Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Netflix’s Boys, Costner’s Clinton, and a Mattress.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Netflix orders The Boys From Brazil, an alt-history thriller starring Jeremy Strong and Gillian Anderson.
PR firm R&CPMK dissolves, CEO Cindi Berger launches PMK Entertainment.
Johnny Rosenthal sells his comedy spec Aunt Roxie to Netflix.
AMC Networks launches All Reality on Prime Video, featuring unscripted shows.
Ben Schwartz & Lauren Lapkus revive The Earliest Show as a scripted half-hour.
Kevin Costner may play Bill Clinton in Appian Way’s United.
Frank Dillane & Caleb Landry Jones in talks for A24’s new horror film.
Michael B. Jordan joins Netflix/Skydance Animation’s Swapped in a voice role.
Billy Magnussen to lead Mattress Mack.
Neve Campbell & Sam Riley join Season 2 of Netflix’s Black Doves.
Film Independent announces 15 Fast Track projects.
Willa acquires The Shepherd and The Bear.
Producer Ash Sarohia inks producing deal with MRC.
PBS Frontline launches Frontline Features, backing new investigative docs.
Fremantle Q3 revenue hits $517M (↓4.5%); streaming revenue rises 26.6% YTD.
Beta Film appoints Stephen Katzmann as new CFO.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Netflix has ordered The Boys From Brazil, from Peter Morgan (showrunner: The Crown). It’s an alt-history thriller starring Jeremy Strong (Succession) as Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann.
Adapted from Ira Levin’s novel, the series follows a plot by Josef Mengele to revive the Third Reich.
The cast includes:
August Diehl (Inglourious Basterds)
Daniel Brühl (All Quiet on the Western Front)
Gillian Anderson (The X-Files)
Shira Haas (Unorthodox)
Lizzy Caplan (Fleishman Is in Trouble)
With Alex Gabassi (The Crown) directing, this is a massive bill. Jeremy Strong is an awe-inspiring actor, truly one of the greats of our time. His intensity bleeds out of every performance. Man, I’d really like to see him hunt down some Nazis, sounds insane.
PR firm R&CPMK (clients: Denzel Washington, the Rolling Stones, Jerry Bruckheimer) has dissolved.
Out of its ashes comes PMK Entertainment, a new PR company run by former R&CPMK CEO Cindi Berger. 77 R&CPMK staffers are joining PMK, which now falls under Michael Nyman’s Acceleration CC (Parent company for PMK and 9 other companies, including DKC), where he serves as Founder and CEO.
This is a positive outcome for the company.
And much preferred to when 12 of their staffers jumped from R&CPMK to PR Firm 2PM Sharp (clients: Hailee Steinfeld, Henry Cavill, Alexandra Daddario). At the time, R&CPMK accused them of downloading thousands of R&CPMK files, including confidential, proprietary, and other sensitive business information.
Tidbits:
Writer Johnny Rosenthal (Bad Santa 2) has sold a spec comedy, Aunt Roxie, to Netflix. Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort will produce. The plot follows a carefree writer caring for her sister’s gifted kids. Maximum Effort seems to ride the line between family fun and just a bit too raunchy for Grandma, not unlike Ryan Reynolds himself.
AMC Networks is giving reality TV lovers something new to binge with All Reality, a dedicated streaming home for all things unscripted. The service launched yesterday through Amazon Prime Video for an additional $4.99 a month with more than 2,500 hours of reality programming like the Love After Lockup franchise, The Braxtons, The Graham Norton Show, and so many more. This may help them increase ad revenue, which was down 17% this quarter.
Ben Schwartz (voice: Sonic) is reviving The Earliest Show as a scripted half-hour comedy, with Lauren Lapkus returning. Amplify Pictures is fully financing the indie TV series before selling rights. The show expands on the 2016 Funny or Die hit that has garnered over a million views. It’s a half-improvised long-form sketch about two morning show hosts slowly unraveling. It’s almost become a yearly tradition of mine to watch the whole thing, and now you can too here.
Mini Tidbit:
Keller and Noll are launching Shark Bite, a 2026 game show based on the hit 2017 board game. Five animatronic sharks dominate the stage as contestant pairs vie for $100,000, risking being swallowed after wrong answers. With Netflix committing to multiple board game-based shows, this new game show style really might become the meta.
Renewals:
Peacock’s Twisted Metal (for S3)
New showrunner: David Reed (Writer: 6eps The Boys)
Trailers:
Searchlight’s Is This Thing On
Dir/Co-Star: Bradley Cooper
Cast: Will Arnett & Laura Dern
Release date: Dec 19th
The Forge’s The Chronology of Water
Dir: Kristen Stewart
Premiere: Cannes Un Certain Regard
Release: Dec 5 (limited), Jan 9 (wide)
Janus Films’ Magellan
Cast: Gael García Bernal
Premiere: Cannes Official Selection
Release: Jan 9 (NY & LA)
Amazon MGM’s Project Hail Mary
Cast: Ryan Gosling
Dir: Phil Lord & Chris Miller
Release: March 20, 2026
1-2 Special’s A Poet
Premiere: Cannes Un Certain Regard (Jury Prize)
Release: Jan 30
Also:
The 78th Emmy Awards now have an air date! Set your calendars for Monday, Sept. 14th at 8 p.m. EST. Airing on NBC and live-streaming on Peacock.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Kevin Costner gets presidential. He may be playing Bill Clinton for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way-produced picture United.
The feature will dramatize the 1999 UN mission to East Timor. United will explore the vote, the violence that followed, and Clinton’s diplomatic role as the crisis escalated.
This would be Costner’s first major role since he left Yellowstone to film his multi-part Western epic, Horizons. In Costner’s recent Western roles, he carries a weight in his step and a heaviness of the soul that gives him a powerful gravitas.
Clinton’s energy, in contrast, is often lighter, peppier, something embodied in much of Costner’s earlier work (including him in JFK, clip). Perhaps he’ll meld these two elements as the subject matter for the Clinton film is fairly heavy.
Clinton, for his part, hasn’t gotten a lot of theatrical limelight outside of characters from SNL and a few docu-series. It would be really interesting to see what Costner does to peel back those layers.
Frank Dillane and Caleb Landry Jones get back in the horror business.
Ok, nothing is confirmed, but the two are in talks to join A24’s latest horror film by director Arkasha Stevenson (The First Omen).
Dillane and Jones just starred in Mubi’s Harvest (trailer), which was a dark folktale horror. Set in an untamed Scottish village circa the Middle Ages, Jones played a wild man, mad with love for his natural environment. Which makes Dillane, coming into his village as a cruel aristocrat and inflicting punishment on his people, such a wild dynamic to watch.
A24’s film tracks a bachelor party that spirals into terror. Square Peg (Ari Aster’s company) serves as the producer.
Tidbits:
Michael B. Jordan (Creed) joins Netflix and Skydance Animation’s buddy adventure, Swapped, about natural enemies who swap bodies. This is a return to voice acting for Jordan, while he has recently had a few voice cameo roles as his on-screen counterpart, Killmonger, in What If. Jordan actually starred early on in the now-defunct Rooster Teeth’s mech animation Gen:Lock - Clip.
Actor and President of HappyBad Bungalow (Coup!) Billy Magnussen is headlining Mattress Mack, a film following the life of Jim McIngvale, a beloved businessman and owner of the Houston-based Gallery Furniture chain. With a myriad of supporting roles in films like Road House (2024) and as the duplicitous CIA agent turned villain in No Time to Die (2021, scene), Mattress Mack will be Magnussen’s first real person portrayal in a leading role. Production is set to begin in Texas later this month.
Netflix’s spy thriller Black Doves (S1 trailer) announces season 2 cast additions. After giving a touching performance in the streamer’s viral miniseries One Day (2024), actress Ambika Mod is turning in meet-cutes for espionage. Mod will play a Black Doves’ agent sent to aid Keira Knightley’s character on her newest mission. Scream’s Neve Campbell, Babou Ceesay (Alien: Earth), and Sam Riley (Firebrand) have also joined the cast, with production currently underway.
Mini Tidbit:
Daniel Dae Kim (The Good Doctor) will host CNN’s four-part series K-Everything, a four-part CNN travel series exploring how South Korea became a global cultural force across music, food, TV, and film.
The Umbrella Academy’s David Castañeda is set to lead Lionsgate’s upcoming untitled home invasion film from horror banner Midnight Pictures (The Invisible Man). The indie thriller has just wrapped production in Los Angeles.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
Film Independent launches its latest Fast Track. There were 15 projects selected. Here are two that caught my eye:
But We Slept Soundly
Dir/Wri: Jake Kolton
Prod: Myriam Schroeter (Co-P: Sing Sing, A24’s Sorry, Baby)
Logline:
A bourgeois Brooklynite’s comfortable reality unravels when he begins to suspect his husband is responsible for a hit and run.
*holds you tight*
Dir/Prod: Jane M. Wagner (Tribeca Film Festival’s 2023 doc Break the Game)
Doc Logline:
A lonely night watchman develops a relationship with an AI chatbot, transforming his worldview and challenging his perception of identity and reality.
Check out all the Film Independent projects here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
La Cocina distributor Willa has secured U.S. distribution for The Shepherd and The Bear (trailer). Max Keegan’s BIFA-nominated documentary is “visually stunning,” unfolding in the French Pyrenees; it follows an aging shepherd struggling to pass on his legacy, a flock of disruptive brown bears, and a young boy fascinated with life in the mountains.
The Shepherd and The Bear will have a short theatrical run, qualifying for the Oscars, not long after the company acquired Tunisia’s Oscar entry, The Voice of Hind Rajab.
In spring 2026, Willa will stream The Shepherd and The Bear on The Criterion Channel.
Tidbits:
PBS’ Frontline’s new production and distribution arm will specialize in international politics and investigative journalism. The launch of Frontline Features follows their 2024 Oscar win for the powerful documentary 20 Days in Mariupol. Their new slate consists of more potential Oscar contenders like doc 2000 Meters to Andriivka (trailer) and Antidote (trailer), now on Prime. The newly launched arm will look to commission and help develop up to five doc projects, each with a festival premiere and limited theatrical run.
Producer Ash Sarohia, coming off The Gallerist starring Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega, has inked a producing deal with MRC (Ozark, Ted, 22 Jump Street) to develop director-driven features across its slate. A former EVP at Concordia Studio, he has worked on major projects such as Spotlight, Spencer, and The Queen's Gambit.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Fremantle, the content division of RTL Group, saw its revenues decline in the third quarter of 2025, primarily driven by lower U.S. revenues and the absence of major format contributions like America’s Got Talent.
$517M (Q3 revenue)
↓ 4.5% (from $543M)
$407M (Jan-Sept streaming revenue)
↑ 26.6% (From $321M)
$1.57bn (2025 total revenue so far)
↓ 5.1% (year-on-year)
7.591M paying subscribers (first nine months)
↑ 17.4% (from 6.466M last year)
Despite growth in streaming, the drop prompted RTL to revise down its full-year outlook. As Fremantle recalibrates its expectations for the year, the pressure is now on to rebuild a more resilient slate for 2026.
Tidbits:
Franz, the Kafka biopic by Agnieszka Holland (Green Border) continues its strong international rollout with new sales across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Portugal and Latin America. Cohen Media Group has North American rights and plans a December qualifying run.
Disney+ and South Korea’s TVING are collaborating on a joint subscription that would allow subscribers access to both platforms’ content in one place at a lower cost. The international partnership’s offer kicked off yesterday.
Munich-based entertainment group Beta Film (The Couple Next Door) has announced Stephen Katzmann as its new Chief Financial Officer. Katzmann has extensive experience in the financial area of both distribution and production, and will begin his new role next spring.
ON THIS DAY
1975. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is released.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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Jeremy Strong in The Boys From Brazil sounds absolutly perfect. His intensity in Succession makes him ideal for playing a Nazi hunter, and pairing him with Peter Morgan's showrunning is a smart move given his track recod with The Crown. The Costner as Clinton casting is intresting too, especialy considering how different Clinton's energy is from Costner's recent work. Will be curious to see if he can capture that lighter, more charismatic side of Clinton while still doing justice to the serious subject mater.