Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Amazon MGM + Sony, Alfonso Cuarón + Philip K. Dick, and Kate Winslet - The Spot.
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Amazon MGM taps Sony for international distribution partnership.
United Artists is adapting The Tenant with Scott Stuber producing.
Duffer Bros. will adapt The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne for Netflix.
Alfonso Cuarón developing Jane, inspired by Philip K. Dick’s twin sister.
Warner Bros. loses Akira rights after 20+ years.
Five Transformers are incoming. Michael Bay may return to direct.
Karen Read's trial inspires adaptation from the Hell or High Water team.
007 shortlist includes Jacob Elordi, Tom Holland, and Harris Dickinson.
Rebekah Del Rio (Mulholland Drive) dies at 57.
Kate Winslet exits A24/Hulu series The Spot.
Selena Gomez returns for Wizards Beyond Waverly Place Season 2.
Paramount Global cuts MTV UK originals.
Acorn TV grabs gritty UK prison drama Bariau for U.S. release.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Amazon MGM, after promising 15 features/year in theaters by 2027, has partnered with Sony for international distribution.
Deal terms:
Sony will distribute four films for Amazon internationally through March 2026
Post March 2026, Sony/Amazon will co-distribute internationally, yet TBD where Amazon will set up its international distribution hubs
4 films:
Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt - starring Julia Roberts - Release date: Oct. 10.
Mercy - starring Chris Pratt, who plays a detective who has to convince an AI program he created that he didn’t kill his wife - Release date Jan. 23, 2026.
Crime 101 - starring Halle Berry, Chris Hemsworth, and Mark Ruffalo - release date Feb. 13, 2026 (release date has been pushed since Cinemacon)
Project Hail Mary - starring Ryan Gosling as a lame astronaut - Release date: Mar. 20, 2026.
Amazon’s first project they’ll distribute internationally is Coleen Hoover’s Verity - starring Josh Hartnett, Anne Hathaway - Release date: May 15th 2026.
The Duffer Brothers (Stranger Things) are developing a new Netflix series, The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne: Based on a crime-thriller novel of the same (long) name by Ron Currie, with Currie and Joshua Mohr adapting and EPing.
The story follows Babs Dionne, a ruthless crime matriarch in Maine, whose daughter's disappearance leads to her enacting mob boss fury all over the town of Waterville.
With such a great relationship with Netflix, it's no surprise the brothers want to stay under its wing even with ST's looming conclusion. The book itself has topped numerous must-read lists since its release this year. This could be a great step forward for the brothers.
Warner Bros. has lost the rights to cyberpunk anime masterpiece Akira after over 20 years of failed development attempts.
The most recent iteration was a draft by Taika Waititi that fell into development hell and ultimately spun out due to backlash over his film Thor: Love & Thunder. The live-action remake is now back with manga publisher Kodansha.
This is bittersweet, but unfortunately, it seems the right call with rumors that they were trying to Americanize Neo Tokyo. Akira, at least for now, remains the one that got away for many directors who dream of adapting this vibrant and nuanced world.
Famous bike riding Clip.
Tidbit:
Amazon MGM Studios’ United Artists picks up The Housemaid from author Freida McFadden’s NYT bestselling novel The Tenant. Producer and former Netflix boss Scott Stuber will develop a film. The Tenant is a psychological thriller following a marketing executive whose life spirals when he loses his job, and things take a turn for the worse when his seemingly normal new tenant becomes hostile.
Alfonso Cuarón is developing a new film, Jane, inspired by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s relationship with his twin sister Jane who died when he was a baby. Much of Dick’s work is plagued with psychological doubles like the two competing hemispheres of the protagonist’s brain A Scanner Darkly. Cuarón may direct or just produce. Charlize Theron stars, Jack Thorne (The Aeronauts) writes.
If it's a big case, it’s safe to assume an adaptation will be in the works, and Karen Read’s story is certainly no exception. LBI Entertainment (prod co: Hell or High Water) is behind a scripted adaptation chronicling the nationally followed murder trial just on the heels of Read’s charge acquittal. Read and her lead defense attorney, Alan Jackson, are partnering up with LBI for this project.
Mini Tidbit:
There are five new Transformers films in the works at Paramount. One that Michael Bay will direct (significant as he went cold turkey on the series after 2017) and one with Josh Cooley (dir: Transformers One) for a live-action version.
Family Issues: Vin Diesel announced that after many delays, Fast Furious 11 is still happening (cool yeah), but he also mentioned that Paul Walker's character Brian O’Connor will make a return somehow, probably with deep fake or digitally inserting him (please don't).
Netflix has tapped Nat Faxon (co-Director: Downhill) and Jim Rash (Community) to direct Team Hoyt, based on the true story of Dick Hoyt, who became a marathoner to race alongside his quadriplegic son, Rick. The duo then completed over 1,000 endurance events. Tom Brady is attached as a producer.
Hulu dips its toe in true crime docu-series with Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit. About the disappearance/abduction of a news anchor in Iowa, unsolved for 30 years (preview clip).
The end of an era. Cineplex’s longtime CEO, Ellis Jacob, is retiring by the end of 2026. Canada’s largest theater circuit, Jacob has been with Cineplex since its founding over twenty years ago and is a highly respected exhibitor.
Batman Returns! The Batman Part II is officially moving forward, now set for release on October 1, 2027. Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin have finished the script, with production expected in early 2026.
California passes $750M tax credit for Film and TV. Read more here: https://theindustry.co/p/ca-tax-incentive.
Renewals:/Cancellations
HBO’s The Comeback (renewed for 3rd and Final Season)
Season 3 Release date: 2026
Season 1 Premiere Date: 2005
ABC’s Doctor Odyssey (cancelled)
Debut:
Fox’s The Faithful
Release date: March 2026
Poster:
Universal Pictures The Odyssey
Dir: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway
Release date: July 17, 2026
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Now that a director has been chosen for the new Bond film*. The next question: Who will play 007?
Here’s who made Amazon’s shortlist:
Jacob Elordi
Tom Holland
Harris Dickinson
No meetings have happened, so the fate of who will next fill 007’s shoes is still open. Out of this list, we like Elordi as his rendition of Richard Gere in Oh, Canada (trailer) showed he could take on a character with smoldering darkness, yet a hint of suave. However, Dickinson has a snide sophistication that we could see play well at any Baccarat table.
*For Villeneuve’s turn as director, he will not have final cut and has not been hired for the sequel.
Silencio. Rebekah Del Rio, who played the singer in Mulholland Drive who collapses mid-performance, has passed away at 57. In that famous scene, Del Rio gives a Spanish-language performance of Roy Orbison’s Crying as if her torn soul was bursting. Made even more devastating by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring soaking in each line as if it were shattering a dimension of themselves.
Del Rio performed in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (2006), Sin City (2005), and Lynch’s Twin Peaks revival.
Kate Winslet pulls out of A24/Hulu show The Spot.
Here’s the official synopsis:
When a successful surgeon (previously: Winslet) and her schoolteacher husband begin to suspect that she may be responsible for a child’s hit-and-run death, their quest for truth spirals into a web of mounting suspicion and dark secrets, testing their resolve and their relationship as they confront the possibility of hidden guilt and betrayal.
Winslet’s role is being recast. A24 and 20th Television will co-produce.
Tidbit:
Selena Gomez is once again channeling her inner witch as she will reprise the role of Alex Russo in season two of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. The original series completely launched the Only Murders in the Building actress’s career, and she even made a quick cameo in the spinoff’s first season. Gomez is also an EP on the series with new episodes set to premiere this fall on Disney+.
Young Kraven the Hunter actor Levi Miller is the newest cast addition to Prime Video’s Bloodaxe, an upcoming drama from Vikings creator Michael Hirst and his son Horatio.
Resident Alien’s Mandell Maughan has been cast in a recurring role in comedian Bert Kreischer’s new Netflix comedy Free Bert. The six episodes will follow Kreischer trying to adapt to elite life in Beverly Hills.
Squid Game Season 3 SPOILER. At the end of the series finale, Cate Blanchett appears as a mysterious figure slapping a homeless man. This is supposedly a setup for David Fincher’s Squid Game: America.
Rick Hurst, beloved for playing Deputy Cletus Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, has died at 79. He will be missed. Clip.
Whoopi Goldberg will appear in several episodes of the Italian soap Un Posto Al Sole in 2026. She apparently does not speak Italian fluently, but it could be a fun thing to have an EGOT winner on the show. Reminds me a bit of Will Ferrell's all Spanish-speaking movie. Trailer.
FESTIVALS
We love the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Mostly because they have the kind of oddball cinema that you can’t catch anywhere else. Enter Action Item, the trailer feels like it’s been filmed by an alien. Almost an Under the Skin vibe without being derivative. My skin is crawling, watching this trailer.
Raindance Award Winners:
Kenya’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category, Nawi, has won the Raindance Film Festival's Best International Film award. This heart-wrenching and powerful drama follows the titular 13-year-old Kenyan girl who, despite yearning to go to high school, is being forced into an arranged marriage (trailer).
Raindance’s Best Debut Feature goes to Srishti. What starts as disaster porn but morphs into something more surreal and mythical. Trailer.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Jessie Komitor's short film, Chasing the Party, which premiered at Tribeca, is a rapid-fire dissolution of the teenage dream.
The film has an impressive pedigree. Sam Rockwell produced. Joe Swanberg (Dir: Drinking Buddies) co-stars. Zach Kupperstein (Barbarian) DPs.
The film centers on two underage women who go to an NYC nightclub for what they think is going to be the best night of their lives. What Komitor contrasts so well is the women's heightened fantasy of the club as swanky French disco-tech, and also the nightmare of encountering a predator (Swanberg).
Mubi has picked up Park Chan-Wook's (dir: The Handmaiden, Decision to Leave) new film, No Other Choice, for the UK/Ireland and 8 other territories. They are following the same playbook they used in Cannes, with Neon acquiring domestic rights and then swooping in to grab international rights. Mubi’s success on this checks out as they have much more of a stronghold outside the US. Case in point, Mubi’s The Substance grossed $59.7M internationally and only $17.6M domestically.
No Other Choice synopsis:
After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.
This film, which premiered at Venice, is right up Chan-Wook’s alley as he excels at playing with deeply disturbed characters who break out of tightly controlled settings like in The Handmaiden (trailer). His imagery is electrically stylized with a neo-noir twist.
Tidbits:
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