Nostalgia is Big Business
Good morning, In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Sony’s Summer, Apple TV+’s Prodigies, and a plague.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Sony has a trailer for I Know What You Did Last Summer with Madelyn Cline and Jennifer Love Hewitt returning.
The supernatural romance thriller co-written by M. Night Shyamalan and Nicholas Sparks has a synopsis.
Film rights to James Patterson’s Billion-Dollar Ransom land at Amazon MGM.
California inches closer to passing a $750M film tax credit proposal.
Lionsgate snaps up time travel spec script Renegotiate.
Paul Feig inks a first-look TV deal with Warner Bros.
KMR Talent owner indicted on 40 counts; actors owed millions.
CBS orders three new shows: CIA, DMV, and Einstein; cancels The Summer and Poppa House.
Disney+ reimagines Holes with a gender-swapped cast led by Shay Rudolph and Greg Kinnear.
Ayo Edebiri to star and EP Apple’s Prodigies alongside Will Sharpe.
UTA and Cinetic board Cannes horror title The Plague.
Song Sung Blue: Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson to headline a Neil Diamond musical.
Steven Soderbergh directing a doc on John Lennon’s final interview.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Nostalgia is a big business. Sony’s reboot of the coming-of-age horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer has dropped its first trailer.
The revival is led by Outer Banks' Madelyn Cline, whose boyfriend in the first moments of the trailer is brutally murdered right under her nose. Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies) and Tyriq Withers (Him) are also among the young cast members who are desperate to connect what they’ve done last summer to the horrific killings rocking their small town with the help of some familiar faces.
The 1997 cult classic (trailer) made $72M ($142M today) and launched the careers of several '90s icons like Jennifer Love Hewitt (Party of Five) and Freddie Prinze Jr. (She’s All That), both of whom will be reprising their roles in the 2025 film. The more modern take on the familiar story is directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) and penned by Do Revenge’s scribe, Sam Lansky.
You can see I Know What You Did Last Summer this summer in theaters on Jul. 18th.
Amazon MGM Studios has acquired the film rights to James Patterson’s forthcoming novel Billion-Dollar Ransom ahead of its September publication. The best-selling author’s upcoming action thriller follows five members of a billionaire’s family, kidnapped at the same moment, from different locations, for the unthinkable ransom of a billion dollars.
The upcoming project reteams Amazon MGM with James Patterson Entertainment, whose latest collaboration, Cross, a thriller series based on the author’s Alex Cross novels, saw 1.36 billion minutes watched just in its first four days on the streamer. Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho (The Batman) is also attached to produce the in-the-works feature.
Impressively, Billion-Dollar Ransom will be the 11th book of Patterson’s to be adapted into a show or movie, with Oscar-winning scribe Stephen Gaghan (wri: Traffic) adapting the new feature.
Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Freaks and Geeks, and The Office) and Laura Fischer’s Feigco Entertainment have signed a multi-year first-look TV deal with Warner Bros. Television Group, expanding Feig’s creative reach across scripted, unscripted, and animated content for HBO, Max, and other platforms. This comes just weeks after Feig inked a first-look film deal with Lionsgate. Fieg has a great mind for off-kilter comedy, in a field that is increasingly becoming cynical to good old-fashioned gut-busting, it will be nice to see if Fieg can bring the funny.
Tidbits:
Brian Kavanagh Jones returns to the time travel genre. He will produce Renegotiate, a spec script written by up-and-coming writer Mark Townend (writer: LuckyChap/WB’s upcoming Augmented), which has just been bought by Lionsgate. We hear there was a lot of competition.
Here’s the synopsis:
Tells the story of an FBI crisis negotiator who gets caught in a time loop as he attempts to prevent a bombing.
There’s a lot of shared DNA with Source Code, of course. But more interesting is that Brian Kavanagh Jones (prod: Longlegs, The Bikeriders, Honeyboy) is returning to make a time travel film, after Netflix’s In the Shadow of the Moon (2019). Fred Berger (La La Land) is his producing partner at Range.
Brought on as Imagine Entertainment’s (Arrested Development) new SVP, Max Greenspan will work across production and development, overseeing and executive producing all of the company’s ongoing content. Greenspan previously was a VP at Creative Engine Entertainment, working on high-profile sales and major projects like Showtime’s Yellowjackets and the in-the-works Apple TV+ series The Stowaway.
Renewals/New Series orders:
Netflix’s Heartstoppers (renewed for a final movie)
CBS orders CIA (set in the world of their show FBI)
Starring: Tom Ellis (Lucifer, Tell Me Lies)
Prod co: Dick Wolf’s Wolf Entertainment
CBS orders DMV
Star: Tim Meadows (Dream Scenario, Mean Girls 1 & 2)
Showrunner: Dana Klein (prod: Friends)
CBS orders Einstein
Star: Matthew Gray Gubler as Einstein’s grandson
Showrunner: Andy Breckman (Creator: Monk)
Cancellations after 1 season:
CBS’s The Summer
CBS’s Poppa House
CBS’s The Equalizer spinoff will not move forward.
Mini Tidbits:
The Simpsons have a Blue Planet spoof called Yellow Planet on Disney+. I love how they’ve anthropomorphized narwhals, orcas, and salamanders (teaser). Now on Disney+.
Alexandre Desplat will score Jurassic World Rebirth, weaving in John Williams’ classic themes. The film follows a new island dino mission post-Dominion, starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey.
Former Westbrook Media executive Brad Haugen has been named Lionsgate’s new EVP of digital strategy. Haugen will be responsible for guiding original content for digital platforms and brand partnerships for the studio.
Viewership for Conclave surged 283%, following the death of Pope Francis.
SAG Awards will kick off March 1st, 2026.
Jesse Armstrong’s (creator: Succession) next project is HBO’s Mountainhead, starring Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef as billionaires with zero culpability. Check that the trailer and full project details here:
https://theindustry.co/p/successions-sucessor-succeeds
A mystery solved and a reason for rejoice: The plot for M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming romantic thriller with Notebook author Nicholas Sparks is revealed. And the CA tax credit gets one step closer to passing:
https://theindustry.co/p/shyamalan-ca-tax-credit
KMR Talent president indicted, a Toys R Us film, and SpinCo:
https://theindustry.co/p/kmr-toys-r-us-spinco
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
The Golden Globe, Emmy, and two-time SAG award-winning actress Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) is a prodigy, and I’m not just talking about her acting. The actress is starring opposite Will Sharpe (The White Lotus) in an “unconventional” romcom series titled Prodigies for Apple TV+.
Official Synopsis:
Two former child prodigies, together since childhood, reach their 30s and wonder if their average lives - and their relationship - match the exceptional potential they once showed.
Sharpe was most recently giving Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg a powerful tour of Poland in last year’s A Real Pain, and is now, in addition to starring, writing, and directing the upcoming comedy series.
Edebiri has had a busy couple of years with leading roles in this year’s A24 psychological thriller, Opus (trailer,) and the campy comedy Bottoms (2023). Her breakthrough performance was as the ambitious sous chef Sydney on FX’s The Bear (her iconic Omelet scene,) which has completely catapulted her into a household name. Beyond her extensive range as an actress, Edebiri brilliantly directed the sixth episode of last year’s third season, “Napkins”, which is unanimously agreed to be one of the best episodes of the acclaimed series. She has also penned an episode for its fourth season, expected to drop on Hulu sometime this summer.
Edebiri will also be EPing Prodigies alongside Sharpe and the production company SISTER (Chernobyl) with no release date set as of now.
The new gender swapped Disney+ Holes series has just found its cast:
Shay Rudolph plays the troubled teenage girl sent to a detention camp (previous actor: Shia LaBeouf). And Greg Kinnear (Black Bird) plays the mean-as-dirt warden who forces the inmate campers to dig holes in the desert (previous actress: Sigourney Weaver).
Rudolph and Kinnear have actually played father and daughter in the recent The Present (2024, trailer), which shows that Rudolph can play sassy and teenage angst, with a level of groundedness.
Kinnear is a good fit for the warden, he excels at playing a hard asses like in Little Miss Sunshine.
No word on shoot date, but here’s the original Holes trailer, fresh from 2003. Watch out for lizards!
Tidbits:
Everyone is equal, but Andy Serkis is more equal than others. The Gollum actor directs the animated film Animal Farm, based on the novel by George Orwell. The cast is stellar:
Seth Rogen
Steve Buscemi
Glenn Close
Kieran Culkin
Woody Harrelson
Kathleen Turner
Serkis
Release date: July 11. First look image.
Ray Nicholson continues his meteoric rise with his latest casting in Netflix’s Mosquito Bowl from Peter Berg and Brian Glazer (Creators: Friday Night Lights). Full cover story on the project. Nicholson is getting typecast as maniacal men (the psycho in Borderline and the baddie in Novocaine), so we hope this shows a little more of his range.
Mini Tidbits:
CBS’ Sheriff Country expands the Fire Country universe with Christopher Gorham and Michele Weaver joining Morena Baccarin in this emotionally charged procedural.
Bobby Cannavale joins Will Ferrell and Zac Efron’s comedy, directed by Nicholas Stoller (dir: Neighbors), and in production at Amazon and MGM Studios. No word on who Cannavale will be playing. The film is currently in production.
Netflix’s Enola Holmes update. An up-and-coming actor gets a pie in the face. A former child star passes away:
https://theindustry.co/p/enola-holmes-honey-boy
FESTIVALS
The Marché du Cannes (Market) has its second hot project, the horror film The Plague:
Dir: Charlie Polinger
Cast: Joel Edgerton
Section: Un Certain Regard
Domestic sales rep: UTA and Cinetic
International Sales rep: AGC International (Hit Man, Late Night with the Devil)
Synopsis:
A socially awkward tween endures the ruthless hierarchy at a water polo camp, his anxiety spiraling into psychological turmoil over the summer.
We don’t know who Edgerton will play, but a maniacal camp counselor could be great.
I got absorbed into Polinger’s SXSW short film Fuck Me, Richard which is a magnetizing long-distance romance which tranforms into a very specific type of horror film (full short). There’s no blood or guts, but I was devastated by the twist.
Full list of projects launching at the Cannes Market, here:
https://theindustry.co/p/cannes-market-2025
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Creg Brewer is getting Hugh Jackman to sing some sad songs. The Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and Dolemite Is My Name director has a big silver screen musical for Focus Features, Song Sung Blue.
Jackman and Kate Hudson star as two hopeless romantics who start a Neil Diamond cover band.
The musical pulls heavily from the previous doc of the same name by Greg Kohs about real-life couple Mike and Claire Sardina, "Lightning & Thunder". The two midwesterners took their love of Diamond and desire for a second shot, and turned it into local stardom in their small town (trailer).
Though the premise sounds a little goofy, the documentary did very well in the festival circuit, achieving many accolades with a story of two goofballs in love and being swept up by local fame.
It could be very refreshing to see a musical that, for once, doesn't take itself so seriously. There was a similar mad zaniness that Brewer was able to draw out in Dolemite Is My Name done in the style of a blaxploitation film.
Focus Features releases Song Sung Blue on Christmas.
Tidbits:
Steven Soderbergh is directing a new documentary centered on John Lennon’s final interview, recorded hours before his death in 1980. Currently in production, the untitled film is seeking distribution and is expected by year’s end. It marks Soderbergh’s return to documentary after 2010’s And Everything Is Going Fine.
One of Disney+ Korea’s biggest recent hits, A Shop for Killers (trailer), an action drama series, has been renewed for a second season. Based on a novel of the same name, the eight-part first season followed a woman raised by her uncle who inherits his deadly weapons shop after his sudden death. A majority of the original cast and its writers will be returning for the new set of episodes. The second season will stream on Disney+ internationally and Hulu in the US.
After almost five years with the streamer, Netflix Australia and New Zealand content chief Que Minh Luu is exiting her position. A former ABC exec, Minh Luu helped spearhead a number of Netflix originals like Heartbreak High and Apple Cider Vinegar. Temporarily, she will remain as a creative consultant for Netflix ANZ.
The LA-based company, Miramax, has made some new leadership changes in its international territories. Previously working with several networks, Carissa Hope Lynch will act as Creative Director, overseeing development and production in the UK. Lucy Dertavitian will serve as Head of Content for MENA (Middle East & North Africa), collaborating with local producers, writers, and directors to adapt Miramax’s library into the Arabic language.
ON THIS DAY
1928. Shirley Temple born in Santa Monica, California.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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