Paramount and a Transparent Producer
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Paramount’s cuts, Pixar’s fire, and a Bitter Christmas.
Let’s go!
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Many filmmakers believe that if they bring on a "producer" to their project, their career will take off.
For indie filmmakers, one of the most valuable types of producers to bring in at the start of the process is one with line producing skills.
A producer with line producing skills will take the script and create a budget and schedule, which becomes a critical document to get the film financed.
But finding someone whom investors trust to do this is very difficult.
Blair Skinner, a long-time industry producer with line producing skills, is sharing her expertise on budgeting everything from $250K indies to $20M studio projects.
Her top credits include:
Duster (Max)
Transparent (Amazon)
Slender Man (Screen Gems/Sony Pictures)
Generation (HBO Max)
Blair Skinner is offering a program to anyone who has a script and needs to create a schedule/budget so they can seek funding with this information.
Her program is also tailored to those looking to become a producer, line producer, UPM, production supervisor, or creative producer.
Blair Skinner stated:
“It feels like it's rare to find somebody that wants to be a mentor or necessarily has the time to teach everything because they're so busy on their own projects."
Blair Skinner has condensed her years of experience into that mentorship.
For More:
We interviewed Blair Skinner, the co-producer of Horsegirls, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival: https://theindustry.co/p/tribeca-festival-horsegirls-co-producer
If you'd like to know more about Blair's course and get the first lesson for free click here.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Paramount lays off 3.5% of domestic staff.
Lena Dunham’s new TV series, Netflix’s Too Much, has a first trailer.
Scott Cooper (Deliver Me From Nowhere) will write/direct a contemporary crime film for United Artists.
Pixar taps Peter Sohn (Elemental) to direct Incredibles 3.
Warner Bros Pictures Animation promotes Adam Galen to VP of Development.
Patrick Schwarzenegger to star in Rachel Morrison’s Love of Your Life.
Rachel Brosnahan to lead Presumed Innocent S2 on Apple TV+.
Mark Ruffalo joins Siân Heder’s Being Heumann from Apple Original Film.
Amazon MGM’s Carrie series adds Heather Graham.
Felicity Huffman joins Season 2 of medical drama Doc on Fox.
Venice will award Kim Novak (Vertigo) a Lifetime Achievement award.
Pedro Almodóvar returns to Spanish-language features with Bitter Christmas.
Disney+ greenlights Gold Land, a Korean thriller from Hwang Jo-yun (screenwriter: Oldboy).
Netflix to invest $1bn in Spain by 2029.
HBO Max expands to 12 new countries.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Paramount layoffs continue. The company laid off 3.5% of its domestic workforce, several hundred, which included:
Deborah Aquila, EVP and Head of Casting/Paramount/CBS Studios Streaming/International. Her credits include:
Star Trek franchise
CODA
The Shawshank Redemption
Nick Bernstein, CBS’s SVP, Late Night Programming, West Coast
Lauren Ruggiero, SVP Scripted Series at MTV
Paramount’s Q1 2025 numbers show a struggling linear division (which was cited as the reason for the cuts), with streaming as the sunny spot:
$2.04bn DTC revenue
↑ 9 %
$1.57bn subscription revenue
↑ 16%
$109M streaming loss
↑ 62%
79M subs
↑ 1.5M for the quarter
The layoffs are part of Paramount’s plan to achieve $500M in annual savings, which saw a ≈2000-person layoff (15% US workforce) last year.
Right now, Skydance is set to acquire the company. Pending regulatory approval…
Lena Dunham (creator: Girls) is back in the TV game. Her new series, Too Much, explores the life of a mid-30s New Yorker (Megan Stalter) who moves to London after a bad breakup, only to get tangled in a situationship. The trailer has some of that hyper realistic Girls grime, but also shares the show’s penchant for annoying self obsessed fish out of water humor. That's not necessarily a dig; that's what you should expect when Dunham is the chef.
London appears to be as much of a character as the rest of the ensemble, and a good chunk of it seems to be disassembling the American fascination with romance attached to the city.
Here’s the trailer (Slight warning, there’s a mouth spitting scene that kind of made me feel violated).
Tidbit:
Amazon MGM Studios’ United Artists team back up with Scott Cooper (dir: Jeremy Allen White/Bruce Springsteen biopic, Crazy Heart). Cooper will write, direct, and produce this contemporary crime film. Scott Stuber, former Chairman of Netflix Film (Roma, Marriage Story, All Quiet on the Western Front), and current head of UA, oversees the project.
Pixar has tapped Elemental director Peter Sohn to helm Incredibles 3, with Brad Bird writing and producing. Bird, who directed the first two films, steps back due to commitments on Ray Gunn with Skydance. It will be years before we see this, but I’m excited to catch up with the Parr family.
Warner Bros Pictures Animation has promoted Adam Galen to VP of Development. Having been with the company for two years, Galen previously worked as a production executive and creative consultant, and now, in his new position, will oversee feature projects from inception to development.
Mini Tidbit:
Not super surprising DC news: Wonder Woman is still part of the Justice League, just not Gal Gadot. James Gunn confirmed that they are rebooting the franchise, but it's all in early planning stages. With the nature of a reboot and the way Gunn has been casting younger, it looks like we should hear about our new Wonder Woman sooner rather than later.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s unsecured bond rating has been downgraded by S&P to BB, i.e., the 2nd-highest junk bond status, following yesterday’s announcement of a company-wide split.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
The love of Margaret Qualley’s life is Patrick Schwarzenegger. The breakout White Lotus Season 3 actor will star in Amazon MGM’s Love of Your Life, from DP-turned-director Rachel Morrison (The Fire Inside).
No word on plot, but the young Schwarzenegger took performative masculinity to a psychotic level in White Lotus (clip) that descended into a man who knows nothing about himself.
Love of Your Life is produced by Ryan Gosling from writer Julia Cox (Nyad).
Rachel Brosnahan is the new Jake Gyllenhaal. Brosnahan will star in the 2nd Season of Apple TV+'s Presumed Innocent. The series is going the anthology route, adapting the novel Dissection of a Murder, which Apple and Warner Bros TV have acquired.
Synopsis:
Leila Reynolds (Brosnahan) is way out of her depth, but the defendant only wants her – and to make matters worse, her husband is the prosecutor. Soon, Leila is fighting to keep her own secrets buried, too.
Brosnahan (Lois Lane in James Gunn’s Superman) is a good fit for this project, just watch her wildly vulnerable portrayal of a call girl torn apart by DC corruption while on the path to righteousness in House of Cards (“ask me what I want to order” clip).
Presumed Innocent creator David E. Kelley returns with EPs J.J. Abrams and Gyllenhaal.
Mark Ruffalo joins the Apple Original Film Being Heumann from CODA director Siân Heder, based on Judy Heumann's bestselling memoir.
Official Synopsis:
In 1977, disability rights activist Judy Heumann (played by Doctor Who’s Ruth Madeley) led a historic 28-day occupation of San Francisco’s Federal Building, uniting protesters and over a hundred disabled people in a fight for accessibility laws and equal rights.
In Being Heumann, Ruffalo will play Joseph Califano, an attorney and public servant. He has a unique ability to play characters driven by staunch conviction in service of the public good (see: Spotlight, Collateral). Ruffalo has also been involved in several projects that focus on disabled and marginalized communities. His directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious (2010), followed a paraplegic DJ who had the ability to heal others through touch.
The fifth SpongeBob Movie, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, announced voice cast additions including:
Regina Hall
George Lopez
Ice Spice
Directed by longtime franchise veteran Derek Drymon, the film follows SpongeBob’s quest for a swashbuckler certificate, which accidentally awakens the ghostly Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill). In theaters December 19.
Tidbits:
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II joins Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth, set to film this July for Netflix. Mateen is reportedly up for the role of a football player turned actor, but plot details are sparse. Interestingly, this is a bit of a pattern for him; he is also playing an aspiring actor in Marvel's Disney+ show WandaVision, albeit with superpowers factoring in.
Sasha Lane (American Honey) has joined the cast of the horror-thriller Corporate Retreat, directed by Aaron Fisher and produced by Uri Singer. Starring alongside Alan Ruck and Rosanna Arquette, Lane will help bring to life a story about a corporate getaway gone violently wrong. Filming begins in June.
In a series regular role, Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) has joined season two of medical drama Doc. The Fox and Sony Pictures Television series will see Hoffman as a professor joining the hospital staff.
Mini Tidbits:
Peacock’s new drama The Five-Star Weekend, headlined by Jennifer Garner, will co-star Gemma Chan.
The upcoming Amazon MGM Studios adaptation of Carrie casts Boogie Nights and Austin Powers actress Heather Graham among 13 other new additions.
Last of Us Season 3 will focus on Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby character. Read why it may be a misstep.
FESTIVALS
Venice Film Festival will honor Kim Novak (actress: Vertigo) with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
Studiocanal’s Cannes Market titles are selling like hot cakes. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s (Dir: Amélie) Violette has sold to 15 territories, including Canada. Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom has sold to 21 territories, including Japan.
Mk2 Films has acquired international sales rights to Mu Yi, a French animation by the Emmy-winning Studio La Cachette. Directed by Julien Chheng, it was recently showcased at Annecy.
The Match Factory has sold All That’s Left of You (premiere: Sundance) to seven territories, including Italy.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Ari Aster’s fourth A24 film, Eddington, has a trailer. It premiered at Cannes last month and showcases Aster’s move into neo-horror, where there’s less claw your eyes out imagery (see Hereditary/Midsommar—or don’t) and more conceptual terror.
Synopsis:
In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Releasing July 18th.
Pedro Almodóvar returns to Spanish-language films with Bitter Christmas.
Synopsis:
A woman being abandoned by her partner during Christmas time.
Almodóvar has directed some of the most dangerously sexy foreign cinema (Volver, The Skin I Live In), but struck a very different tone with his most recent Sony Pictures Classics film, The Room Next Door, a vibrant but deeply meditative film about death.
Warner Bros. Pictures Spain distributes Bitter Christmas theatrically in 2026. No word on US distributor.
Tazbah Chavez (dir: Reservation Dogs) will direct a pilot for NBC, an untitled Native American community center comedy that centers on the employees’ struggle to “keep the lights on while lifting up those in need.” Chavez’s work in the five episodes she directed of FX’s Reservation Dogs (trailer, California Dreamin’ episode) had a beautiful absurdist quality we hope gets brought to the pilot.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The screenwriter behind Cannes Grand Prix winner Oldboy (2003), Hwang Jo-yun’s newest project, Gold Land, has been greenlit by Disney+. Pursued by dangerous criminals, the Korean thriller series follows a woman who accidentally comes into possession of gold bars from a smuggling ring.
Netflix will invest $1bn in Spain by 2029, co-CEO Ted Sarandos announced during a visit to Madrid marking the 10-year anniversary in the country. Spanish originals generating over 5bn global viewing hours in 2024. Although Narcos (release: 2015) showed Netflix the breakout potential of international series on the platform, Spain’s Money Heist (release: 2017) cemented this notion.
New Spanish-language series Arcadia launches as a SkyShowtime (Yellowstone, The Day of the Jackal) original across Europe. The six-parter is led by William Levy (Montecristo) as a once-troubled man now living a peaceful life and Paula Echevarría (Velvet) as the wife he left behind.
HBO Max will launch in a dozen more countries this July, including Albania, Cyprus, and Iceland, bringing their grand total of territories to 89. The titles offered in these markets will come from HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Studios, and Max Originals.
Disney+ taps Angela Jain to lead EMEA Originals. Jain will spearhead local originals across Europe, Middle East, and Africa. She joins in September from ITV Studios.
New Regency (Apple TV+’s Prime Target) has hired Tesha Crawford as EVP, Head of Television. A former Netflix exec, Crawford will oversee all international television content, leading production and development strategy from the company’s London office.
ON THIS DAY
1975. Nashville is released.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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