Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Warner Bros.’ Magic, Sean Baker’s Pay, and Will’s Union.
Let’s go!
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Hollywood is rewriting its old spells for a new generation.
Warner Bros. has dropped the first teaser for Practical Magic 2, reuniting Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as the loveless Owens sisters.
The original 1998 film was silly and romantic, until it wasn’t, as the pair navigates a family curse that brings misfortune to any man they love.
Practical Magic 2 introduces Joey King (Hulu’s The Act) and Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams as their daughters, a new generation of witches.
The sequel fits into a broader industry trend of revisiting older IP with a multigenerational twist. Sometimes they work, like in Freakier Friday (2025), which saw Lindsay Lohan, now a mother, just as involved in the flip-flop chaos as she was in the original circa ‘03.
And sometimes they feel like nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), which struggled to recapture the same cultural spark. Chasing a younger audience by introducing Jenna Ortega, it trades in the original’s wacky, inventive spirit, sidelining its most iconic characters like Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara.
A story with the ability to connect across generations is no easy feat, especially when it’s building on something already beloved. These sequels need to satisfy longtime fans while inviting in new ones, proving there’s a reason the story continues at all.
But these sequels have an advantage: they come preloaded with emotional history. Because we already know and care about the parents, the new generation feels less like an introduction and more like an extension, allowing the story’s conflicts to grow more layered.
As Practical Magic 2 continues this trend, its success may hinge on whether it can balance the younger generation, making room for a new kind of magic.
Practical Magic 2 hits theaters everywhere September 18th.
For More:
Practical Magic 2 - Trailer
Practical Magic (1998) - Trailer
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Sean Baker’s Ti Amo! has landed at Warner Bros.’ Clockwork label in a $22M deal.
Netflix has picked up Jaume Collet-Serra’s war thriller Play Dead.
Sony Pictures is developing the Grady Hendrix adaptation Ankle Snatcher.
Tom Hooper will direct Netflix’s Nineteen Steps.
Fifth Season wins rights to Gabriel Bergmoser thriller High Rise.
Warner Bros.’ I Am Legend 2 sets Steven Caple Jr. to direct.
Tommy Lee Jones and Ice Cube star together in crime thriller Outside Man.
Bill Nighy stars in the narrative adaptation of Ibelin.
Jason Isaacs joins Netflix’s live-action Gundam movie.
Oscilloscope acquires Sundance’s Union County starring Will Poulter.
Canal+ series The Sentinels sells to BBC.
Disney+ signs multi-year co-development pact w/ Japanese prod company.
Amazon hires Oliver Jones as Senior Commissioner for UK scripted division.
Yesterday’s correct answer: Twin Peaks, quote “the owls are not what they seem.”
58% voted for it.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Sean Baker finally gets his payday. Following his Best Picture Oscar win for Anora, where he picked up 4x Oscars, his next film has been bought by Warner Bros.’ new specialty label Clockwork for $22M.
$10M+ of that will be for the budget. The rest will be split between Baker and FilmNation, the prod co.
That’s an epic result for the king of indie cinema, who shot an early feature, Tangerine (2015), on an iPhone.
Ti Amo! is in the style of those 60s/70s Italian sex comedies. Script is not finalized, and the cast has not been set.
Jaume Collet-Serra (Dir: Carry-On) is on a roll with Netflix. They’ve picked up his latest film:
Play Dead
Cast: Noah Jupe (Hamnet), Matthias Schweighöfer (Oppenheimer)
Prod. Co: Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures (Don’t Breathe)
Synopsis:
Follows an Allied soldier who, after an ambush, must play dead to survive the night while surrounded by Nazis.
This is the first war film for Collet-Serra. And the B&W first look photo makes it seem like they’re going for something prestigious like Schindler’s List. However, Collet-Serra and Raimi are masters of on-screen tension and set-piece entertainment. So despite the grave synopsis and image, we’re expecting this to be fairly fun.
Here comes the Boogeyman. Ben Leonberg (Dir: IFC’s Good Boy) is set to direct Sony Pictures’ horror feature Ankle Snatcher. Based on a short story by NY Times bestselling horror writer Grady Hendrix, the film will follow a man haunted by his mother’s murder by the boogeyman under his bed.
Good Boy was last year’s supernatural horror hit, a take on the haunted-house story from the POV of the family dog. They didn’t use any dialogue, yet it had a few of the most tense sequences of all of 2025’s horror films. We’re curious how Leonberg will play with POV in this new film.
Two book adaptations:
Netflix from director Tom Hooper
Fifth Season’s Die Hard
Tidbit:
Warner Bros.’ I Am Legend 2 locks director Steven Caple Jr. (Creed II). The first film was Smith’s 7th-highest-grossing of all time ($585M worldwide) and the only one other than Hancock that doesn’t have a sequel. We like Caple Jr. for this, as he already worked with Michael B. Jordan, who will star alongside Smith in I Am Legend 2.
Mini Tidbit:
HBO’s The Pitt closed strong. The season two finale became the series’ most-watched episode with 9.7M viewers.
Trailers:
Searchlight’s Super Troopers 3
Release: Aug 7
Rogue Trooper (elevated animated feature)
Dir: Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code)
Release dates:
A24’s Elden Ring
Wri/Dir: Alex Garland (Civil War)
Cast: Kit Connor, Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny
Budget: $100M+
Currently in production
Release: March 3, 2028
Apple TV’s The Savant
Cast: Jessica Chastain
Release: July 2026
Previous release date, Sept 2025 cancelled
Awards date:
Critics Choice Awards 2027
Date: Jan 3, 2027
Shoot dates:
Man of Tomorrow
Dir: James Gunn
Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult
First look of the set teasing Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) in prison
Shoot Dates: April 17 ~ Aug 21, 2026
First look:
Netflix’s Wednesday (S3)
Aldeas, the Final Dream of Pope Francis (feature doc)
Prod: Martin Scorsese
Vatican Private Screening: April 21, 2026
U.S. Release: TBD
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Two worlds collide in the best way. Tommy Lee Jones and Ice Cube are teaming up for Outside Man, pairing a grizzled Western icon with Cube’s effortlessly cool, street-smart presence. While it’s an odd match on paper, that contrast is exactly the hook.
From director Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale), the crime thriller follows an ex-mob enforcer (Cube) recently released from prison, who finds work under a former Texas Ranger (Jones). The two form an unlikely friendship that gets put in jeopardy when the men’s past threatens to catch up with them.
Jones, like in No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Fugitive (1993), has built a career playing men with a strong moral code, while Cube often plays characters that challenge authority. It’s a dynamic I believe could feel both old-school and refreshingly offbeat, two no-nonsense men forced to meet somewhere in the middle.
Bill Nighy is in. Anthony Hopkins is out. This is for Ibelin, based on the Sundance doc Ibelin, which centered on Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer who died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25.
Nighy will likely play his father, who thought his son had been lonely and isolated until he started receiving messages from online friends around the world. Doc trailer.
The team is amazing with director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), cast: Toni Collette, Stephen Graham, and Charlie Plummer. The production companies are Vendôme Pictures (CODA) and Pathé. Currently shooting in Oslo.
Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus, Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise) joins the cast of Netflix’s Gundam Movie, starring Sydney Sweeney.
No info on his role in this live-action adaptation of the iconic Japanese mecha-epic, but we hope to see him on the side of Zeon – the villainous space-humans out to destroy Earth. Perhaps he will play M’Quve – the evil commander of a mining facility known for his ruthlessness and unsympathetic punishments.
Mini Tidbits:
Elisabeth Moss, after reprising her The Handmaid’s Tale role in Hulu’s spinoff series The Testaments, successfully petitioned to compete in this year’s guest actress category. While she previously won for the same role, the TV Academy approved her entry since it is a different series.
Soap veteran Patrick Muldoon, known for his roles in Days of Our Lives and Melrose Place, has died at 57. He spent most of his career on the small screen but can be seen leading action-thriller Dirty Hands (trailer), premiering this week in select theaters.
Casting Tidbits:
Ed Helms
Ryan Phillippe (Crash)
Austin Amelio
All those casting tidbits and more here.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
Cannes’ Annecy Animation Showcase 2026 will feature 5 films. Here’s one we found interesting:
Dog My Cats!
2D Animation
Dir: Alain Gagnol (A Cat in Paris)
First Look (0:20 ~ 0:30)
Full details on all Annecy projects here.
Sales ahead of Cannes Market:
Complex Texas
Int. Sales rep/Prod. Comp: VMI Worldwide (sales: Goodfellas)
Dir: Jared Cohn (Hold Your Breath)
Cast: Kevin Dillon (Entourage), Cam Gigandet (Twilight), Danielle Vasinova (The Madison)
Synopsis:
Follows three low-level criminals who accidentally pull off a $300M heist and find themselves stranded in a small West Texas town where every desperate resident is willing to trade their morals and lives for the fortune.
Also…
Cannes’ Market’s The Unlucky starring Ludi Lin (Mortal Kombat) is picked up by Media Move (Sales Rep: The Lure).
Double Freedom (premiere: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight) picked up by Luxbox (Magellan). Full breakdown of Fortnight films here: https://theindustry.co/p/cannes-directors-fortnight
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Oscilloscope picks up Sundance film, Union County. The film stars Will Poulter, who goes dramatic again, following A24’s Warfare.
Poulter plays Cody Parsons, assigned to a county-mandated drug court program amid the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio (first look).
This is a big win for first-time director Adam Meeks, with whom I used to play soccer.
Theatrical release summer/fall 2026.
Canal+’s The Sentinels series sells to the BBC. It centers on Gabriel, a wounded soldier who gets souped up with some sort of secret serum that turns him into a super soldier.
Of course, it’s French, so while there’s plenty of action, there’s the moral reckoning that this serum makes him less human (trailer).
The 8-part series has already launched in 30 countries. The BBC will air it on iPlayer later this year.
Disney+ makes multi-year co-development pact with Japanese Production Company The Seven (owned by Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings, a major media conglomerate in Japan).
The Seven has been behind HBO’s Song of the Samurai and owns its own studio space, a dedicated high-end sound stage, and an in-house VFX team. It had previously made a similar deal with Netflix, and this could signal more Japan-based projects from Disney+.
A Zimbabwean Superhero. Razorman will be adapted into a live-action feature film, based on a graphic novel series by Bill Masuku. The Zimbabwean superhero is a young mechanic in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, where he battles a crime syndicate using his wit and makeshift weapons.
Mini Tidbits:
Stan Lee series
Lionsgate Play
Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s (Dir: The Birthday Party starring Willem Dafoe)
All those indie and international news tidbits here.
ON THIS DAY
1989. World premiere of Field of Dreams in Dubuque, Iowa.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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