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Neon's Splitsville starring Dakota Johnson is the craziest rom-com I’ve seen in a long time… and that’s a good thing.
I sat down with the director, producer, star, and co-writer Michael Angelo Covino (The Climb), and the star and co-writer Kyle Marvin to discuss how they burnt the rom-com rules to a crisp.
Covino stated:
“You're programmed to watch films like this, where we're supposed to go, ‘OK, these two people, this happens, they break up, and now these people meet, and now we're rooting for them.”
We’ve all seen those types of movies. Bridget Jones’s Diary. Enchanted. And recently, another Dakota Johnson-led romance, The Materialists.
In that structure, the audience’s heart pivots with the characters’ as their love shifts to a new partner.
This is not the case in Splitsville. Actually, entire movements of the film can be measured by the apathy of each couple. In one incredible sequence, Marvin invites his wife’s (Hitman’s Adria Arjona) many lovers to live in their house. He cooks for them, gives them job advice, and even establishes a cinephile movie night.
Marvin analyzed his character:
“My superpower is I don't care and that's an insane premise for like a character motivation, but it's also the only thing that would work.”
And in a crazy way, it actually does. Because we live in an era of relationship impermanence. Where the person who cares the least has the most power.
Splitsville pushes that argument to its nth degree, its most extreme, and shows us. Maybe. Just maybe. It's cool to care.
In theaters this weekend.
For More:
Splitsville trailer.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Nicolas Cage is in talks to star in True Detective Season 5.
Chris Parnell named EVP, Paramount+ Originals.
Warner Bros. pushes Cat in the Hat to fall 2026.
Apple TV+ hikes subscription prices 30%.
Lionsgate acquires Blake Lively’s action romcom The Survival List.
Daniel Day-Lewis returns in Focus Features’ Anemone.
Halle Berry stars in Killer Films’ Fleur.
Karen Gillan joins Amazon MGM’s Highlander remake.
Bleecker Street picks up Victorian Psycho from A24.
Neon re-dubs Arco with Will Ferrell and Natalie Portman.
Vertical acquires UK/Irish rights for Emma Thompson’s Dead of Winter.
Watermelon Pictures picks up Palestine 36.
Buffalo 8 acquires folk horror The Exile.
Greenwich Entertainment takes U.S. rights to French drama The Marching Band.
Germany selects Cannes Jury Prize winner Sound of Falling as Oscar entry.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Time is a flat Nicolas Cage. True Detective Season 1 set the bar high for the show with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
Now, Nicolas Cage is in talks to star in Season 5, from Issa López, the showrunner of Season 4 (Jodie Foster/Kali Reis). The series takes place in Jamaica Bay, Long Island.
Cage as a morally conflicted true detective with gnawing demons both seems like every character he’s ever played and entirely new. For me, there are three brilliant Cage performances:
Leaving Las Vegas
Matchstick Men
Dream Scenario
Plus a three-way tie for 4th place: Bringing Out The Dead, Wild at Heart, and The Weatherman. All unique and all undeniably Cage.
Streamers' recent quarterly results have shown that the way to increase profit and reduce churn is by increasing prices.
Now, Apple TV+ joins the bandwagon with Paramount+ and Peacock, hiking their monthly rate to $12.99 (up 30%). The increase starts today.
Another way to decrease churn? Use astrology! Netflix is adding a recommendation engine to its platform that will select content based on your sign. I’m sure it will be popular.
Tidbits:
Happy Gilmore 2 is a straight-to-streaming hit! The sequel was Nielsen’s biggest US opening weekend of all time with 46.7M views. That’ll help Netflix justify the newly announced budget of $152M. By comparison, the original Happy Gilmore film opened at $8.5M (roughly 1.9M views). This is a big deal as the 10-film+ Sandler/Netflix deal had always driven eyeballs to the platform, but the nostalgia factor put Happy Gilmore 2 over the top.
Rambo creator David Morrell’s bestselling 2013 novel Murder as a Fine Art is being adapted into a TV series. Former Millennium president Jeffrey Greenstein’s newly launched production banner, A Higher Standard, is developing the Victorian mystery. While both are considered thrillers, the new adaptation falls more in line with a Sherlock Holmes story.
The Survival List sees a reunion between Blake Lively and the A Simple Favor studio, Lionsgate, which just acquired the rights to the upcoming action romcom. Wicked producer Marc Platt is in talks to produce alongside Lively, who is also presumably leading the cast.
Mini Tidbits:
Chris Parnell, the former co-president of Sony Pictures TV Studios, has been appointed EVP for Paramount+ Originals. Previously a creative exec at Apple, Parnell will oversee the streamer’s entire original slate.
The Beatles’ Anthology returns to Disney+ with a remixed and restored docuseries, featuring a new Episode 9. Clearly drumming up some early excitement for the upcoming Mendes quadrilogy.
Schrödinger’s: Cat in the Hat, pushed into Fall 2026, that's about 9 months from its original release window. This is most likely to launch it under Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's revived arm. The trailer looked silly.
Sports arms race:
Fox One lands on Prime Video at $19.99/month, turning Amazon into a competitor in the live-sports streaming market with NFL Sundays and the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
NBCUniversal is in talks to close a $600M, 3-year MLB deal for NBC and Peacock. This would give them Sunday Night Football, Basketball, and Baseball. With the Amazon deal, Paramount’s $7.7bn UFC deal, and a new Netflix deal for Home Run Derby, sports are now seen as essential for streamers to draw in a wider subscriber base.
Renewed:
Sky’s Gangs of London (renewed for S4)
Release Date:
Searchlight’s Is This Thing On?
Dir: Bradley Cooper
Release: Dec 19th
Netflix’s Death By Lightning
Cast: Michael Shannon & Matthew Macfadyen
Release: Nov 6
Trailers:
HBO/Max’s The Pitt (S2)
Release: January 2026
Mubi’s The Mastermind
Dir: Kelly Reichardt
Star: Josh O’Connor
Release: Oct 17
Prime’s Hedda
Dir: Nia DaCosta
Star: Tessa Thompson
Release: Oct 29
Dark Sky Films’ Chain Reactions
Texas Chainsaw Massacre doc
Premiere: Venice
Subject: Stephen King, Patton Oswalt
Release: Sept 19
Neon’s Men of War
First Look:
Netflix’s A Man on the Inside (S2)
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Welcome back, Mr. Plainview. Daniel Day-Lewis makes his return to the screen in Focus Features’ Anemone.
Synopsis:
The complex and profound ties that exist between brothers, fathers, and sons.
Ok, that’s a lot to unpack, and the trailer doesn’t help elucidate the plot. But what it does showcase is a fully formed Daniel Day-Lewis character.
There are shades of his There Will Be Blood Daniel Plainview. And he seems in a state of profound demonic mania that only Day-Lewis can pull off with total stillness (trailer).
For more on the film, check out our cover story breakdown:
https://theindustry.co/p/daniel-day-lewis-is-back
Long absent from the kind of meaty roles that first made her a star, Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball) may have found a striking return in Killer Films’ Fleur.
It follows a New York housewife who flees to Paris after three decades of marriage to reinvent herself, venturing into the world of escorting.
Often focused on character-driven stories, Killer Films has a way of portraying complex, vulnerable women, producing acclaimed performances like Julianne Moore in Still Alice (2014) and Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry (1999). For Berry, who has always thrived when tapping both fragility and fire, Fleur could offer the perfect canvas to remind audiences of her dramatic power.
Mini Tidbits:
Karen Gillan in Highlander
Kiernan Shipka in The Shitheads
Spawn of the Living Dead
For all the above mini tidbits and more, click here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / FESTIVALS
Bleecker Street picks up Victorian Psycho from A24. In a dashing move, A24 dropped this film mid-shoot:
Cast: Margaret Qualley
Dir: Zachary Wigon (Sanctuary, starring Qualley)
Prod: Dan Kagan (Longlegs)
Financier/International Sales Rep: Anton
Synopsis: In 1858, psychopathic governess Winifred Notty (Qualley) arrives at isolated Ensor House to teach the children. As employees mysteriously vanish, the owners grow suspicious of her true motives hidden beneath her disturbing nature.
Luckily, Bleecker Street is doubling down on horror (e.g., Bone Lake) and picked up the project.
Laura Poitras (dir: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the 2nd doc ever to win the top prize at Venice) co-directs the doc Cover-Up. It follows political journalist Seymour Hersh, who brought to the public's attention many of the most damning constitutional wrongdoings.
NYFF stated:
“Cover-Up couldn’t have come at a more crucial moment, when freedom of the U.S. press is increasingly under fire by those in power.”
Everyone loves an animated film with an A-list voice cast. But strange is the trend for arthouse studios to buy international animated films and bring in big talent:
A24’s Ne Zha 2 ($2bn WW box office)
Cast: Michelle Yeoh
Neon’s Arco
Premiere: Cannes
Cast: Will Ferrell, Natalie Portman, and Mark Ruffalo
We’ll see what the American appetite for these films is when Ne Zha 2 hits the box office this weekend.
Emma Thompson has played plenty of widows before, but nothing like her role in Brian Kirk’s Dead of Winter. His first feature directorial venture since 2019’s 21 Bridges.
Thompson plays a widowed fisherwoman trapped in a Minnesota blizzard who must transform from ordinary woman to unlikely hero.
Watch Kirk’s direction in the Game of Thrones season eight episode “The Long Night” (scene). It’s a great marker of how he is able to handle intense conflict and unpredictably high stakes.
Vertigo Releasing has acquired U.K. and Irish distribution rights, with Vertical Entertainment releasing in the U.S. Sept. 26th.
Mini Tidbits:
Vaneast Pictures has acquired international sales rights to The Cure, a biotech horror thriller starring David Dastmalchian and Ashley Greene. The plot follows a sick teen uncovering her billionaire parents’ sinister blood-harvesting scheme. A TIFF screening is planned.
Palestine’s official Oscar submission, Palestine 36, has been acquired by Watermelon Pictures (Distr: From Ground Zero) for North American rights. The historical drama is set to premiere at TIFF next month.
Buffalo 8 (Rust) acquired global rights to debut films, The Exile, a folk horror set in 1960s Bengal. Sept. 19 release Trailer here.
Greenwich Entertainment (Free Solo) acquires U.S. rights to Emmanuel Courcol’s The Marching Band, a César-nominated French festival hit about estranged brothers reuniting through music, releasing spring 2026.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Joining a growing list, Germany announces that Cannes Jury Prize winner Sound of Falling is their official Oscar selection. The sophomore feature from director Mascha Schilinski (Dark Blue Girl), the multi-generational drama follows four girls experiencing youth on an isolated German farm. Trailer.
European TV giant Sky is losing its Head of Co-Productions, Jack Oliver, at the end of this month. Joining the company from the BBC over a decade ago, Oliver’s role will not be replaced.
Sky seems excited about its SNL. Saturday Night Live UK has announced its showrunner, James Longman (EP: The Late Late Show with James Corden). Talent scouts are already looking at festivals like Fringe. Coming in 2026, live from BBC Studioworks, it's Saturday Night!
ON THIS DAY
1945. David Chase born in Mount Vernon, New York.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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