Ryan Reynolds' Dung Beetles
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
True Detective. Past Lives. Dung Beetles.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto reunites with Matthew McConaughey for a Skydance detective mystery.
Pixar unveils Gatto, its first hand-painted film.
Paramount Animation is developing I Eat Poop: A Dung Beetle Story.
Steph Curry's Unanimous Media teams with Amazon for Off Fairfax.
Hulu’s Chad Powers, starring Glen Powell, releases a teaser.
Juliana Canfield (Succession) lands lead in Warner Bros. thriller F.A.S.T.
Jack Hudson to star as cybernetic villain in The Devil’s Train, a time-travel western.
Paul McCartney voices an animated walrus in High in the Clouds.
Reacher S4 adds eight new cast members.
Annecy winner: Neon’s Arco.
Celine Song (Past Lives) is developing E-Sports drama Damage at HBO.
Shelby Oaks gets its budget doubled from Neon.
Darren Aronofsky is in talks to direct Breakthrough for A24, starring Dwayne Johnson.
Dutch hiking drama The North acquired by Incredible Film.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Cute but Gross: Paramount Animation is developing I Eat Poop: A Dung Beetle Story, based on Mark Pett’s children’s book, with Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort producing and Josh Cooley (dir: Toy Story 4) adapting and potentially directing.
The story follows Dougie, a dung beetle, trying to hide his nature at a new school, until his uniqueness becomes key in solving local disappearances. Fun premise, but just one question: HOW!?
Currently in pre-production, getting everything flushed out… sorry, fleshed out.
Matthew McConaughey is reuniting with True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto on another detective project. The new mystery film is about famed fictional private investigator Mike Hammer. Skydance (Mission: Impossible) acquired the rights to authors Mickey Spillane and Max Allan’s Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer franchise, first introduced in 1947 (full episode).
McConaughey starred alongside Woody Harrelson in the acclaimed first season of Pizzolatto’s crime anthology series True Detective (2014), one of the best seasons of TV. What made the series was McConaughey’s Detective Rust Cohle's unique blend of nihilism (scene). Feels light years from the more hard-boiled, no-nonsense detective Mike Hammer.
McConaughey has not officially signed on as the lead just yet, but we’ll keep a magnifying glass eye on it.
Pixar is entering a new era with Gatto, its first hand-painted animated feature, directed by Luca's Enrico Casarosa and set in Venice. The film follows a music-loving black cat shunned by locals due to superstition. First Look. The art style is already beautiful, allowing you to imagine it in motion. Set for a summer 2027 release, Gatto will mark a welcome break from Pixar’s glossy CGI tradition.
Plus: Toy Story 5's villain is apparently a tablet named Lily Pad - First Look
Mini Tidbits:
Stephen Curry’s production company, Unanimous Media, has inked a series deal with Amazon for Off Fairfax. It follows a band of neighborhood detectives trying to uncover the mystery of their leader’s missing mother. Brothers Yassir Lester (writer: Girls) and Isaiah Lester (writer: Black-ish) serve as co-showrunners.
The Trump/CBS lawsuit (which is holding up the Skydance/Paramount merger) is now in active settlement discussions, with some updates from Trump’s team expected by June 30th (pushed back 2 weeks).
PBS’s Masterpiece/BBC has greenlit a sequel to their Miss Austen mini-series, called Miss Austen Returns, based on Gill Hornby’s novel The Elopement.
Sir Gary Oldman. The British actor has just been knighted by King Charles, joining the ranks of Sir Daniel Day-Lewis.
Erin Moriarty (Annie in The Boys) has been diagnosed with Graves’ Disease, but is now actively getting treatment and is managing the symptoms.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Hulu’s Chad Powers starring Glen Powell gets a teaser. The half-hour comedy series is adapted from the ESPN sketch, which saw NFL QB Eli Manning disguising himself as “Chad Powers,” a lanky college kid, and walking onto a college football tryout.
Glen Powell, post-Netflix’s Hitman, feels primed to play a professional at the top of his game, donning a disguise. He has a wonderful grounded cockiness in the teaser.
Irish actor Jack Hudson (Cyberpunk) will star as cyborg villain Blondie in The Devil’s Train, a time-travel action film based on Matthew Dickens’s comic about a stuntman-turned-cowboy. Hudson has seen a bit more love lately as his performance is surging in the video game Cyberpunk 2077, which has become the subject of Switch 2 hype. Hudson's role clearly seems made for him; the man can't help but get himself chromed up.
Directed by veteran stunt coordinator Jack Gill, The Devil’s Train is expected in 2027
Succession alum Juliana Canfield just scored the lead female role in the upcoming Warner Bros. action thriller F.A.S.T. opposite It Ends With Us’ Brandon Sklenar. Coming off her Tony nomination for her role in Broadway hit Stereophonic, Canfield’s role hasn’t yet been disclosed, but the film will follow a former special forces commando who is tapped to lead a black ops strike team against powerful drug dealers.
F.A.S.T. is the directorial debut of longtime DP Ben Richardson (Mare of Easttown) and hasn’t yet begun filming.
COO CO CA CHOO: Who is the Walrus? “I am” is what McCartney would say. In some pretty clever casting, the best Beatle will be voicing a Walrus in the animated film High in the Clouds.
Based on McCartney's children's book of the same name, which he co-wrote with Philip Ardagh. Directed by Toby Genkel, it follows Wirral the Squirrel as he goes on an odyssey to find the secret island of Animalia.
It's a very far-out premise from a very far-out guy. Sweetly, McCartney claims his character is inspired by his late friend John Lennon. Expected to arrive sometime in 2027.
Tidbits:
Prime Video has announced eight new cast members joining Alan Ritchson for the anticipated fourth season of action drama Reacher, including:
Jay Baruchel (Fubar)
Sydelle Noel (Glow)
Kevin Corrigan (Poker Face)
Based on Lee Child’s famous book series, this season will focus on the 13th book, Gone Tomorrow. On Prime in 2026.
A24/Peacock’s Crystal Lake, a Friday, the 13th prequel series, pulls in a few more cast members:
Devin Kessler (Godfather of Harlem)
Cameron Scoggins (The Exorcist: Believer)
Brad Kane (Tokyo Vice) is on board as the showrunner alongside the original 1980 film’s screenwriter Victor Miller.
FESTIVALS
Annecy Animation Festival Winners:
Cristal for a Feature Film (Top Prize)
Arco (Neon)
US Cast: Natalie Portman
The animation follows a magical time-travelling rainbow. Producer: Natalie Portman’s MountainA (May December).
Jury Award
ChaO
Synopsis:
In a future society where humans and mermaids coexist, Stephan, a regular office worker at a shipbuilding company, is suddenly proposed to by Chao, a princess from the mermaid kingdom!
Full list of winners here.
Taormina Film Festival 2025’s winner is For Your Sake (dir: Axel Monsú). The film follows a teenager growing up in a rural town, adhering to the mandates of her family’s religious community (trailer). There’s an oppressiveness that feels similar to 28 Years Later.
Laika (prod co: Coraline) will re-release its cult hit ParaNorman in remastered 2D and RealD 3D for Halloween 2025. Tagged at the end with a new short, ParaNorman: The Thrifting, starring Finn Wolfhard and Anna Kendrick. A fun way to celebrate the spooky season! New trailer.
Roman Coppola has come on board as EP for a doc (premiere: CPH:DOX) on meditative Japanese listening cafes, A Century in Sound (trailer). Submarine Entertainment (Becoming Led Zeppelin) has boarded as the worldwide sales rep. 2025 release.
Rosario Dawson boards Tribeca short film Kiss My Grass as EP. Here’s the trailer with Dawson as the narrator.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Celine Song’s (dir: Past Lives, Materialists) next project is Damage, an HBO series with A24 set in the world of competitive E-Sports. With Craig Mazin (showrunner: The Last of Us) as EP.
Logline:
A gaming prodigy joins the ranks of a professional E-Sports team, where she’s taken under the wing of an older player with whom she shares a tragic past.
While Damage doesn’t seem to have any romantic elements, it promises deep emotional excavation, a hallmark of Song’s work. Materialists, at its best, dissolved any filters when discussing the tangible (height/salary/looks) and intangible (love) desires of modern relationships.
Swizz Beatz and Chris Brancato (showrunner: MGM+’s Godfather of Harlem and Narcos) team up again for MGM+’s The Westies, an eight-episode crime drama. The show follows a brutal Irish gang in the 80s.
I got to see the Godfather of Harlem season 4 finale at Tribeca, where Brancato lauded Swizz Beatz’s ability to incorporate world music, especially untapped talent, into the series soundtrack (clip).
We look forward to seeing their collaboration bloom in The Westies.
Neon Studios is doubling down on Shelby Oaks from YouTube creator Chris Stuckmann.
Reportedly doubling his budget for re-shoots and more gore sequences that were passed over from the original script due to constraints. This tracks as Neon’s most recent horror, The Monkey ($68.9M worldwide box office), was up to its eyeballs in blood and gore.
Shelby Oaks follows Mia, who frantically searches for her sister, who ominously disappeared in the last tape of her investigative series, “Paramount Paranoids.”
Stuckmann rose to popularity for his media reviews and critiques focusing mostly on film, anime, and video games.
Darren Aronofsky may re-team with A24. He’s in talks to direct Dwayne Johnson in A24’s psychological thriller Breakthrough.
Written by Zeke Goodman (I Know What You Did Last Summer) and set in early-2000s Southern California, Johnson will play a charismatic yet morally ambiguous motivational guru.
Will this tilt towards the style of Aronofsky's recent character study (A24’s The Whale) or his earlier cinema (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan)? While the latter was never technically horror, it elicited the kind of psychological dread found in the darkest A24 films.
Mini Tidbits:
Lena Waithe will EP Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, Elegance Bratton’s doc tracing Chicago’s house music origins. This support follows a promising showing at both Sundance debut and Tribeca.
David Mackenzie’s Relay, which played at Tribeca and stars Riz Ahmed and Lily James, shares a lot of DNA with the director’s previous Hell and High Water. We’ll have a director interview closer to the release date, but for now, here’s a teaser.
Former heads of Pulse (Prod Co: Pig, The Witch) start new production company, Magna Studios.
Leaders:
Marissa Clifford (co-founder/UK CEO: Pulse Films)
Davud Karbassioun (former: Films Global President of Pulse Films)
Like Pulse, Magna’s bread and butter is commercials. Their first film is Straight Circle, which has a strong pedigree with 2AM (Babygirl) as the other production company.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
British satire film YAMAS! attaches Miss You Already producer Christopher Simon (budget: $600K). The dramedy is directed and written by Harry Richards and sees “a liberal British family’s boozy holiday plunged into chaos by the discovery of a refugee living in the villa’s outhouse.” Shooting in Greece this fall.
The North has been acquired by Netherlands-based Incredible Film (The Vanishing) for global distribution. Dutch director Bart Schrijver’s (Human Nature) sophomore feature, The North, is set against the pace and demands of long-distance hiking and depicts the challenges of friendship in close quarters. Beautiful trailer here.
New licensing partnership between Thailand-based True CJ and leading entertainment company CJ ENM HK sees their Korean IP remakes headed to Latin America as well as several Asian markets. True CJ will continue to develop original content while CJ ENM HK will organize and support the rollout of these titles.
ON THIS DAY
1960. Psycho opens in NYC.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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