Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Paramount’s Legs, Universal’s Lies and MTV.
Let’s go!
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Forget the 2026 slate, forget 2027. Paramount’s most anticipated film lands in 2028. It is the Untitled Longlegs movie from director Osgood Perkins, starring Nicolas Cage. It will release on January 14th, 2028. Full details here.
In the meantime, Paramount Skydance has a glowing Q1 2026 earnings compared to last year:
$168M profit
↑10%
$7.35bn revenue
↑2%
$3.7bn TV/Media revenue
↓ 6%
$1.06bn TV/Media profit
↑11%
$1.28bn Filmed Entertainment (Studios) revenue
↑11%
$164M Filmed Entertainment profit
↑100%
Paramount streaming was way up as the DTC division keeps reporting healthy gains:
$251M profit
Up from $4M loss last year
$2.4bn Subscription revenue
↑ 11%
79.6M subs
↑ 700K for the quarter
Paramount is confident that it will unify Paramount+, Pluto TV, and BET+ this summer. Cost efficiencies galore.
For More:
Want to see the rest of Paramount’s slate? Here’s the scoop.
Want to see the full deal scope of PSKY’s WBD acquisition, which they’re promising to close by Q3? Here’s the breakdown.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Lionsgate promotes Amanda Kozlowski to President of Worldwide Marketing.
Robert Greenblatt returns to NBCUniversal with a new first-look TV deal.
Jerry Bruckheimer Films president Mike Stenson dies at 65.
CBS’ Tracker moves production to L.A. after a record $48M tax credit.
Nocturnal Entertainment launches with Netflix WWII thriller Play Dead.
Sony TV casting head Dawn Steinberg exits after 23 years.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settle their It Ends With Us legal battle.
Patrick Schwarzenegger joins Cannes package The Bookie & The Bruiser.
Cannes reveals its full international jury.
Lucy Hale leads Cannes Market rom-com Vision Board.
A.I.-assisted family feature Critterz heads to Cannes market.
Neon boards Geremy Jasper’s MTV origin film I Want My MTV.
IFC and Sapan Studios take Joe Swanberg’s The Sun Never Sets theatrical.
Yesterday’s correct answer: Wings, the first Best Picture Oscar winner.
53% got it right.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Former NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt is returning to NBCUniversal after eight years. Under a new first-look deal, Greenblatt will develop and produce TV through his production banner, The Green Room (Officer on Duty). First on the slate is a series adaptation of the novel The Lies I Tell, a story following a genius con artist who forms a connection with one of their victims.
Lionsgate’s interim Head of Marketing, Amanda Kozlowski, has been promoted to President of Worldwide Marketing. She has led the studio’s brand strategies for tentpole franchises like John Wick and The Hunger Games. With over 18 years at the studio under her belt, Kozlowski’s most recent year was one of her most successful, with Michael just grossing $424M and becoming the second-highest-grossing musical biopic of all time.
Nocturnal Entertainment officially launches with the Netflix sale of its first feature, Play Dead. Led by producers Keaton Heinrichs and Akiva Nemetsky, the company will focus on providing filmmakers with a creative suite and meeting their creative needs throughout the production of the film. Play Dead is a World War II thriller starring Noah Jupe (Hamnet) and Matthias Schweighöfer (Oppenheimer).
Mini Tidbits:
Tubi picks up season 1 of Why Are You Single?, a dating game show hosted by comedian Marie Faustin. Hook: one single person as four suitors reveal their romantic baggage, forcing the contestant and the live audience to decide which red flags are worth overlooking.
Dawn Steinberg, the agent behind the casting of Breaking Bad and Outlander, is leaving Sony Pictures Television after 23 years with the studio. Named the head of casting nearly a decade ago, Steinberg will leave her role of overseeing talent for Sony’s global TV slate this summer.
It Ends with a settlement. The legal battle between It Ends With Us (2024) co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni is no longer going to trial, with their lawyers agreeing on a non-public settlement deal. And, scene!
Joining in 1998, Mike Stenson, the longtime president of Jerry Bruckheimer Films, has died at 65. From the five Pirates of the Caribbean installments to Top Gun: Maverick, he helped bring to life countless iconic franchises, overseeing development and production for nearly three decades as one of Bruckheimer’s right-hand men.
Cancellations:
CBC’s Son of a Critich (canceled after S5)
Netflix’s The Night Agent (canceled after S4)
Fox’s Going Dutch (canceled after S2)
Trailers:
Universal’s The Odyssey
Dir: Christopher Nolan
Netflix’s The Four Seasons S2
Cast: Tina Fey, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Kerri Kenney-Silver
Release: May 28
National Geographic documentary Time and Water
Dir: Sara Dosa (Oscar-nominated for Fire of Love)
Premiere: Sundance
Release: May 29
Indie Horror Film Homebody
Dir: Nick Toti (It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This)
Release: TBD
Clips:
Spanish film Viva
Poster:
A24’s Tony
Dir: Matt Johnson (BlackBerry)
Cast: Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Antonio Banderas
Release: August
Release date:
Amazon MGM’s Artificial
Dir: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Monica Barbaro
Release: 2027
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
After making out with his brother in The White Lotus, Patrick Schwarzenegger is now playing his brother at Cannes. The actor has joined The Bookie & The Bruiser, a 1960s New York City-set PTSD story, starring alongside Vince Vaughn as “an Italian-American tough guy” and Theo James as a “pensive Jewish fellow.”
With a number of projects in the works, this will be Schwarzenegger’s most ambitious project yet, as he is set to play polar-opposite twin brothers, Augie and Bernard, whose lives are violently upended by the reckless behavior of one, bringing dangerous men, unexpectedly, to the other’s doorstep.
From writer-director S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk). Anton (Fuze) will represent international sales for the film at the upcoming Cannes market.
First, he becomes conjoined with his wife, now he’s facing an alien invasion, Dave Franco can’t catch a break. The Now You See Me and Together actor is joining the thriller film Soon You Will Be Gone and Possibly Eaten from Russian director Egor Abramenko (dir. A24’s upcoming Altar).
Trying it out in his directorial debut, the horror movie The Rental (2020), Franco, primarily known for his comedy, is starting to lean further into the thriller genre following the success of Neon’s Together last summer. Starring opposite Babygirl actress Sophie Wilde, the new alien film will begin production this summer.
Tidbit:
Jenna Elfman (Two and a Half Men) joins the cast of the upcoming Fox drama The Interrogator. The show follows MI6 agent Conrad Henry and his elite team as they crack the minds of the world’s most dangerous criminals through interrogation tactics. Elfman appears alongside Stephen Fry (V for Vendetta) and Luke Kleintank (FBI: International) as a struggling CIA agent who was a rising star until a mission gone wrong sends her tumbling down the ladder.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
The jury is not out! The Cannes Film Festival has revealed its nine-member international jury panel:
Jury president director Park Chan-wook (No Other Choice, Oldboy)
Demi Moore
Stellan Skarsgård
Chloé Zhao
Ruth Negga (Loving)
Isaach de Bankolé (Chocolat)
Paul Laverty (wri: Cannes-winning screenplay Sweet Sixteen)
Diego Céspedes (dir: Un Certain Regard film The Melting Creatures)
Laura Wandel (dir: Un Certain Regard film Playground)
Jacob Elordi, whose previous two films, The Sweet East (2023) and last year’s Oh, Canada, both premiered at the festival, was originally selected for the Cannes jury, but had to drop out due to injury.
This group will decide the winner of this year’s Palme d’Or, with the festival running May 12-23.
Cannes Market:
Vision Board
Int. Sales Rep: Concourse Media (Sovereign)
Dir: Peter Hutchings (The Hating Game)
Cast: Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars)
Synopsis:
Follows a struggling fashion designer who, after drunkenly creating a vision board, wakes up living her dream life with a mansion, fashion empire, and perfect romance, but realizes achieving everything may cost her authentic self.
Full list of Cannes market projects here.
Mini Tidbit:
Pluto Film (Berlin-based film sales company) acquires the worldwide sales rights to Chilean thriller Summer War. The film follows a nerdy champion of a board game whose vacation in Chile spirals into a mystery after a tourist disappears, and he encounters a local master of his game. Summer War will have its market debut at Cannes’ Marché du Film and its world premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
TECH SECTION
New A.I.-assisted animated feature Critterz comes from the screenwriting duo behind Paddington in Peru (2024), James Lamont and Jon Foster.
Co-founder of A.I. studio Native Foreign, Nik Kleverov is set to direct the outcast story, which follows brave woodland creatures who work together on a high-stakes quest. Eliciting the same “wonder of 80s fantasy movies”, AGC International (Hit Man) has picked up worldwide sales rights and will pitch the project as the first commercial family A.I. feature to buyers at Cannes.
Because the uncanny valley doesn’t apply to animated films, The Industry feels there may be a quicker product-to-market adaptation over live-action.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Neon picks up Geremy Jasper’s new film, I Want My MTV, which follows the inception and first years of MTV.
Turn it up to 11 and smash my head into a Piña colada. There’s no one better for this than Jasper. His directorial debut, Patti Cake$ (2017), was mind-blowingly sonically amazing and doused with magical realism. It hit at the heart of an outsider whose true talent for rap was euphoric.
A24 picked up the book rights 10 years ago, but it looks like they’re no longer involved. The producing team picking up the mantle is top-notch, including Cinetic Media, Riva Marker (former head of Jake Gyllenhaal’s prod co), and Glen Powell’s prod co Barnstorm.
We can’t wait to see how Jasper takes the journey of MTV to the nth level.
Tidbits:
Drinking Buddies director Joe Swanberg’s SXSW-premiering The Sun Never Sets gets U.S. theatrical distribution with Independent Film Company and Sapan Studio (The Baltimorons). Made up of a strong cast led by Dakota Fanning, Swanberg regular Jake Johnson, and Cory Michael Smith, the 35mm film centers on a love triangle involving Fanning’s Alaskan Wendy, who reconnects with her ex (Smith), after her older boyfriend (Johnson) unexpectedly leaves the relationship. Marking Swanberg’s 10th collaboration with IFC (Silver Bullets), a company that has championed his work from the beginning, the film is set for a theatrical release later this year.
The director behind the grunge '80s-set Sundance title SLC Punk! is jumping forward to the ‘90s punk rock scene. Director James Merendino is set to direct Gasoline, a new, true story, musical-centered movie from his own script. Based on the rock band Eight Buck Experiment, it follows a young struggling singer who forces his brothers to travel the country to show off their music, with the band’s founder, Evan O’Meara, also attached to produce. SLC Punk! (1998) - Trailer
Tidbits:
Kino Films pickup
The Big Bang Theory writers
Jaggi Entertainment
All those tidbits and more here.
ON THIS DAY
1983. Henry Cavill, born in Jersey, Channel Islands.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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