Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Melissa Leo’s King, Paramount’s big slate, and a robot.
Let’s go!
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When you hear that Leo has acted in four crime films from the same director, you’re probably picturing Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese.
But there is another Leo, Academy Award winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter), who has acted in four crime films from director/writer John Swab.
Swab’s work centers on the harrowing devastation wreaked on society by the illegal drug trade.
In his films, Leo has played a drug queenpin (2021’s Ida Red), an addiction counselor (2021’s Body Brokers), and a mother to a drug trafficker (Ben Foster) in the Venice-premiering King Ivory (2025), which is in theaters this Friday.
I sat down with Leo and Swab to understand what drew her to Ginger, her character in King Ivory.
Leo described her kaleidoscopic nature:
“She seems pretty simple when she first picks Ben’s character up at the jail, she seemed a little bit like an idiot even, but darling, loving, but not a very bright woman… And so, cut to later on, we do find that Ginger is capable of quite a lot.”
The role resonates, and not just because Leo blends seamlessly into seedy worlds. What’s really remarkable here is that Leo has very little screen time, four scenes total in the film, yet in each, we see a radical rebirth in her persona.
It’s not easy to pull off a character shift from ditsy to hardened criminal, but Leo has tremendous range. Just check out anything from her extensive filmography (21 Grams, Frozen River, The Fighter, Flight, Oblivion, Prisoners, The Equalizer, The Big Short). So even when she has very little screen time, she can pull off wide character arcs.
Her King Ivory role reminded me why Leo is still one of the most commanding actors working today.
For More:
Full interview with John Swab and Melissa Leo. You’ll never guess how Swab first got in touch with Leo: https://theindustry.co/p/oscar-winner-melissa-leo-interview
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Paramount Global’s Q3 2025 earnings show an overall loss.
Sony Pictures Entertainment's Q2 2025 earnings show a dip in profit.
HBO is making a new show, DC Crime, from the American Vandal creators.
HBO is developing a V for Vendetta series.
Apple Original Films acquires Fallen Astronaut in a high six-figure deal.
Netflix revives A Different World sequel series set at Hillman College.
20th Television adapting Sarah Hoover’s memoir The Motherload.
Malcolm D. Lee developing NBC spy series Need to Know and Becoming Marlow Fin adaptation.
Nicole Kidman to star in Osgood Perkins’ The Young People.
Omar Epps joins Dan Fogelman’s untitled Hulu football drama
Elsa Pataky joins spy thriller The Mark.
Andy Garcia returns for Ocean’s 14.
AFM buzz titles include films starring Dakota Johnson, Antonio Banderas, Aaron Eckhart, Tim Roth, and Hunter Schafer.
Watermelon Pictures acquires Eugene Jarecki’s The Six Billion Dollar Man doc.
Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap names Bronte Payne & Courtney Cunniff as new film co-heads.
Concordia Studios promotes Lizzie Fox to President, Casey Meurer to EVP Nonfiction.
Submarine boards The Edge of Existence doc for international sales.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Paramount Global’s Q3 2025 earnings, their first earnings after merging with Skydance, were not profitable. Here’s the high level breakdown, and the change from last year:
$257M loss
$244M Paramount loss
$13M Skydance loss
Down from $1M profit last year (and $57M profit last quarter)
$6.7bn revenue
0% change
$3.8bn TV/Media revenue
↓12%
$112M theatrical revenue
↑ 4%
Paramount streaming was the sunny spot as its DTC division reported healthy gains:
$340M DTC OIBDA
↑ 594% ($49M last year)
$2.17bn Subscription revenue ($1.77bn from Paramount+)
↑ 17%
79.1M subs
↑1.4M subs (vs. ↓ 1.3M last Q)
Paramount+ increased revenue by 24%. And film entertainment was up 30%.
The plans for next year are ambitious:
“We plan to grow our theatrical output to at least 15 films annually beginning in 2026… We anticipate a significant expansion of our total television studio output over the coming years… To support this continued investment, we plan to implement price increases in the U.S. early in the first quarter of 2026, and we recently announced upcoming price adjustments in Canada and Australia.”
Projected 2026 outlook:
$30bn revenue
$3.5bn OIBDA
Now fully merged, Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, is looking to save $3bn. Here’s what they’re looking to save each year:
$1.4bn - now through Dec 31, 2025
$1bn+ - 2026
They also announced that 600 people took a voluntary buyout when asked to return to the office.
Sony Pictures Entertainment Q2 2025 results. Plus the delta from last year:
$2.24bn revenue
↑ 2% from last year
$90M profit
↓ 22%
The theatrical revenue saw a big lift from Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer, which pulled in $312M in Q2.
Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda (American Vandal) have teamed up with DC and HBO to write, showrun, and produce DC Crime, a Superman spinoff centered on Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo).
Gisondo’s Olsen was a surprising breakout in Superman. The series follows Olsen and his Daily Planet colleagues investigating metahuman activity, with Season 1 spotlighting Gorilla Grodd, a hyper-intelligent ape ruler.
Produced by James Gunn and Peter Safran, DC Crime continues events from Gunn’s Superman, exploring Olsen’s newfound fame. Gunn is seemingly using these side projects to cue up more ensemble characters in his new world. Who would say no to a bit more Jimmy Olsen?
HBO is developing a V for Vendetta TV series written by Pete Jackson, with James Gunn and Peter Safran producing for DC Studios. The adaptation follows anarchist V and ally Evey Hammond rebelling against a fascist British regime.
The 2005 original starring Hugo Weaving grossed over $130M worldwide and had a tight grip on popular culture for many years to come.
It would be great for the new adaptation to dig deeper into the graphic novel’s themes. The 2005 version was flashy and exciting but perhaps a bit one-note. Trailer here.
Tidbits:
Patrick Dempsey’s upcoming Fox drama Memory of a Killer switches up its showrunners. Producers of FX’s Damages, Aaron Zelman and Glenn Kessler, will be replacing British writers Ed Whitmore (ITV’s Manhunt), Tracey Malone (Born to Kill), and David Schulner (New Amsterdam). The replacements will take over with the show still set to premiere in January.
First there was The Cosby Show (1984-92), then A Different World (1987-93), and now Netflix has greenlit a sequel series. Once again taking place at the fictional HBCU Hillman College, the show will follow Deb, the daughter of original series characters Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) and Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy), in her first year at her parents’ alma mater.
The Best Man franchise director Malcolm D. Lee is simultaneously developing two drama series. NBC’s Need to Know is a spy procedural headlined by Taye Diggs, based on the actual events of a battle-scarred CIA vet. Lee’s second series is a TV adaptation of Ellen Won Steil’s mystery novel Becoming Marlow Fin, written and produced by Des Moran (Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things).
20th Television is developing Sarah Hoover’s bestselling memoir The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood for TV. Hoover will co-write the pilot with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel producer Sas Goldberg. The Motherload follows a new mom letting the weight of motherhood get to her head, loosely based on Hoover’s own life.
Apple Original Films has preemptively acquired Fallen Astronaut, a high six-figure deal for J.S. Mayank and David Carlyle’s script, described as Gravity meets A Few Good Men. Scott Glassgold (1201 Films) will produce, with Mayank and Carlyle (America 2.0) EPing. Verve handled the auction.
Mini Tidbits:
The Animation Guild has found their new president in Danny Lin (Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears). The storyboard artist will lead the 5000+ person union and begin their three-year term effective Dec. 2nd.
If Dorothy’s ruby slippers went for $28M how much will the Wicked Witch’s hat go for? Heritage Auctions is offering up the original hat worn by Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz (1939) beginning on Dec. 9th.
Renewals:
BBC’s Celebrity Traitors (for S2)
Trailers:
Briarcliff Entertainment’s The Thing with Feathers
Star: Benedict Cumberbatch
Release: Black Friday
IDFA’s Past Future Continuous
The Wizard of the Kremlin
Cast: Jude Law, Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander
IFC’s The Plague
Cast: Joel Edgerton
Release: Dec 24th
PBS’s The Gold (S2)
Release: 2026
Shoot date:
Lord of War 2
Dir/Wri: Andrew Niccol (Lord of War, Anon)
Cast: Nicolas Cage and Bill Skarsgård
Shooting: End of November in Belgium and Morocco
Santo Subito!
Dir: Bertrand Bonello (The Beast)
Cast: Mark Ruffalo
US Sales Rep: UTA + 2AM
International Sales Rep: Playtime
Shooting: March 9th
Outer Dark
Dir: László Nemes
Cast: Jacob Elordi and Lily-Rose Depp
Source Material Author: Cormac McCarthy
Shoot date: 2026
This would be a wild English-language debut for Nemes, whose breakout film Son of Saul melted my eyes when I saw it premiere at Cannes in 2015.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Oscar winner Nicole Kidman is returning to horror with Osgood Perkins’ (Longlegs) new film The Young People.
The story reportedly follows two school friends whose relationship darkens as one begins to show unsettling behavior.
Kidman really has only done one pure horror movie, The Others (2001), but plenty of her performances tilt into the psychologically terrifying. In Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Kidman’s half-asleep description of a rape dream is unnerving (clip).
And in Birth (2004), Kidman develops a deep-rooted attraction to a ten-year-old boy who claims to be her dead husband, which clusters her very notions of reality.
The Young People signals a full-circle moment, reuniting her with the kind of atmospheric, character-driven suspense that defined her earlier work. In The Others, she was praised for her quiet intensity and her willingness to show true fear. Hopefully, she brings a bit of that to her yet-to-be-unveiled character.
The Young People is the first project under a first-look deal between Neon and Perkins’ Phobos banner, following their success with Longlegs and The Monkey.
Mini Tidbit:
Omar Epps (House) has joined Dan Fogelman’s untitled Hulu football drama. The series stars Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU) as head coach Danny, with William H. Macy (Shameless) as the team owner and Chace Crawford (The Boys) as GM. Epps will play a former NFL player turned Offensive Coordinator. When is this thing gonna get a title?
The Fast & Furious franchise’s Elsa Pataky is joining spy thriller The Mark alongside Jessica Alba and The Umbrella Academy’s Tom Hopper. Pataky was last seen in dual roles in last year’s Fury Road prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (scene). The Mark is currently in production in Australia.
Andy Garcia is returning for Ocean’s 14. We loved him as Terry Benedict in the series, but mostly in the first film, where his polished pride is his Achilles heel. All hell breaks loose clip.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
AFM continues its barrage of high-profile projects. Including ones starring Dakota Johnson, Antonio Banderas, Aaron Eckhart, Tim Roth, and Hunter Schafer:
Click here for the breakdown: https://theindustry.co/p/afm-trudy-blue-dakota-johnson-above
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Watermelon Pictures has acquired North American rights to Eugene Jarecki’s (The King) The Six Billion Dollar Man, a Julian Assange documentary which premiered at Cannes. The film explores WikiLeaks’ legacy. It will have an awards-qualifying run before a planned 2026 theatrical release.
Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap new co-heads of film are company vet Bronte Payne (My Old Ass) and former Black Bear EVP Courtney L. Cunniff (Train Dreams). The Barbie banner has a busy upcoming slate with their third Emerald Fennell collaboration, Wuthering Heights, the next to hit theaters early next year.
Documentarian Davis Guggenheim’s Concordia Studios (Swan Song) promotes executive Lizzie Fox to President. Fox’s previous title, Executive Vice President of Nonfiction, is going to Casey Meurer, who will lead the team’s creative and strategy. Both Fox and Meurer were with HBO Max before leaving for Concordia back in 2023.
Former Tyler Perry Studios president Ozzie Areu secured $50M from FilmHedge’s Jon Gosier to adapt T.J. English’s The Last Kilo, chronicling Cuban drug lord Willy Falcon’s Miami empire. Areu previously struck a seven-figure deal for the book, life rights, and Falcon’s cooperation.
All’s fair in love and waltz. Christine Lakin, best known from the ‘90s sitcom Step by Step, is making her feature directorial debut with I Won’t Dance, a coming-of-age ballroom-themed indie. Filming is set to begin shortly in the Canary Islands.
Submarine (Creep) has taken international sales of The Edge of Existence from Slick Films (The Silent Child). The Edge of Existence will follow one man’s attempt to survive for 60 days in the UK’s most dangerous island, Rockall. The doc will drop in 2026, expected to make several festival appearances.
ON THIS DAY
1960. Stanley Tucci born in Peekskill, New York.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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