Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Rush Hour returns, Michael Showalter’s Boom, and an Earth Coincidence.
Let’s go!
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Paramount is distributing Rush Hour 4, marking Brett Ratner’s return to narrative.
Michael Showalter teams with Amazon MGM for a modern remake of Baby Boom.
FilmLA reports major declines in LA-shot TV.
WBD asks Comcast, Netflix, and Paramount to submit “sweetened” bids by Dec 1.
Glen Powell will produce teen comedy The Fuckboat, just sold to Paramount.
CAA agents Matt Martin, Trevor Astbury, and Adam Schweitzer exit for WME.
Amazon MGM adapting YA time-loop novel Repeat After Me.
Versant outlines a compensation package of up to $35M for CEO Mark Lazarus.
Universal signals more Wicked projects are “underway.”
Amazon MGM unscripted chief Barry Poznick exits.
Eva Green joins Wednesday Season 3 as Aunt Ophelia.
Andre Holland stars in They Fight as a reformed ex-con mentoring young boxers.
Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed live-action series casts Toby Wallace in the lead role.
Terry Crews joins crime-thriller Motion.
Zach Cherry joins comedy Never Change.
Oscilloscope acquires doc John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office.
The Forge picks up Czech Oscar entry Waves.
Cohen Media Group picks up Cold War thriller Winter of the Crow.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Rushing Rush Hour. Paramount is distributing Rush Hour 4.
The film, which has not been financed, will be directed by Brett Ratner (Dir: Rush Hour 1-3). This would mark his first narrative film in 11 years, after his wild on-set behavior in Hercules (2014) and his sexual misconduct got him essentially banned from Hollywood.
But fortunes have turned. He made a doc on Melania Trump, which Amazon recently paid $40M to distribute.
And now Trump has personally asked Larry Ellison, 77.5% owner of Paramount Global, and the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, to make this film.
Producer Tarak Ben Ammar (EP: Caught Stealing, The Equalizer 3) is seeking financing.
Warner Bros., the original rights holder of the Rush Hour films ($850M global gross), is paying Paramount a double-digit distribution fee.
Michael Showalter is sticking with Amazon MGM for a modern retelling of the 1987 dramedy Baby Boom.
The news comes just ahead of the release of his second collaboration with Amazon,(Oh. What. Fun, The Idea of You), with his upcoming reimagining, keeping its plot under wraps.
Led by the late great Diane Keaton, the original Baby Boom (trailer) was a sharp, screwball-esque comedy about an overworked Manhattan exec who unexpectedly inherits a baby and inevitably her life spirals into chaos (in a comedic way, of course).
Showalter works well, balancing both comedy and earnest warmth, making him a good fit to refresh a beloved ‘80s premise for a new generation.
Fewer TV shows have led to fewer jobs in LA. That’s less major news than the visceral experience many in our industry have felt in the last few years. FilmLA has a new study that breaks down the numbers of how many shows are being released and how it impacts the LA Market:
TV Releases 2023 → 2024
Total: 365 → 310 shows
↓15.1%
Filmed in LA: 105 → 77 shows
↓26.7%
Streaming Releases 2023 → 2024
Total: 203 → 182 shows
↓10.3%
Filmed in LA: 49 → 37 shows
↓24.5%
Theatrically Released Movies 2023 → 2024
Total: 199 → 225 movies
↑ 13.1%
Filmed in LA: 21 → 25 movies
↑ 19%
Across the board, fewer projects are being filmed in LA, constraining faster than the rest of the industry. Things look more sunny for NY, where the number of US Scripted Streaming TV series being filmed has gone up 62.5%. In those same categories, Ontario is seeing a 33% drop.
Get the full FilmLA study here.
Tidbits:
Warner Bros. Discovery is asking for “sweetened offers” from prospective buyers. In short, Comcast, Netflix, and Paramount have until Dec 1st to submit new bids to buy the whole or part of the company. Read the backstory here, with our take on the advantages/disadvantages of each company scooped up WBD: https://theindustry.co/p/warner-bros-sale
Glen Powell Fuckboat. Ok, everyone, calm down. There’s a new teen comedy that’s just been sold called The Fuckboat.
Team:
Producer: Glen Powell
Writer: Caroline Glenn (Writer’s Asst: The Last of Us) and Sean Doherty
Re-Write: Powell, Doherty
Buyer: Paramount
No word on plot, said to be like Easy A and Risky Business. We’re more excited that Powell is pulling out the pen to revise a daring romance. He crushed it co-writing Netflix’s Hit Man with Linklater.
Three agents jump from CAA to WME. Here are the three former CAAers:
Matt Martin (clients: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen)
Trevor Astbury (clients: Will Smith, Ridley Scott, Roy Lee (prod: Weapons)
Adam Schweitzer (clients: Brendan Fraser, Christoph Waltz, Cillian Murphy)
These are some big moves.
Premeditated Productions (Fourth Wing) is working on a feature adaptation of the comedy Repeat After Me for Amazon, penned by screenwriter Rebecca Webb (Kissing is the Easy Part). From author Jessica Warman, the story follows a high school senior who finds herself in a time loop where she relives her spring break trip over and over again. Premeditated launched its overall deal with Amazon MGM in the summer of 2024.
Mini Tidbit:
Versant has revealed a compensation package for CEO Mark Lazarus that could total about $35M in his first year, including base salary, bonuses, and equity grants. His massive payout arrives even as the company’s revenue and net income have recently declined.
YouTube series Booba season 6 will air on Disney+ (yes, that’s what it’s called). Rebranded Booba and Loola Season 6 ads with new characters introducing Loola and Tiny Booba... Disney doesn’t usually pick up YouTube baby shows. This is actually the 2nd pickup aside from Cocomelon. Great news for all of the Booba fans out there.
Is Wicked: For Good getting its own sequel? Before Wicked even premiered, I could’ve predicted Universal would be looking for any way to keep this franchise going. Sure enough, after Wicked: For Good‘s record-breaking $226M grossing opening weekend, the studio has confirmed that new “things are underway”.
Amazon MGM Studios’ general manager of unscripted television, Barry Poznick, is leaving the company. A producer on shows like The Voice and Survivor, he is leaving MGM after over a decade, but will continue producing through his three-year-long first-look deal.
Apple TV removed The Hunt (French series) from their calendar. They are investigating whether it plagiarized a 1976 novel. They look pretty similar. Here’s the potentially former 2025 Apple TV+ show (trailer), and here’s a 1976 adaptation of the novel (TV promo).
Trailer:
A24’s How to Make a Killing
Cast: Glen Powell and Margaret Qualley
Dir: John Patton Ford (the very strong Emily the Criminal)
Shares a lot of DNA with No Other Choice
Premiere: Sundance?
Release: Feb 20
Willa’s The Voice of Hind Rajab
Release: Dec 17
Netflix’s Star Search (live)
Airing: Jan 13
ABC’s Scrubs (revival)
Release: Feb 25
First look:
Prime’s Scarpetta (series)
Love Meets in the Sunshine
First look at James Franco in the indie comedy
Release date:
Netflix’s Sean Combs: The Reckoning (doc)
Release: Dec 2nd
EP: 50 Cent
HBO’s Like Water For Chocolate (S2)
Release: Feb 15
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
French actress Eva Green is joining season three of Netflix’s Wednesday as the long-missing Aunt Ophelia, Morticia Addams’ (Catherine Zeta-Jones) sister. The most recent installment hinted at Ophelia being alive despite no one knowing her whereabouts for over twenty years.
Green’s most iconic role was the too smart for her own good Vesper Lynd from the 2006 Bond film, Casino Royale (scene). Green redefined the “Bond Girl” as a fully realized and layered character who was not only able to hold her own (and save Bond multiple times) but also possessed a real, formidable presence, pretty parallel to Ophelia.
Wednesday showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar said:
“Eva Green has always brought an exhilarating, singular presence to the screen - elegant, haunting, and beautifully unpredictable. Those qualities make her the perfect choice for Aunt Ophelia.”
The Penny Dreadful (2014-16) actress seems like she’d seamlessly fit into the darkly quirky and unpredictable world of the Addams family. Season three of Wednesday has not yet started production and isn’t expected to premiere until late 2027.
Tidbit:
Andre Holland takes on the role of a mentor for youth boxers in Disney’s Andscape’s They Fight. I got to see a private sizzle for this and can confirm that Holland looks, as usual, great. His character is an ex-convict who reforms himself through shaping young delinquents into strong fighters, hardening his own will along with theirs. It will release on Hulu and Disney+ and has just wrapped shooting.
Netflix’s live-action Assassin’s Creed series has cast Toby Wallace (The Bikeriders) in the lead role, reportedly the titular Assassin. Based on the Ubisoft video game series about a secret sect of assassins throughout world history. The show explores Assassins and Templars warring across history via ancestral memory tech and powerful Pieces of Eden. Created by Roberto Patino (Westworld) and David Wiener (Brave New World), with Ubisoft producing.
Terry Crews has joined the crime-thriller Motion. The film follows wild criminal escapades inside the underground racing scene. Plot details are under wraps, but he joins a cast of Tiffany Haddish, Bella Thorne, and Master P. Without knowing plot details, I can’t say exactly how Crews will fit in, but he has always been high energy and excellent timing, which is a huge win. Currently filming in New Orleans.
From Wattpad to Amazon, romance story Chasing Red is being led by some pros in the YA genre, Riverdale’s Madelaine Petsch and The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Gavin Casalegno. The viral YA love story follows the typical enemies-to-lovers trope with straight-A student (Petsch) refusing to entertain her old crush (Casalegno) until she is given no choice. Production on the Wattpad adaptation is set to begin early next year in Saudi Arabia’s AlUla region.
Garret Dillahunt (Raising Hope) joins Pedro Pan as James Baker, headmaster of Havana’s Ruston Academy and a key figure behind Operation Pedro Pan. The film follows the true 1960 to 1962 effort that brought over 14,000 Cuban children to the U.S. Cast includes Néstor Carbonell, Allen Leech, and Andy García. Production is underway in Mexico.
Zach Cherry keeps winning roles, and Severance looks like the ignition point. He is now joining American High’s Never Change about a group of high schoolers finishing their degrees in their 30s. John Reynolds stars with a stacked comedy cast. Zach Cherry feels like ideal deadpan fuel who can sell cringe but not force it. Currently filming in Syracuse.
Mini Tidbit:
Prime Video brings back Barbershop as a comedy series following Travis Porter as he continues his father Calvin’s legacy. Cast includes Roy Wood Jr. (The Daily Show), Punkie Johnson (Saturday Night Live), Brett Gray (On My Block), and E.J. Bonilla (The Old Man).
Two more villains for One Piece, and the casting gives us a good estimate of when season 2 will end. Awdo Awdo (Subversion) joins One Piece Season 3 as Mr. 1, while Daisy Head (Shadow and Bone) plays Miss Doublefinger. This almost confirms that the crew's big flights in the desert town of Arabasta won’t take place until next season.
Pauline Chalamet (The Sex Lives of College Girls) is leading a new indie series titled Switch. She’ll star alongside For All Mankind’s Coral Peña, where the two embark on a nationwide quest to find a man to join their threesome. Production on the spicy new series has wrapped in LA.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Far out, man: Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office, a documentary exploring the strange and pioneering life of neuroscientist and psychonaut John C. Lilly.
Known for pushing the limits of consciousness research, Lilly conducted LSD experiments both in sensory deprivation tanks and while attempting communication with dolphins, work that later inspired the films The Day of the Dolphin and Altered States.
It premiered at the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam. A must-watch about a brilliant but bizarre man.
The Forge picks up the Czech Oscar entry Waves from writer-director Jiří Mádl. The film tells the compelling story set in the spring of 1968 in Prague, following the brave journalists and radio hosts choosing to ignore the government’s propaganda machine and instill hope for a community forced under the violent and controlling rule of the Russian military (trailer).
In Mádl’s audience award-winning thriller drama, he chooses to focus on a younger, still hopeful generation for whom political freedom is inextricably entwined with sex, music, and fun.
The Forge has excellent taste in indie film (Sujo, Black Dog, Chronology of Water) and will release Waves Q2 2026.
Tidbits:
HanWay Films (Ida, La Cocina) has successfully sold the Cold War thriller Winter of the Crow to…
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