Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:
Netflix’s Last Order, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Cuisine, and a statement.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Netflix acquires doc shorts One Last Order and An Open Field.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will EP & maybe star in Hulu’s Tokyo culinary drama Gaijin.
Stallone’s Balboa Productions adapts romance series Bourbon & Lies for Amazon.
Crunchyroll acquires worldwide rights to Makoto Shinkai’s next animated feature.
Nicholas Hoult joins HBO’s Harry Potter Season 2 as Gilderoy Lockhart.
The Secret Agent’s Maria Fernanda Cândido is set to star in Lost Objects.
NYFF adds Jonathan Glazer and Eleanor Coppola docs; Tom McCarthy’s A Statement will world premiere.
Lucy Liu is EPing Reset, adapted from a short film.
Two-time Oscar-nominated doc director Bill Jersey dies at 99.
Fremantle’s H1 revenue falls 8%, though adjusted EBITA rises 15%.
Yesterday’s correct answer: 100-200, shots in Gravity.
26% got it correct.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Netflix acquires two documentary shorts, One Last Order and An Open Field.
One Last Order follows the story of Sighle, who brought joy to her community as a loving presence at a fast-food hamburger stand.
An Open Field comes from director Teboho Edkins, who lost his brother in the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft crash in Ethiopia in 2019. The film will chronicle Boeing’s criticized response to the crash and the community’s mourning about the accident.
Netflix won the Short Narrative Film Oscar last year with The Singers. The acquisitions suggest that Netflix is looking to build its short-form slate and strengthen its awards momentum.
Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions, via its first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios, is adapting Bourbon & Lies, a romance series from Victoria Wilder. Set against the backdrop of Kentucky’s bourbon country, the story follows a former cop who is brought back into a world of danger when a beautiful stranger arrives in town with too many lies and secrets to keep track of. Created by the co-showrunners of HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, Meredith Lavender and Marcie Ulin, alongside her father’s company, Sophia Stallone’s Callisto Media is also on board to produce Bourbon & Lies.
This could be a fun little world; having spent some time in Kentucky myself, I know how seriously they take bourbon. Plus, there’s big money (like captain of industry type stuff) and horse racing. So very much aligns with Stallone’s current action series, Paramount+’s Tulsa King.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will EP and likely star in Hulu’s Japanese drama Gaijin – Japanese word for “an outsider” – coming from Shannon Goss (EP: Shōgun). The drama will follow an American culinary school dropout who moves to Tokyo and takes action on his dream of opening his own restaurant. Think of FX’s Shōgun but with a Western chef. The series is based on chef Ivan Orkin’s real-life story that led to the creation of the famous Ivan Ramen restaurant.
Ivan Ramen is one of the best Japanese-American hybrid restaurants in the city. His cuisine is full of surprises, such as rye flour noodles and tomato toppings on top of traditional Japanese broth – let’s hope the series can be as unique as the restaurant itself.
Tidbit:
Crunchyroll (U.S. Stream: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle) acquires worldwide distribution rights (minus Asia, but not India) to Makoto Shinkai’s (Dir: Your Name) next feature animation. No info on the plot. Crunchyroll oversaw the global distribution of Shinkai’s Suzume (2023), which grossed $322M worldwide and even earned a Golden Globe nomination.
Mini Tidbits:
Disney+’s Formula E
Disney’s $4bn at the box office
Ari Emanuel’s Broadway buy
All those and more here.
Trailers:
Sumerian Pictures’ Josephine
Cast: Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan
Release: Nov 20
Don’t snooze on this film; I believe this film has a shot at Best Picture.
Netflix’s Gentle Monster
Premiere: Cannes
Cast: Léa Seydoux
Release: Oct 30
Netflix Release: Nov 18
Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
Cast: Ella Beatty, Charlie Hunnam
Release: Sept 17
Amazon MGM’s Verity
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett
Release: Oct 2
CNN’s Top of the World
Release: Sept 7
First Look:
Netflix’s The Body
Cast: Kristina Bogic, Sara Boustany
Release: Nov 11
Release Dates:
HBO Max’s Harry Potter TV Series
Release: Christmas 2026
Paramount’s Possession remake
Dir: Parker Finn
Cast: Callum Turner, Margaret Qualley
Release: June 11, 2027
Disney+’s City of Blood
Release: Sept 16
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Nicholas Hoult is joining Season 2 of HBO’s Harry Potter series as Gilderoy Lockhart, the vain, fame-obsessed author turned Hogwarts’ newest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Kenneth Branagh, very memorably, played the role in 2002’s Chamber of Secrets, bringing an almost cartoonish level to a man whose heroism is almost entirely borrowed.
Lockhart isn’t a stretch for Hoult. His Emmy-nominated turn as the cruel but charming Emperor Peter III in Hulu’s The Great, while frustratingly likable, was a ruler far more invested in his own myth and supposed “greatness” than his actual accomplishments.
His recent go as the brilliant but deeply insecure Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman found him playing another man who can’t stand being anything less than the most important person in the room.
Hoult has spent a decade making frauds likable; the difference this time is an expansive book deal and a wand.
Season one of HBO’s Harry Potter series will premiere this December.
The Secret Agent’s Maria Fernanda Cândido is set to star in Lost Objects (Objetos Perdidos), a modern dystopian feature from director Luiz Fernando Carvalho (To the Left of the Father). The film follows a couple whose relationship crumbles during a nighttime blackout in an empty city, causing them to begin to question if their connection was ever real in the first place.
The veteran Brazilian actress broke through internationally in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Oscar-nominated The Secret Agent, in a role that was specifically written for her, as a woman with the wealth, influence, and connections to help Wagner Moura’s Marcelo escape Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship.
Lost Objects has started shooting this month.
Tidbits:
Newcomer meets veteran screen icon in Maya Butterfly, an Irish psychological drama led by Jessica Reynolds (Outlander) and Charlotte Rampling (45 Years). From Opera director and first-time filmmaker Edwina Casey, described as Tár meets Sound of Metal, the film follows a rising soprano who is secretly losing her hearing as she fights to survive her breakout production while avoiding the truth being exposed. Fittingly, a story about breaking into a tradition-bound art form is carried by a young actress doing just that, opposite one of European cinema’s most defining screen presences. Wildcard boarded for U.K. and Irish distribution with production currently underway at the National Opera House in Wexford.
Casting Tidbits:
Veronika Slowikowska (SNL)
George MacKay (1917)
Zoe Bonafonte (The Lady’s Companion)
Those casting tidbits here.
Lucy Davis, most known for her role as Dawn Tinsley in the U.K.’s The Office, has revealed that she has been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. We’re wishing Davis strength as she undergoes treatment.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
NYFF new additions:
Cannes winner, Fjord (Palme d’Or), and the biggest buy at Cannes, the very fun A24’s Club Kid. And Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard with Rooney Mara and Kate Mara. Plus A24’s The Debut directed by Jesse Eisenberg.
You probably know these films, as we’ve covered them before, but two more stuck out to me:
Joy of Joys
Dir: Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin, The Zone of Interest)
38 min doc
Synopsis:
Musicians gather at the legendary Abbey Road Studios to record HELP(2), a star-studded charity album supporting War Child Records’ mission to aid children impacted by conflict around the globe.
Ok, so it’s not Glazer’s next magnum opus, but we’ll take anything from this guy. He’s a cinematic genius. Full stop.
Making Marie Antoinette
Dir: Eleanor Coppola
Distributor: Mubi
Synopsis:
Follows filmmaker Eleanor Coppola’s behind-the-scenes documentation of her daughter Sofia Coppola directing the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, capturing the craftsmanship and challenges of being a young female director.
Look, the last BTS doc Eleanor gave us was Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. It’s in the pantheon of the greatest BTS documentaries of all time. Her husband Francis came back from making Apocalypse Now a different man. And you know what, if you want to go a little insane, they put Eleanor’s whole doc on YouTube.
Also, Tom McCarthy (Dir: Spotlight)’s new film A Statement will world premiere at NYFF.
Mini Tidbit:
Films Boutique (Berlin Sales Agency) acquires worldwide rights to Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi’s doc I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies. The film follows both Tabriz and Tehran weeks before the 12-Day War and the US’ attacks on Iran.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Lucy Liu is stepping into the producer’s chair for Reset, the award-winning short film from writers-directors Celine Tien and Jerry Hsu that is now being developed as a feature.
Winner of Fantasia’s Silver Audience Award, Reset takes inspiration from the filmmakers’ own family histories and inherited trauma, imagining a society where citizens can physically reset to six years old once they reach 65.
Liu made her feature producing debut with the Tribeca-premiering Rosemead (2025), which she also starred in as a terminally ill mother struggling to care for her teenage son amid his worsening schizophrenia.
The newly released trailer for Reset offers a first look at another family-driven story for Liu in a row.
Tidbits:
Camille Delamarre (Dir: Brick Mansions) will direct sports car film Bugatti: The Final Race, from a script written by Andrea Iervolino (Prod: Michael Mann’s Ferrari). The film will follow the life of legendary racer Ettore Bugatti as he is living out the last months of his life. The script was initially to be written by Oscar-Winner Bobby Moresco (Co-Writer: Crash), but Iervolino will now pen the script himself – the first time the Italian-Canadian producer has taken on a writing credit.
La Nieve, a Spanish-language song featured in Cannes Best Director-winning film La Bola Negra, joins the race for the Best Original Song Oscar. The film follows three generations of Spaniards linked together by an unfinished play of the great Spanish author Federico García Lorca.
Two-time Oscar-nominated documentary director Bill Jersey dies at 99. He had a prolific career in documentary for over five decades, even earning his feature doc Academy nominations for his films A Time for Burning (1967) and Super Chief: The Life and Legacy of Earl Warren (1990).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
RTL Group’s Fremantle is seeing a mixed first half of 2026, with revenue taking a significant hit. Stronger earnings and improved margins helped offset a decline in production revenue, putting the global entertainment giant on firmer footing for the remainder of the year.
$964M Total H1 Revenue
Down 8% y-o-y ($1.04bn H1 2025)
$69.2M H1 Adjusted EBITA
Up from 15.4% ($60M in H1 2025)
The company remains on track for a 9% Adjusted EBITA margin
Up from 7.2% in H1
The company is expecting stronger production activity in the second half, including series like the upcoming Baywatch reboot and the Catherine Zeta-Jones-led Kill Jackie.
Mini Tidbit:
How to Divorce During the War has been selected as Lithuania’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
ON THIS DAY
1931. William Goldman born in Chicago, Illinois.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram
Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co