Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Amazon’s Hire, Josh Brolin’s Thunder, and a Rose.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
CBS Entertainment chief Amy Reisenbach inks 3-year extension.
Amazon MGM hires Peter Friedlander as Head of Global TV.
Paramount Skydance names Makan Delrahim CLO.
FTC fines Amazon $2.5B.
Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry developing untitled Netflix drama.
Ex-NBC unscripted exec Corie Henson to lead Beast Industry Studios.
Josh Brolin to star in Thunder Road’s action comedy Mister.
Lucy Liu leads Peacock’s Superfakes with Safdie’s EPing.
Noomi Rapace boards In Alaska as FBI agent.
Bill Burr in talks for Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network Part II.
Yara Shahidi joins Jason Statham in The Beekeeper 2.
Wavelength launches filmmaker grant program.
Roadside & Vertical acquire Rose Byrne drama Tow.
Black Bear’s Christy (w/ Sydney Sweeney) sells big internationally.
Row K picks up Maude Apatow’s directorial debut Poetic License.
BFI to release Rose of Nevada.
Argentina selects Belén for Oscar submission.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Today’s industry news, we’re seeing a bunch of shifts in executive positions.
Even after the messy Skydance-Paramount transition, most of CBS’s leadership team is remaining where they are. President of CBS Entertainment, Amy Reisenbach, and president of CBS Studios, David Stapf, have both signed three-year contract extensions. Stapf is now the longest-tenured head of a TV studio, having served for over two decades in the position.
Paramount Skydance has officially given Makan Delrahim the title of chief legal officer after he worked as an advisor during the merger. Former head of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Delrahim, has a window into how to get a Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery deal through the current administration. Delrahim’s highest-profile Hollywood M&A deal was allowing the safe passage of Fox’s assets to Disney. He will oversee Paramount’s legal and public policy matters and will officially start early next month.
Former head of scripted over at Netflix, Peter Friedlander, was hired by Amazon MGM Studios as the new Head of Global Television. During his fourteen years at the streamer, Friedlander played a large role in the development of some of their earliest hit shows, e.g., House of Cards (2013-18), Orange Is the New Black (2013-19). Friedlander will start his new role on Oct. 6th.
Mini Tidbits:
Amazon will pay a $2.5bn fine. The FTC has charged them with manipulating people into signing up for Prime. They’d do this by having a “Get FREE Same-Day Delivery” button that would auto-enroll folks to Prime. $1.5bn of the settlement will go to customers.
Desperate Housewives (2004-12) creator Marc Cherry is taking on a new group of scandalous families in a new untitled Netflix drama series. Set in South Carolina, the show will follow four wealthy families exploring the hidden truths of Charleston’s elite and high society.
Corie Henson (ex-NBC unscripted chief) has joined Beast Industries as President of Beast Industry Studios, overseeing MrBeast’s YouTube empire, Amazon’s Beast Games, and new scripted/unscripted expansions.
Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corp, who now controls the company, will be paid $33M/year. This ranks well below Ted Sarandos, Netflix co-CEO’s salary of $61.9M, but right in the range of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’ $33.9M.
Trailers:
Disney’s Avatar 3
Release: Dec 19
Netflix’s A House of Dynamite
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow
Theatrical release: Oct 3
Streaming release: Oct 24
Lionsgate’s Greenland 2: Migration
Release: Jan 9
Paramount’s Red Alert
Trailer (depicts the events of Oct. 7th in Israel)
Release: Oct 7
Vertical’s The Astronaut
Cast: Kate Mara
Release: Oct 17
Joan of Arc
Premiere: San Sebastian
It’s like Tom Hanks’ Here, but in the Icelandic wilderness
Netflix’s In Your Dreams
Trailer (animation)
Release: Nov 14
Apple TV+’s Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost
Premiere: NYFF
Dir: Ben Stiller’s doc on his parents
HBO’s The Alabama Solution
Dir: Andrew Jarecki (The Jinx)
Release: Oct 10
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
We see you, Rick Moranis.
The actor was everywhere in the late 80s and 90s till he vanished for a quiet family life after his wife tragically died of cancer in 1997. He decided to step back and focus on being a dad.
But now, finally, he has made his return for Mel Brooks' Spaceballs sequel official, reprising his role as Vader analog Dark Helmet. Cast photo here. Rick is center left.
It’s unsurprising because without Moranis’ distinct nebbish commandeering of a scene, I just don’t see this movie happening. It will be fascinating to see this man out of time adjust to the modern screen.
Just a brief slice of Moranis’ domination of a decade of cinema:
Ghostbusters (1984)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Spaceballs (1987)
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)
The Flintstones (1994)
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997) - Check out the nostalgia on this one.
Want to know more about Spaceballs 2? Click here for a full project breakdown: https://theindustry.co/p/spaceballs-2
Josh Brolin Thanos and the saddest dad of Weapons will lighten up a bit, signing on for the action comedy Mister by Thunder Road, the group behind John Wick.
With a past as an assassin, he sows what he reaps. This has a bit of a Bourne twist to it that might give it a mystery.
Brolin has been a present but pleasant face as of late, most recently his turn in Weapons as a grieving but misguided father really showed his emotional range, usually the stern face badass, Brolin has really become an unlikely everyman.
Principal photography is set to start in 2026 in Spain.
Tidbits:
From solving crimes to committing them. Lucy Liu is set to lead Superfakes, a new crime drama on Peacock, from creator, writer, and showrunner Alice Ju (EP on Netflix’s Beef). Contrary to her sharp-witted detective work on CBS’s long-running Elementary (scenes), in Superfakes, Liu will play a Chinatown counterfeit dealer who gets involved in the dangerous black-market underworld. Liu will also EP alongside Ju, Josh, and Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems). Peacock has not yet set a release date.
Comedian Bill Burr is in talks to join Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network Part II at Sony Pictures. The sequel, based on Jeff Horwitz’s Facebook Files reporting for The Wall Street Journal, will apparently examine Meta’s internal awareness of its platforms’ harmful effects on teens, misinformation spread, and its role in the January 6 Capitol riot. Burr’s role is said to be fictional or an amalgam of various real people, but we don’t know much about it. Bill Burr seems like a good fit for the world of a Social Network, which, in its most stripped-down sense, was the blackest of comedies about a man who drowned in irony.
Mini Tidbits:
Noomi Rapace joins In Alaska, a Dutch-Canadian co-production about Woody, a troubled Inuit teen who becomes a fugitive after sabotaging the oil pipeline. Rapace plays FBI agent Susan Tarheel, tracking him across the wilderness.
Sawyer Spielberg (son of, well.. Spielberg) is set to lead a new crime drama, Once Upon a Hell's Kitchen. A gritty 1970s crime drama based on director Colin Broderick’s own novel. Sawyer will play boxer Danny “Boy” McCoy. It sounds like a gritty tale, and it never ends well for the boxer.
Millie Bobby Brown is sticking with Netflix, joining their forthcoming ensemble romantic comedy, Just Picture It. Brown will join Idina Menzel (Frozen), Margo Martindale (August: Osage County), Amrit Kaur (The Sex Lives of College Girls), and more in the college-set comedy.
The star of Freeform’s Grown-ish, Yara Shahidi, is joining Miramax’s The Beekeeper 2, the sequel to the $160M-grossing Jason Statham action flick. Both on the small and big screen, Shahidi has stuck with mostly family comedies, while her role is unknown, this casting marks her first run at a major blockbuster feature.
FESTIVALS
Wavelength (prod co: Sony Pictures Classics On Swift Horses and She Dances starring Steve Zahn) is offering a grant for short filmmakers. Jessica Wolfson (prod: Discovery’s Hot Grease) will lead the program.
Tribeca Film Festival turns 25! They’ll launch their 25th edition next year, June 3-14.
Sometimes you’re grazing through trailers and you find animated talking coyotes in the style of Waltz with Bashir meets Waking Life, talking about their dating life. The film, Bouchra, premiered at TIFF Platforms and now at NYFF. Here’s a clip.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Roadside Attractions and Vertical have acquired the true-life drama Tow for U.S. rights.
A few months after its Tribeca Film Festival premiere, the Rose Byrne-led feature finds an ideal home with distributors known for championing character-driven, socially conscious films.
Grounded in real human struggle, Tow fits alongside Roadside’s Judy (2019) and Manchester by the Sea (2016) as well as Vertical’s Emily the Criminal (2022), all projects that balance intimate storytelling with larger social resonance.
There is no word yet on when it’ll land in theaters. Full film breakdown here: https://theindustry.co/p/tow-rose-byrne
Black Bear’s Christy (starring Sydney Sweeney) sells big internationally. If you remember, they financed the pic and then decided to distribute it in the US as the first of 12 planned theatrical releases per year.
They’ve sold Christy to:
15 territories, including Germany
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisition in 7 additional regions, including Italy and parts of Asia
Releasing in the US Nov 7th.
Come for Sydney Sweeney, who is excellent as the coal miner’s daughter who grows up to believe the worst in people. And the worst in everyone but herself. But stay for Ben Foster’s out-of-body performance.
Row K makes its third buy from TIFF: Maude Apatow’s directorial debut, Poetic License. The film, produced by Apatow’s Jewelbox Pictures, follows Liz, a former therapist, who becomes the center of tension between two best friends as their friendship unravels. Cooper Hoffman and Leslie Mann as the leads in Apatow’s feature directorial debut.
Read our deep dive into Row K here:https://theindustry.co/p/row-k-entertainment. Their ascent has been extraordinary.
Tidbits:
BFI Financed Rose of Nevada, and now they will distribute the film. The film premiered at Venice Horizons and played at TIFF and NYFF. It’s a time-travel movie that strips away most genre conventions and instead is an ultra-stark telling of George MacKay and Callum Turner stuck on a Sisyphean fishing vessel. BFI Distribution will release in the UK and Ireland in 2026.
Vertical has acquired North American and UK/Ireland rights to All That We Love, Yen Tan’s comedy starring Margaret Cho, as a newly empty-nest mother who reconnects with her daughter, best friend, and estranged ex-husband while navigating love, family, and second chances. Though it premiered at Tribeca 2024, Vertical has announced a theatrical run starting November 7.
Abramorama picked up North American rights for the doc, Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere. Schapiro is one of the preeminent set photographers, having captured everything from Chinatown to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (he even took the iconic image of Matthew Broderick lounging on the couch). Schapiro’s images are deep and dimensional (trailer). Releasing November 14.
Grammy-nominated rapper Wale is developing Silk, a D.C.-set crime series about infamous hitman Wayne “Silk” Perry. Set 1989–1993, it chronicles Perry’s role enforcing for drug dealer Alpo Martinez, against the backdrop of the “murder capital” era.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
San Sebastian Competition title Belén (trailer) is Argentina’s official submission for the 98th Academy Awards. Based on a harrowing true story, the film follows a young woman sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide after being accused of having self-induced an abortion while not even knowing she was pregnant.
Lebanon picks A Sad and Beautiful World (clip), a romantic drama from filmmaker Cyril Aris (Karlovy Vary’s The Swing) as its Oscar candidate. The Beirut-set drama premiered during Venice’s parallel section, winning the audience-voted People’s Choice Award.
Slovak director Tereza Nvotová’s Father (Otec) is selected as the country’s official Academy Awards submission and is now being sold to multiple international territories. Premiering at Venice, the heartbreaking story follows a perfectly normal and successful father whose life in an instant becomes a nightmare. Sold by Intramovies (My Night), Father will be distributed in French-speaking Europe.
Following the announcement of President…
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