Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:
Michael B. Jordan’s Battlefield, Mike Cavanagh’s Pay, and a Bull.
Let’s go!
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The Industry just landed in LA for the week, and it’s already been a whirlwind. We went to HBO’s Rooster FYC event and were treated to a great conversation with star Steve Carell and creator Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Ted Lasso). I spoke to Carell afterward, which was super illuminating.
We’re here for a few more FYC events, some meetings, and then we’re off to The Oscars, the Scientific and Technical Awards version.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Michael B. Jordan & Christopher McQuarrie team for a Battlefield film adaptation.
Comcast’s Mike Cavanagh tops 2025 Hollywood CEO pay with $71.8M.
Full breakdown on Studio CEOs’ pay
Plus, the Chief Legal Officer, who made more than their CEO
Charter loses 51K video subs in Q1.
Jez Butterworth (Mobland) signs five-year NBCUniversal film/TV deal.
WGA approves four-year AMPTP deal.
Park Chan-wook lines up Western thriller with Matthew McConaughey.
Helena Bonham Carter exits The White Lotus S4.
Cannes Market’s Miss You, Love You pairs Jim Rash with Allison Janney.
Cannes Immersive Competition highlight: The Black Mirror Experience.
Lenny Abrahamson (Room) adapts David Nicholls’ You Are Here for the BBC.
Kino Lorber acquires doc Saved by the Beauty of the World.
Buffalo 8 picks up Bull Street.
Yesterday’s correct answer: the lottery, Waking Ned Devine, inciting incident.
72% got it right.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
A Battlefield film adaptation is on the way. Michael B. Jordan is attached to star with Christopher McQuarrie (Dir: Mission: Impossible franchise), who will write, direct, and produce.
Created by Electronic Arts in 2002, Battlefield is one of the most popular first-person shooter games in the world, with over 15 main, expansion, and spin-off installments over the past two decades. Battlefield 6 (2025) sold more than 7M copies in just three days and was the best-selling game of the year.
Though Hollywood has successfully adapted iconic game franchises into films (Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Warner Bros’ Mortal Kombat series), they are yet to start a big franchise based on a FPS game. While FPS games allow you to be the character, film adaptations of those games often remove the interactive agency from viewers and make the experience more passive. Paramount+’s Halo series (2022) had this problem and was poorly received by fans.
While the dangers are evident, they might just be able to crack the code of FPS games with Christopher McQuarrie, one of the best action directors in Hollywood right now. We hope to see the kind of dynamic action sequences that McQuarrie meticulously crafted in the Mission: Impossible films in Battlefield.
Charter, the leading U.S. pay-TV operator, sees losses slow in Q1 2026:
12.5M total video customers
↓51K subs since last quarter
On the positive side, Charter reduced its pay-TV losses by 69.5% year over year, as it lost 167K subs in Q1 2025.
The stock was down 25.5% on Friday (the biggest loss in company history) due to a larger-than-anticipated decline in broadband customers.
Tidbits:
Jez Butterworth (EP/Writer: Paramount+’s Mobland, The Agency) signs a five-year film/TV deal with Universal Entertainment. Butterworth’s contract with Paramount wraps up at the end of 2026, and the new pact with NBCUniversal will commence in January of 2027. Butterworth writing credits include Ford v. Ferrari (2019), Spectre (2015), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), and Sam Mendes’ upcoming The Beatles. It’s another post-Taylor Sheridan example of Universal nabbing TV talent from Paramount.
HBO Documentary films are going into bizarre territory. Production has begun on an untitled doc series exploring the Zizians, a cult made up of young, enigmatic former Silicon Valley tech workers who have been linked to a number of violent crimes across the U.S. Matthew Galkin (One Night in Idaho) will direct, with the series produced by XTR (SXSW’s Caterpillar) and set to debut on HBO Max.
The WGA approved a 4-year deal with the AMPTP this weekend with 90% of members voting yes. Most Minimum Basic Agreement payments will rise by up to 10.9% over 4 years. $321M added to the Health Fund. Stronger AI licensing rights protections around training generative AI. New TV protections on if/come deals, plus better streaming residuals and larger viewership bonuses. Read the full terms here.
Mini Tidbits:
A 26-year-old man in Singapore faces 7 years in prison for leaking Paramount’s The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender.
Andrea Newman steps down as showrunner of NBC’s Chicago Fire, marking the end of her decade-long tenure.
Renewals:
Prime’s Hazbin Hotel (for S5 - final season)
Cancellations:
Prime’s Gen V (canceled after S2)
The next spinoff, Vought Rising releases in 2027
Trailers:
Paramount+’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S4
Release: July 23
Prime Video’s Spider-Noir
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Brendan Gleeson
Release: May 27
Sony Pictures Classics’ Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
Cast: Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, John Slattery
Release: July 10
Documentary Searching for Drug Peace
Hot Docs Premiere: April 28
PBS’s The Forsytes S2
Premiere: 2027
First Look:
Netflix’s Scooby-Doo: Origins
Cast: Mckenna Grace, Tanner Hagen, Abby Ryder Fortson
Synopsis: The Mystery Gang gets together for the first time to solve the mystery surrounding a Great Dane puppy who may be the only witness to a supernatural murder.
Release: TBD
HBO’s Stuart Fails to Save the Universe
Big Bang spinoff
Release: July
Neon’s Fjord
Dir: Cristian Mungiu (Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve
Premiere: Cannes Official Selection
Release Dates:
Universal Pictures’ The Mummy reboot
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz
Release: Oct 15, 2027
Universal Pictures’ Miami Vice ‘85
Dir: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Austin Butler
Release Date: May 19, 2028
Animated Feature Return of the Jungle
Indian Release: May 29
U.S. Release: TBD
Shoot Dates:
Lionsgate’s From the World of John Wick: Caine
Dir/Star: Donnie Yen
Shoot Dates: April 25 ~ June 2026
Release: TBD
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Director Park Chan-wook’s biggest American movie:
Park Chan-wook’s (Dir: Oldboy, No Other Choice) next project is a western thriller, The Brigands of Rattlecreek, written by S. Craig Zahler (Wri: Dragged Across Concrete).
The cast is star-studded:
Matthew McConaughey
Austin Butler
Pedro Pascal
Tang Wei (Decision to Leave)
The film will follow a sheriff and a doctor in a frontier town that is terrorized by a gang that uses a thunderstorm to rob its residents.
Park’s direction and S. Craig Zahler’s writing are characterized by unflinching violence that isn’t for the shock factor, but has a narrative elegance that enhances the emotional arc of the story.
Park often showed his love towards the Western genre in many interviews, especially the 1974 Neo-Western film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, directed by Sam Peckinpah (trailer) – so we can expect a gritty grindhouse-meets-arthouse film from the Korean director. We would love to see Park’s obsessive yet beautiful take on the Western genre.
The project is part of the Cannes Market. Legendary’s 193 (Die, My Love) will serve as the sales rep.
Mini Tidbits:
Only four days into filming, Helena Bonham Carter is checking out of The White Lotus season four. The two-time Oscar nominee’s casting was not only one of the first announced, but, arguably, the biggest name in the lengthy ensemble. Her role will be rewritten and recast as production continues in France.
Ellen DeGeneres is swimming back to the booth, making her return as the lovable Dory in a new untitled Pixar short. Production begins shortly, with no plot details announced.
Five new guest stars join Reasonable Doubt. La La Anthony (MTV’s Total Request Live), Rutina Wesley (HBO’s True Blood), Taylor Polidore Williams (The CW’s All American: Homecoming), DeVaughn Nixon (The Bodyguard), and Alexxis Lemire (Syfy’s Truth or Dare) to guest star in Hulu’s Reasonable Doubt S4. The show follows a criminal defense lawyer at an LA law firm as she navigates difficult cases.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
Cannes Market:
Miss You, Love You
Int. Sales Rep: Architect (I Don’t Understand You)
Dir/Wri: Jim Rash (dir. The Way, Way Back)
Cast: Allison Janney, Bonnie Hunt, Andrew Rannells (A Simple Favor)
Prod. Co: Madison Wells (The Eyes of Tammy Faye)
Synopsis:
A widow plans husband’s funeral. Estranged son sends an assistant instead of coming himself. Widow grieves with a stranger.
Cannes keeps VR alive with its selection. Three projects stuck out:
Playing with Fire produced by Atlas V (Gloomy Eyes starring Colin Farrell, Notes on Blindness). Those guys are the best in the business, and we can’t wait to see this new work.
Cannes also has The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters, voiced by Lucy Liu, and Banijay Live’s The Black Mirror Experience.
Full Cannes Immersive Competition selection here.
Two of the bigger titles at Canneseries, an annual TV festival:
Docuseries The Deal with Iran
Docuseries Harvest
Mini Tidbit:
Beijing sales company Rediance (Memoria) has boarded Into the Jaws of the Ogre ahead of its premiere in the ACID sidebar at Cannes. The debut documentary feature from Iranian-French director Mahsa Karampour, it tells the story of her reunion with her once lively brother who now lives in exile in New York.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Lenny Abrahamson (dir. Room) is set to helm a TV series adaptation of David Nicholls’ novel You Are Here, a sweet love story for the BBC.
The novel follows two lonely, middle-aged divorcees who unexpectedly cross paths on a long-distance walking trail and share a deeply meaningful bond over the course of ten days and 200 miles.
The Irish director previously worked with BBC on Normal People (2020), based on the novel that put bestselling author Sally Rooney on the map. The cult-beloved series launched the careers of both Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
Abrahamson is amazing at contrasting love with isolation. Room was a gut-wrenching extreme example of this. But You Are Here, set against the soggy landscapes of the English countryside, could allow the maddening physical isolation to catalyze the romance of these two divorcees.
Paired with Nicholls, whose Netflix adaptation One Day turned a chance-meeting romance between twenty-somethings into a global hit, You Are Here could find a similarly large audience.
Tidbits:
Kino Lorber is cashing in on prestige documentaries, securing the North American rights to Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World. Following up their Oscar win for Mr. Nobody Against Putin, the distributor’s new film will look at the life of the late, world-famous, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Kino will release the film in July only in select New York theaters, followed by a VOD release.
Buffalo 8 acquires the North American distribution to Bull Street, starring Loretta Devine (Waiting to Exhale) and Oscar-winning Amy Madigan (Weapons). The film follows a small-town lawyer who goes up against an Ivy League attorney when her family’s claim to their longtime home is challenged. The film is written and directed by first-time feature director Lynn Dow and is aiming for a summer 2026 release.
Tidbits:
Movistar Plus+’s exiting CEO
Former Netflix exec launches prod co
Sweden’s Shadow of Guilt
All those tidbits and more here.
ON THIS DAY
1976. Sally Hawkins born in London, England.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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