal warrior’s (Reeves) 80,000 year fight through the ages. After wandering the earth for centuries, he may have finally found a refuge — working for the U.S. government to fight the battles too violent and too dangerous for anyone else.

This seems to blend a little bit of 47 Ronin with his drab office worker Thomas A. Anderson in Matrix. We look forward to seeing Reeves and Duo will bring their propulsive kineticism to the movie.

The Long Lost Cousin of Mickey Mouse: Jon Favreau is developing a new hybrid animation/live-action series for Disney+ centered on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who was created by Walt himself in 1927, Oswald was then lost to Universal in 1928. Disney needed a mascot, leading to the creation of Mickey Mouse. Disney then reacquired Oswald in 2006 and finally hit public domain in 2023.

Favreau is writing and producing the project under Walt Disney Studios, merging his expertise in live-action filmmaking and animation. This poor guy has been homed and rehomed so many times, hopefully this leads to something long lasting. Welcome back home Oswald.

Here he is in all of his glory.

Lionsgate continues layoffs. Five employees in scripted TV were laid off. The department has 80 total people. The consolidation likely is taking place as a full separation from Starz will happen next month, where Lionsgate TV serves as the in-house prod company. Also, Lionsgate's linear TV business is experiencing a continued decline. Specifically, linear subscribers (from Starz) have dropped from 9.48 M in June 2023 to 7.36 M in Dec 2024.

Sony has won the heated bidding war for a reboot of the Resident Evil movie franchise, with Zach Cregger (Barbarian, upcoming: Weapons) writing and directing alongside co-writer Shay Hatten (John Wick 4, Ballerina). Known for his breakout horror hit Barbarian, Cregger plans to return the series to its horror roots and align more closely with the original Capcom video games. Releasing September 18, 2026.

Tidbits:

Sacha Baron Cohen’s next film is on the market. Universal had the untitled scripted comedy but couldn’t fit it into their slate. Now Baron Cohen is on the market for a new studio for his project. The writer/actor has moved to more dramatic roles in recent years with his latest being Apple TV+’s Disclaimer, but he is an incredible satirist. Although there are no details if he’ll develop a new character for the film, or reprise an old one like Borat, we hope he can, at least momentarily, return to something silly and lacerating.

Please Take The Thunderbolts seriously. After rumors of test screenings going very well and a Florence Pugh interview in which she likens the new antihero flick to an A24 Assassin movie, Marvel has doubled down, releasing a new stylized trailer that flaunts those similarities. A24's response.

Trailers are like little worlds. And we get a great sneak peek into the meat grinder job of being a studio exec in Apple TV+’s The Studio trailer. Releasing on March 26th.

Some trailers you don’t watch because you fear they’ll spoil the show you’re already going to see. The Last of Us season 2 trailer falls into that category for us. The show spreads onto Max on April 13th.

Mini tidbits:

Iñárritu’s new film Judy, starring Tom Cruise, has been paused for 2 days as John Goodman got a hip injury on set.

A Quiet Place 3 is in development from Paramount.

THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT

*Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*. **Warner Bros.**

HBO is potentially securing two more major roles for its high-profile series adaptation of Harry Potter. Emmy and Oscar nominated actress Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) is in talks to play Head of Gryffindor House, the nurturing but stern Minerva McGonagall (previously played by the late Dame Maggie Smith).

English actor Paapa Essiedu (The Outrun) is said to be taking on the not to be trusted anti-hero, Professor Severus Snape (previously played by the late Alan Rickman).

Both acclaimed actors will be joining the great John Lithgow who is putting on his Headmaster pants to play Professor Albus Dumbledore. As an avid Harry Potter fan, with every new piece of information announced, I find myself still hugely skeptical but very intrigued.

Adam Scott is getting off the severed floor and Michelle Monaghan is leaving behind Thailand with both actors joining Robert De Niro in The Whisper Man, a crime thriller feature from Netflix.

Official Synopsis:

When his 8-year-old son is abducted, a widowed crime writer looks to his estranged father, a retired former police detective, for help, only to discover a connection with the decades-old case of a convicted serial killer known as “The Whisper Man.”

Scott is playing the widowed author opposite De Niro’s former detective. Pre-Severance, one might have been skeptical of Scott’s ability to pull off the role of a grieving widower who is hiding a mountain of pain. But Scott’s ability to stew in his own sadness in Severance while the whole world moves through him feels like an appropriate starting spot for him in The Whisper Man.

Monaghan will play the investigator leading the search for missing kids. She has a magnetic sternness (True Detective Season 1) that will be ripe for this role. She can currently be seen on the new season of The White Lotus.

The Whisper Man comes from director James Ashcroft (Coming Home in the Dark) and is produced by the Russo brothers under their AGBO banner. Production is set to begin this Spring.

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Michael B. Jordan’s next directorial venture The Thomas Crown Affair has found its leading lady in Taylor Russell who will star alongside Jordan.

Russell’s best known performance was in Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All (2022, clip) opposite a pink-haired Timothée Chalamet with a recurring role on the Netflix sci-fi show Lost in Space (2018-21, trailer) which ran for three seasons.

Jordan’s The Thomas Crown Affair will mark the third take on the Alan Trustman story, which previously saw Rene Russo (with Pierce Brosnan in 1999) and Faye Dunaway in the 1968 film being shot into stardom, making the heavily sought-out role a huge get for Russell so early on in her career.

Production is set to begin this summer in London.

FESTIVALS

SXSW kicked off on Friday. Here are some of the doc highlights, including one from Michael Bay and the Glitch in the Matrix director’s follow up film, and a new project EP’d by Francis Ford Coppola:
https://theindustry.co/p/sxsw-2025-kick-off

INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Death of a Unicorn, had audiences clapping for every kill at the SXSW premiere.

A24's mythologically accurate creature horror comedy stars Paul Rudd, and Jenna Ortega as a father-daughter duo, entrenched with a family of delightfully awful one percenters, Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni, and an absolutely hilarious Will Poulter as the group tries to figure out what to do about a dead unicorn that shows up at their doorstep.

The out of touch family immediately sees money in the unicorn's latent healing ability and begins fast tracking to pharmaceutical outlets, all the while doted on by their exasperated but faithful house servant Griff (Barry’s Anthony Carrigan) whose Buster Keaton-esque reactions ended up getting the biggest applause during the cast Q&A.

With a steady hour of build up and hem-hawing from Paul Rudd's character caught between morality and success, the movie quickly becomes a satisfying, if a bit paint-by-numbers slasher.

It's a very fun time from beginning to end and seeing these objectively horrible people get mutilated in increasingly gorier ways is such a fun time. The cast seems to really have had a great time, and credit should be given to writer/director Alex Scharfman (cover story on how he is the real Unicorn). This was an incredibly well executed debut.

Death of a Unicorn is out in theaters March 28.

Trailer here.

Tidbits:

Errol Morris’ mind control. The gifted documentarian behind The Thin Blue Line (1988) and A Brief History of Time (1991) has a new doc, Chaos: The Manson Murders. It tracks some alt theories about Manson, touching on similar ideas in Morris’ Wormwood (2017), about the CIA’s LSD mind control program. Currently on Netflix. Trailer.

Zeitgeist Films & Kino Lorber acquire Hot Docs audience favorite A Photographic Memory. The director Rachel Elizabeth Seed documents her journey to discover more about her mother, whom she lost before she formed memories. Her mother left behind a series of audio recordings of interviews she conducted with famous photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson. A Photographic Memory will be released early summer. Here’s the lovely trailer.

Double Academy Award winning documentarian Ben Proudfoot drops a YouTube short about the woman who created the tagline for L’Oreal’s “I’m Worth It.” It plays like a deathbed confessional (trailer).

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

CJ ENM, the studio behind Parasite picks up Jung Hyun-joo to join as Head of Film Business as the studio enters its 30th year. Jung was the former CEO of Korean film company Acemaker with experience in helming high budget films like Bong Joon-ho’s horror feature The Host (2006). Jung will be starting her new position immediately with her expertise, hoping to accelerate global ambitions for the company.

Founder of X Stream Pictures, Jia Zhang-ke (dir. A Touch of Sin) is partnering with veteran Chinese distributor Tian Qi to launch a new acquisition and distribution company Unknown Pleasures Pictures. The new company will aim to expand the diversity of films being shown in China, with Zhang-ke serving as president. The announcement of the new Chinese company comes as the prolific director’s latest film, the Cannes 2024 Palme d’Or contender Caught By the Tides, gears up for its US release on May 9th, via Sideshow and Janus Films.

Italian producer Luca Bernabei’s Lux Vide is developing Floating Lives, a six-part drama on the 2012 Costa Concordia shipwreck. The character-driven series follows eight firefighters who executed a daring rescue mission. Each episode pairs a firefighter with a saved passenger, exploring their past and survival.