Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Pedro Pascal’s flame, A24’s Massacre and a Wet Afternoon.
Let’s go!
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Pedro Pascal just went head-to-head with Joaquin Phoenix in Eddington. Now, Pascal is confirmed to replace Phoenix in De Noche, the Todd Haynes gay romance film.
If you remember, Phoenix exited the film before production began last year. The cast and crew were held for weeks, and the film was eventually abandoned… until now.
Haynes stated:
“This story, with Pedro Pascal and Danny Ramirez in the two leads, arises out of an era — all too relevant to our own — of domestic corruption, racial exploitation and global terror.”
He continued:
“But it emerges as a testament to the inexplicable powers of desire and love to survive and overcome even the most crippling of human barriers.”
Essentially, the story is of an X-rated romance between a cop (Pascal) and a teacher (Ramirez) who flee LA for Mexico after they become political targets.
On screen, Pascal excels at putting layers in front of himself to blot out his true state. We’ve seen it in The Last of Us, where it’s a survival mechanism, in The Materialists, where it’s a ruse to hide metaphorical and literal scars, and even in Wonder Woman 1984, where it hides how horrible he is.
But what will be tremendous in De Noche is to see him dive into the furthest reaches of human intimacy.
It’s something that isn’t as natural to Pascal as Phoenix. In Eddington, Phoenix took in every indignity like shrapnel. But maybe that’s why this version will be better, because we feel that to open up for Pascal, it takes a pound of flesh.
De Noche will shoot next month in Guadalajara, Mexico. MK2 Films (Sentimental Value) is financing.
For More:
Eddington trailer.
When De Noche was first announced, we explored the project in a cover story on Joaquin Phoenix: https://theindustry.co/p/joaquin-phoenix
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
A24 wins rights to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.
Amazon MGM sets romcom Goodbye Girl with Kiernan Shipka + Cole Sprouse.
CNN Films + Imagine team on an Amelia Earhart doc.
Universal Studio Group boards First Lie Wins.
New Regency lands action-thriller Carrier from Jack McCain.
Disney’s live-action Eragon series showrunners are Todd Harthan + Todd Helbing.
Gaumont options Mary Kubica’s It’s Not Her for TV.
YouTube Q4 ’25: $11.4bn ad and sub revenue (+9% YoY).
Chiwetel Ejiofor joins Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist reboot.
Jimmi Simpson + Chloe East join The Rule of Three.
Jason Isaacs + Ben Foster co-star in Guy Ritchie’s Layer Cake.
SXSW adds 54 projects, including HBO’s The Comeback S3.
John Carroll Lynch to direct Happy starring Asa Butterfield & Kyra Sedgwick.
Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) directs Seance on a Wet Afternoon.
MK2 acquires Céline Sciamma’s full film library.
SNL UK sets 11-person inaugural cast.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
A24 has won the rights to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The first project will be a series, directed by JT Mollner and produced by Roy Lee. They’re both riding high off their indie hit Strange Darling. Glen Powell will also produce (he’s not currently starring).
The nine films in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series span from gory slasher to, more recently, a more meta self-reflection of the franchise itself. Still, known not only as one of the best horror movies but as a classic film all on its own, there is still more lore to learn and still more blood for Leatherface to spill.
Netflix put together a pretty cool timeline of all of the films: Here.
Goodbye Girl, Amazon MGM’s newest romcom, finds its leads in Kiernan Shipka (The Industry, Mad Men) and Cole Sprouse (recently: SXSW’s The Rivals of Amziah King). This is director Oran Zegman’s (Honor Society) sophomore feature.
Synopsis: A professional heartbreaker (Shipka), unfortunately, breaks the number one rule her job demands: don’t fall in love with the man (Sprouse).
Goodbye Girl marks the fifth collaboration between Amazon and Gulfstream Pictures (The Last Showgirl), with production beginning in New Orleans this week.
Everyone loves an Amelia Earhart doc called Amelia. Now we’re getting one from a great team:
Dir: Oscar-nominated Betsy West and Julia Cohen (RBG)
Studio: CNN Films
Prod Co: Imagine Entertainment (Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s company)
Prod Co: Sandbox Films (André Is an Idiot)
Look, we still don’t know where Amelia crashed, but one theory has her eating… and then being eaten by crabs.
Four Book adaptations:
Universal Studio Group acquires Ashley Elston’s bestseller First Lie Wins, with Scream (1996) writer Kevin Williamson attached to co-write and produce the new series. The thriller novel follows a con artist whose new assignment brings up parts of her past that could threaten everything she’s built. The adaptation continues Williamson’s overall deal with his Outerbanks Entertainment (Netflix’s The Waterfront) and Universal TV.
New Regency secures Carrier, an action thriller developed by Jack McCain, the son of former U.S. senator John McCain. The film will follow a Presidential hostage situation centered on a Senator’s son who searches for who is behind the attack. From the recent War film Blitz (2024) to the high-stakes hostage thriller The Negotiator (1998), New Regency seems like a good home for this project.
Disney+’s live-action Eragon series has found its showrunners in Todd Harthan (ABC’s High Potential) and Todd Helbing (Superman & Lois). Based on Christopher Paolini’s YA book series The Inheritance Cycle, the story begins when an ordinary teenager becomes the first Dragon Rider in over a hundred years. These books filled my childhood and if the Todds can nail it, this could be the hit Disney has been hungering for.
Producer Gaumont (Narcos, The Fifth Element) is optioning Mary Kubica’s next novel, It’s Not Her, for a potential TV series. The murder mystery from The Good Girl author follows a peaceful getaway that goes terribly wrong and officially hit shelves yesterday.
Three quarterly reports:
Sony Pictures Entertainment Q3 2025 results. Plus the delta from last year:
$2.3bn revenue
↓ 12%
$197M profit
↓ 9%
$98M theatrical revenue
↓ 60% (from $244M)
$718M TV Productions revenue
↓ 10%
The big drop in theatrical rev was due to the fac that last year’s Venom: The Last Dance made a major $478M WW. Versus the biggest film this quarter was Chainsaw Man which took in $117M WW (until end of year).
YouTube Q4 2025 results:
$11.4bn ad revenue + subscriptions
↑ 9% from last year
$60bn for full year, 2025
12.7% Total TV Usage (Nielsen)
↑ 17.6% from last year
41% larger share than Netflix
We’re at an interesting inflection point with YouTube and, by proxy, Google. Where right now they haven’t quite mainlined their Gemini AI tools into YouTube, but they’re getting close. We’d love to see a breakdown from these platforms of how much content is being watched that is human-generated vs. non-human-generated.
Fox has reported a 2% increase in revenue for Q2 2026, all thanks to their FAST streaming service Tubi and better sports pricing.
A major growth driver for Fox, Tubi achieved its second profitable quarter. Largely credited to the rising advertising revenue and the streamer’s extensive engagement, Tubi’s revenue is up 19% year-over-year. They also had their largest viewing time ever, up 27% year over year.
Mini Tidbits:
Hulu’s true crime series
13 Reasons Why prod
Kristen Stewar’s theater buy
All those and more min tidbits here.
Trailers:
Roadside’s Tow
Cast: Rose Byrne
Premiere: Tribeca
Release: March 20
Netflix’s War Machine
Cast: Alan Ritchson
Release: March 6
MGM+’s From (S4)
Release: April 19th
First look:
Neon’s Fjord
Dir: Cristi Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve
Release dates:
A24’s Marty Supreme
China release date: later this year
Chinese distributor: China Film Group
IFC and Shudder’s Faces of Death remake
Prod Co: Legendary Pictures
Release: April 10
Teaser (disturbing)
Netflix’s The Singers (Oscar-nominated short film)
Release: Feb 13
PBS’ The Librarians
Release: Feb 9
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Chiwetel Ejiofor is scared.
He will co-star in a reboot of The Exorcist for director Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep) for Universal and Blumhouse.
No word on his role, but Ejiofor was in Flanagan’s previous film, Life of Chuck. In this clip from that film, Ejiofor’s wonder turns from awe to terror as he watches stars in the night sky extinguish.
We can imagine that same shift in The Exorcist. Maybe he’ll witness (or deliver?!) an exorcism. Either way, we’re in for a hell of a time.
Scarlett Johansson was previously cast. Check out our full cover story breakdown here.
Release date: March 12, 2027.
Tidbits:
Jimmi Simpson (spectacular in everything from Westworld to It’s Always Sunny) joins The Rule of Three. Joining the cast is also Chloe East (Heretic), as well as previously cast Thomasin McKenzie (Last Night in Soho), from dir/Co-Writer: James Roday Rodriguez (Actor: Psych) and Prod Co: Temple Hill Entertainment (Smile, Twilight). Synopsis: Are Amy and her family plagued by a deadly curse? Every three years, death strikes under mysterious circumstances, horrifically killing family members. Currently filming.
HBO Max’s newest pilot sees a Dawson’s Creek reunion. Joshua Jackson (Netflix’s The Affair) is the newest actor to join Greg Berlanti’s dramedy series How to Survive Without Me from Warner Bros. TV. Jackson will play Cooper, a chef continuing his recently passed mother’s legacy in the kitchen, starring alongside Ray Romano as his dad.
Mia McKenna-Bruce goes from How to Have Sex to an animated animal. The “BAFTA-Rising Star” winning actress joins the cast of On the Edge, an animated film about endangered (and very cute) looking animals. It’s clearly something McKenna-Bruce has a passion for, just check out her soothing narration in this doc, Eating the Future (trailer).
Mini Tidbits:
Jason Isaacs
Ben Foster
Alfie Allen
Stephen Dillane
Ariana Greenblatt
Casting news on those actors here.
FESTIVALS
SXSW line-up keeps growing. They’ve just added 54 new projects. Full breakdown here.
Berlin projects find sales reps. EFM projects sprout trailers. All that and some Rotterdam news here. Plus a big project from Jaume Collett-Serra (Carry On).
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
We all know John Carroll Lynch giving a great performance as the possible killer in Fincher’s Zodiac (still). But you may forget, he’s a great director. If you haven’t seen his quirky, blissful film Lucky (Harry Dean Stanton’s last performance, trailer), it’s well worth watching.
Next up, Lynch is directing Happy. We love the synopsis:
Welcome to the worst imaginable meeting with your in-laws. A shotgun fired at a birthday cake. A voyeuristic mother. A seductive sister. Way too much booze. Not enough boundaries.
Cast include Asa Butterfield, Mark Strong and Kyra Sedgwick.
Lynch has a penchant for turning quirky plots into profound meditations, and this seems to be a great opportunity.
Launching at EFM via Embankment (sales rep: The Father).
Hollywood is once again embracing Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), who has just begun filming on his newest feature, Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Based on Mark McShane’s 1961 suspense novel, the project has been in the works for a number of years, with Rachel Weisz (Disobedience) and Matthew Macfadyen (Succession) leading the cast.
Alfredson was put on the map with the icy Cold War thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011, trailer), but his return sees him moving from geopolitical intrigue into more psychological intimacy territory. Adolescence writer Jack Thorne wrote the screenplay, with filming finally ongoing in the UK.
Mini Tidbit:
Zag, the company behind Disney+’s animated franchise Miraculous, has named Rémi Guerin (Netflix’s My Dad the Bounty Hunter) Head of Studio. Next for Zag is the animated musical feature Melody, starring Katy Perry.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) writer-director Céline Sciamma’s entire library is acquired by MK2 for worldwide rights. It is not often that an entire auteur’s body of work would fall under a single international sales/finance banner. Reminds me of Bob Dylan’s music library being sold to Universal and Sony.
MK2 Films will host the world premiere of Sciamma’s re-edited film Tomboy (trailer) at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.
It only took them 50 years… Saturday Night Live UK has found its inaugural group of 11 cast members. From Universal Television’s UK Studio and Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video, the first installment of the six-episode season will premiere on Sky on March 21st. New cast members:
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