Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Marvel’s reset, Neon’s re-up, and a Happy Hour.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Marvel’s multiverse saga will reset the Avengers lineup for future recasting.
Adria Arjona (Hit Man) replaces Taylor Russell in The Thomas Crown Affair mid-shoot.
DC taps Ana Nogueira to write the Wonder Woman reboot.
Maia Reficco leads The Last Sunrise for Amazon.
Lionsgate’s marketing heads exit.
George MacKay joins Sense and Sensibility.
Paramount+ cancels Happy Face.
Maximum Pleasure pairs Tatiana Maslany and Jake Johnson.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner (The Cosby Show) dies at 54.
Urchin lands distribution in 19 territories.
Oz Perkins' Keeper, now has a terrifying trailer.
Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson reunite for NYC-set trilogy Happy Hours.
For all our Academy voters, Oscar submissions are open.
For a film released 1/1 - 6/30, the deadline is Sept 10th. For films released in the second half of the year, the deadline is Nov 13th. Submit here.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Marvel sets up its end and beginning.
Recently, Marvel head Kevin Feige has talked about what is next and laid out some hard truths. Our core group, the Avengers, will soon be changing. Iron Man, Captain America, and others will someday be recast.
Now putting on a speculative nerd hat, I think I know how they will do it.
We know that the next two major films are influenced heavily by a battle world narrative. In the comics, essentially, Dr. Doom rewrites reality to better fit his image, which includes a variety of multiversal shenanigans all coming together into one crazy… battle world. When Doom is defeated and the good guys win, someone is going to have to put the world back together and potentially avoid all of the multiverse stuff this time.
It's a clever idea and a prime sandbox for new ideas, to keep what works, get rid of what doesn't, and start something new.
I think that's a plan we can all get behind.
Michael B. Jordan’s The Thomas Crown Affair, from Amazon MGM Studios, finds a new leading lady. Adria Arjona (Hit Man) replaces Taylor Russell (Bones and All), who had exited mid-production over creative differences.
Arjona seems like a better fit; there’s a natural slyness about her, which she showed off in Hit Man as the queen of cat and mouse games (trailer).
She shares much DNA with the previous actresses who played her role: Rene Russo in the 1999 Pierce Brosnan adaptation, and Faye Dunaway in the 1968 film with Steve McQueen.
Screenwriter Ana Nogueira is majorly shaping DC: Though we haven't seen her Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow script in action yet, Nogueira is already set up to write the new Wonder Woman reboot, along with a Teen Titans script also in development. Piggybacking off the hype of Superman and the brief cameo of Milly Alcock's Supergirl at the end of that film, comic fans are getting excited about the Woman of Tomorrow adaptation.
The comic is considered one of the best standalone series; it's weird and dark and seems like a perfect fit for Gunn's more risk-taking approach to the DCU.
Tidbits:
Amazon MGM Studios’ newest book-to-movie adaptation, The Last Sunrise, casts Maia Reficco (Netflix’s La Dolce Villa) as its lead. Based on the viral Anna Todd novel, Reficco will play a young woman whose life transforms during a summer in Majorca, where she meets a charming local. Actor-director Carlson Young (Amazon’s Upgraded) is helming.
Lionsgate Motion Picture Group is losing its heads of marketing, JP Richards and Keri Moore. Lionsgate chair Adam Fogelson will take a stronger position in overseeing the department and the studio’s upcoming theatrical release slate.
International spy thriller novel Bulletproof Angel is getting the book-to-film treatment from author/screenwriter Blake Northcott. Media company Paradigm Sports Group sets a new collaboration with actress, producer, and former WWE superstar CJ Perry (Cosmic Sin) to bring the high-intensity fiction novel to life.
Chris Estrada (This Fool) will star in and co-write Forklift, an NBC warehouse comedy drawn from his own life, about a forklift driver newly promoted and dealing with former peers turned employees.
HOLD ON TO YOUR TOWELIES! South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker ink $1.5bn streaming deal with Paramount. That’s $300M/year for 5 years in exchange for global streaming rights to South Park on Paramount+. It also includes the creators producing 10 eps/year under the deal.
Trailers:
20th Century Studios’ Predator: Badlands
Star: Elle Fanning (at her most confident and wild)
Release date: Nov 7
Fox’s Doc (Season 2)
Cast: Molly Parker, Felicity Huffman
Premiere date: Sept 23
Cancellations:
Paramount+’s Happy Face (cancelled after 1 season)
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Focus Features' newest take on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility rounds out its cast with the addition of George MacKay (1917), along with many others.
Joining the Dashwood sisters played by Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters) and Esme Creed-Miles (Amazon’s Hanna), MacKay will play Elinor’s love interest, Edward Ferrars, an introverted but kind gentleman.
The remake has a strong supporting ensemble:
Caitríona Balfe (Belfast)
Frank Dillane (Harris Dickinson’s Urchin)
Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve)
Production on Georgia Oakley’s (dir: Little Bird) version is officially underway.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Emmy-nominated actor and cultural touchstone of a generation, has died at 54. We watched him grow up on The Cosby Show, read more here: https://theindustry.co/p/malcolm-jamal-warner-obit
Tidbits:
Jake Johnson (New Girl) will star opposite Tatiana Maslany in Apple TV+’s dark comedy thriller Maximum Pleasure. He will play Maslany's ex-husband as the pair become entangled in blackmail, murder, and youth soccer. Johnson is a very funny guy with great timing that could be seen all the way back in his New Girl days, matched evenly with a schlubby affability that makes him a great package.
Lady Bird actress Odeya Rush is trying out TV, cast as a series regular in Memory of a Killer, a Fox drama series opposite Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) and Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) from Warner Bros. Television. Rush will play Dempsey’s daughter Maria, married young and pregnant, as she gets closer to her father, she learns how dangerous he really is.
Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) and Robin Tunney (The Mentalist) are starring in indie dark comedy Divine Blood, the feature directorial debut of married couple Paul Castro Jr. and Aly Miller. Perhaps her most unhinged character since Game of Thrones’ evil queen Cersei, Headey will play a “menstrual artist” who gets a disturbing awakening as she reenters the spotlight. Tunney will play her sister, with filming having just wrapped.
Mini Tidbit:
Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a mob boss in Atlas King. The film centers on an ex-fighter who comes home to bury his friend and joins forces with his godson to plot a heist targeting Gooding Jr.’s mob boss.
Rachel Bloom and Patrick Brammall, actors and co-creators of the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, are the newest additions to 20th Century Studios’ The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Jack Kesy (12 Strong) will star in The Gun on Second Street. A drama about a police officer who accidentally shoots his own partner.
FESTIVALS
The TIFF 2025 Lineup. With projects starring Keanu Reeves, Angelina Jolie, and Brendan Fraser: https://theindustry.co/p/the-tiff-2025-lineup
Totem Films (Sundance’s Slow) has picked up Follies, premiering at Locarno.
Synopsis:
After 16 years together, François and Julie open their relationship to explore sexual adventures and self-discovery.
Here’s the very fun trailer with an homage to The Shining.
The newest critically acclaimed survival thriller, Bone Lake, from Mércedes Bryce Morgan (Fixation), has been picked up by Signature Entertainment (Sovereign, Bride Hard) for UK distribution. Bone Lake follows a couple whose romantic vacation at a secluded lakeside estate is upended when they are forced to share the mansion with a mysterious and attractive couple.
Mini Tidbit:
Venice Critics Week 2025 line-up here. Mubi has picked up one of the films, Agon for distribution in Italy.
Harris Dickinson’s Cannes directorial debut, Urchin, is picked up by 19 territories, including Italy and France. Clip.
Bidad, the Special Jury Prize (2nd Place) at Karlovy Vary Film Festival, has found a worldwide sales rep: Pluto Film (Sundance’s Malu). Trailer.
Mumbai Film Festival 2025 is cancelled.
Film Forum director Sonya Chung steps down.
TIFF’s closing night film, Peak Everything, has sold to 12 territories, including Spain.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Oz Perkins gets creepier. Keeper is the new film from Perkins, Neon’s most coveted director (first look deal).
Here’s the official synopsis:
Keeper follows a couple as they escape for a romantic anniversary weekend at a secluded cabin. When Malcolm suddenly returns to the city, Liz (She Hulk’s Tatiana Maslany) finds herself isolated and in the presence of an unspeakable evil that unveils the cabin’s horrifying secrets.
The trailer, though, is much more ambiguous, taking us into the POV of some malevolent force, which first attracts attention from women, then attracts their terror (Trailer).
Release date: Nov 14th.
Joey and Pacey, take five! Katie Holmes is back behind the camera and Joshua Jackson’s back in front of it in Happy Hours, a feature film trilogy with the actress set to write, direct, and star in. Twenty-two years after Dawson’s Creek left the small screen, the two will act opposite each other in a love story about a couple navigating their relationship within the challenges of careers and family responsibilities.
Holmes' previous film, Alone Together (2022, trailer), also falls within the character-driven dramedy genre, set during the COVID-19 lockdown; it deals with similar themes of confronting unexpected feelings and finding clarity in life’s inevitable obstacles. Happy Hours is a slightly more ambitious project for Holmes, spanning decades.
Tidbit:
13 Reasons Why actress Tommy Dorfman’s sophomore film, an adaptation of Mariko Tamaki’s graphic novel, Laura Dern Keeps Breaking Up with Me, is a clear follow-up to her SXSW debut feature, the introspective queer story I Wish You All the Best (2024, trailer). Her newest film feels like a love child between John Hughes and Jamie Babbit, a coming-of-age drama rooted in teen realism. Financed by Tricky Knot (Harris Dickinson’s Urchin), casting is currently underway.
The Duplass brothers’ Moronic Christmas: IFC Films and Sapan Studio have acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, a heartfelt comedy that won the SXSW Audience Award and will hit theaters later this September. Marking Duplass' return to directing features, the film follows a newly sober man’s offbeat Christmas Eve adventure through Baltimore with his emergency dentist. The trailer is cute, and the romance is strangely there.
New documentary Tura! shines light on Quentin Tarantino and John Waters muse Tura Satana, the groundbreaking star of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! -trailer. Directed by Cody Jarrett, the film will premiere on August 1 via Quiver.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Neon’s No Other Choice, directed by Park Chan-Wook (The Handmaiden, Decision to Leave), looks like a maddening and surreal tale.
Here’s the official synopsis:
After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.
Chan-Wook’s alley, as he excels at playing with deeply disturbed characters who break out of tightly controlled settings, like in The Handmaiden. His imagery is electrically stylized with a neo-noir twist. The No Other Choice trailer has a disturbing, highly saturated, sickly quality to it.
Tidbits:
Netflix continues to prioritize its Korean originals, greenlighting Variety, a K-pop drama from filmmaker Kim Yong-hoon (Netflix’s Mask Girl). Squid Game breakout actress Jo Yu-ri and Son Ye-jin (Crash Landing on You) are set to lead the series that explores relationships between stars and their obsessive fandoms.
Big Deal Films (Showtime’s Dreaming Whilst Black) gains investment from Bal Samra, the company’s Executive Chair. Samra has taken an undisclosed minority stake after years of providing strategic advice and commercial support via his consultancy firm Bizet Media. Samra previously worked on the transformation of BBC iPlayer, BBC News, and BritBox.
With a longtime focus on Latin America, Gluon Media (MadS) is now expanding into U.S. distribution. They will kick off in the U.S. with absurdist sci-fi comedy feature The Fantastic Golem Affairs from Mexican director Juan González. The film will open in a limited theatrical window in New York before heading to streaming.
Roxanne Pompa, a former Paramount Global international exec, has joined Diamond Moving Pictures, a newly formed L.A.-based studio. Her new role at the indie firm is Global Head of International Formats and Distribution.
ON THIS DAY
2016. Last videocassette manufactured.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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