Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Ryan Reynolds’ Monster, Eli Roth’s Boom and a Dragn.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
Do you want to play a game? In each edition of The Industry, we’ll include a fun little quiz game. The right answer will be revealed in tomorrow’s edition.
Ryan Reynolds may, for the second time in quick succession, play a parent whose child sees monsters.
The first, of course, was John Krasinski’s IF.
The second has a crazy good team forming around it:
Everyday Parenting Tips
Dir: Jonathan Krisel (co-creator FX’s Baskets)
Prod Co: Lord & Miller (Project Hail Mary)
Prod Co: Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort Productions
Studio: Universal
It’s based on a New Yorker article published in May 2020 that describes a fictitious “Great Monster Uprising” that unleashes monsters onto the world (and maybe even under your child’s bed) like “Gorgog the Annihilator.”
Sounds a bit like a metaphor for COVID, no?
The short piece, written in a Q&A format, is a referendum on how not to model fear for your child. It’s about preventing kids from mirroring and absorbing your anxieties.
If Ryan Reynolds picks up the part, he’d be the perfect parent for this.
He’s made a career of playing dudes flummoxed by their anxieties. And doubled with his boyish kindness, he’s got a mainline into how to relate to children.
If Krisel leans into the article’s escalation, from bedtime reassurance to ‘new normal’ panic, it could be a comedy that actually bites.
For More:
IF trailer.
Maybe it’ll go dark, like The Thing With Feathers trailer.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Apple buys Severance outright from Fifth Season for roughly $70M.
AMC Networks Q4 2025: $595M revenue (↓1%); $125M ad revenue (↓10%).
Leo + Eli Roth teams on shock doc Death Boom.
Jac Schaeffer (WandaVision) signs a 3-year overall deal with Amazon MGM.
Netflix adapts viral dark romance Lights Out from Hannah Scheider.
20th Century adapts true-crime book American Huckster. Scott Free producing.
Peacock developing scripted adaptation Royal Spin (writer Emily Fox).
James Van Der Beek dies at 48.
Benedict Wong + Franz Rogowski join A24’s Masque of the Red Death.
Bud Cort, Harold in Harold and Maude, dies at 77.
EFM titles:
The Price of Peace (Guy Pearce)
The Last Days (Alicia Vikander/Wagner Moura. Killer Films)
Bad Major (Josh Gad, Jason Isaacs, Ruth Negga)
Vertical Films acquires US + UK rights to Desert Warrior ($150M epic).
Cineverse picks up NA rights to AFM title Dragn.
MK2 Films to handle international sales on Koji Fukada’s Nagi Notes.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Apple buys Severance from production company Fifth Season for $70M.
Let’s unpack. First, Apple doesn’t own all its TV shows outright; many come from outside production companies and studios. Such as Sony making Apple TV+’s Pluribus. In this case, Fifth Season (parent company CJ ENM) is the production company behind Severance, and given the cost of $20M/episode to produce S2, and the extensive re-shoots, re-writes and strikes that plagued the season, tied in with slow cash flow from tax rebates they took Apple’s offer to own the series outright. Now Apple brings production in-house.
Good news, if you’re a fan of the show (I loved S1, and loved the last couple eps of S2), we’re getting S3, S4, and maybe some spinoffs.
Fifth Season stays on as EP. Shooting for S3 starts as soon as this summer. Kogonada (Pachinko, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey) will direct some of the new episodes.
AMC Networks (parent company: Sundance TV and IFC Films) Q4 2025 revenue losses, compared with last year:
$595M revenue
↓ 1%
$125M ad revenue
↓ 10%
$55.5M net loss
vs. $284.5M net loss last year
No subs gained from last quarter
10.4M total
This was the sixth quarter in a row that revenue and ad revenue declined. The bright side: streaming revenue is up 14% to $177M, the largest revenue component for the Domestic Operations segment.
Tidbits:
Leo and Eli Roth do good through horror shock docs. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way is teaming with Eli Roth to produce the doc Death Boom, on the blood-sucking death care industry. Roth will narrate. They last teamed up on the doc Fin, about the 100M sharks slaughtered each year.
WandaVision showrunner Jac Schaeffer gets an overall three-year TV contract with Amazon MGM Studios to write, produce, and direct original series for the studio and Prime Video. Through her previous Marvel deal, Schaeffer also created the widely successful spinoff show Agatha All Along (2024).
Three Book Adaptations:
The viral dark romance novel Lights Out is Netflix’s newest TV adaptation with Hannah Scheider (wri: Hulu’s Accused) writing and showrunning. A love story like you’ve never seen, a trauma nurse lives her fantasy with a masked vigilante hacker who breaks into her house. Sounds more dangerous than steamy.
20th Century Studios’ true crime book adaptation American Huckster brings on Ben Jacoby (The First Omen) to pen the screenplay. The Wolf of Wall Street meets Catch Me If You Can, the story revolves around a soccer dad who illegally makes millions and ends up becoming an unlikely FBI informant. Scott Free (We Are City Takers) is on board to produce.
Peacock is developing a scripted series adaptation of Royal Spin from The Watchful Eye writer Emily Fox. The Buckingham Palace set novel follows a former D.C. press agent who leaves her high-stakes job to move to London. The novel hit shelves this week.
Mini Tidbits:
The 1% speaks. Ancora (owner of 1% of the shares of WBD - value: $200M) makes a case for voting “NO” on the currently proposed Netflix-WBD Merger. Read the full thing here. Currently, only 1.5% of WBD’s shares have been tendered to Paramount.
Animated kids show Force 5 comes from Emmy-nominated David Marshall (Rick and Morty). The sci-fi series follows a group of teens who work to save the world, backed by their sentient robot of destruction. Force 5 is headed to MIP London’s Kidscreen Summit.
Literary agent Frank Wuliger joined Echo Lake Entertainment (Hulu’s The Great) as a senior executive in the Management and Production divisions. Wuliger has spent thirty years as a partner at The Gersh Agency, bringing clients like Despicable Me writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio.
The budget of SS Rajamouli’s (Dir: RRR) Varanasi is $150M. That would make it the most expensive film India has ever made. The trailer blew my mind in half.
Shooting in San Fran and spending over $1M? Well, the new tax credit will give you 20% rebate. And up to $1M off any city fees.
Disney will owe $2.75M in penalties as it settles with the state of California over selling consumer data on Disney+.
Greenlit/Renewals:
Apple’s F1 is getting a sequel.
Trailers:
Prime’s Scarpetta
Cast: Nicole Kidman
Release: Mar 11
ABC’s Scrubs (revival)
Cast: Zach Braff
Release: Feb 25
Netflix’s Vladimir (series)
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Leo Woodall
Release: Mar 5
1-2 Special’s Rose of Nevada
Cast: Callum Turner and George MacKay
Release: June 19th
Janus Films’ Two Prosecutors
Premiere: Cannes
NY Release: Mar 20, LA: March 27
Greenwich Entertainment’s Omaha
Premiere: Sundance 2025
Wide release: May
First look:
Netflix’s XO Kitty (S3)
Release: April 2
Release dates:
Sony and PlayStation’s Helldivers
Cast: Jason Momoa
Dir: Justin Lin
Release: Nov 10, 2027
Janus Films’ Blue Heron
Release: April 17
Quiver Films’ Citizen Vigilante
Cast: Armie Hammer
Dir: Uwe Boll
Release: This Summer
Shoot Dates:
What Happens at Night
Dir: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence
Shoot: in two weeks in Prague
Shoot Wraps:
Bleecker Street’s Untitled Film
Dir: Mike Leigh (Hard Truths)
Wrapped shooting in London
TODAY’S QUIZ
The answer will be in tomorrow’s edition.
Also, hit reply, and let us know what you think of today’s quiz.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
The world says its goodbye to Dawson of Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003). TV actor James Van Der Beek has died at 48, after a multi-year battle with colon cancer. Besides being a widely recognized part of the cultural zeitgeist of the ‘90s, he proved throughout his career in film and TV to be much more than just a teen idol.
His underrated performance in The Rules of Attraction (2002, trailer) as Sean Bateman, a morally vacant, drug-dealing campus rebel, showed a different side of the actor, along with his willingness to subvert his wholesome image for some darker material.
Despite his diagnosis, he appeared last year in a guest role across two episodes of Prime Video’s Overcompensating (2025) and will posthumously have a recurring role in the Legally Blonde prequel series, Elle, premiering this summer.
The news of his passing comes nearly six months after his Dawson’s Creek castmates reunited for a script reading (clip) to raise funds for his medical care. He will be deeply missed by those who knew him, worked with him, and by the many fans who loved him.
Tidbits:
Benedict Wong, who is sensational in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem as the spooked detective, is the latest actor cast in A24’s The Masque of the Red Death. Also cast is Franz Rogowski, the sullen lover in Passages. Red Death is director Charlie Pollinger’s (The Plague) 2nd feature, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe.
Claudia Jessie, the actress behind Bridgerton’s favorite, joins Glenn Close for Channel 4 series Up to No Good. Best known as the inquisitive Eloise on the Netflix hit, in the new drama, she’ll play a detective investigating a homicide in Close’s Maud’s building. Filming has begun in London.
MGM+’s prequel series Bosch: Start of Watch adds Ariana Guerra (CSI: Vegas) to its cast. She’ll star as a “rookie LAPD officer” joining Shameless actor Cameron Monaghan as a young Harry Bosch (previously played by Titus Welliver). The 70s-set show will begin production later this year.
Bud Cort, the actor who played Harold in Harold and Maude, died at 77. Although Cort had many other roles, including bit parts in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), he will always be remembered for his ultra-serious, death-obsessed child who falls in love with someone four times his age. The film teaches us a lot about life and death. Trailer.
FESTIVALS
Seven cool titles flowing into EFM:
The Price of Peace
Dir: Anthony McCarten (Writer: Bohemian Rhapsody, The Theory of Everything)
Cast: Guy Pearce
Sales Rep: SND (Sisu, Prisoners)
Synopsis:
The historic meeting between President Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as they negotiated the future of post-war Europe.
The Last Days
Cast: Alicia Vikander & Wagner Moura
Prod Co: Killer Films
Domestic Sales Rep: CAA, UTA
International Sales rep: WestEnd Film
Synopsis:
On a July 4th in New York, Julia, a writer and mother, encounters figures from her past and a troubled young mother, prompting her to confront her lack of creative purpose and rediscover herself within the life she has.
Bad Major
Int. Sales Rep: Global Constellation (Ish) and Gersh (SXSW’s Family Movie)
Dir/Wri: Peter Fellows (wri. The Death of Stalin)
Cast: Josh Gad (Frozen), Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus), Ruth Negga (Loving)
Going to EFM
Synopsis:
Follows a family who welcomes their son’s volatile commanding officer into their rural home to secure the boy’s safety during WWII, but the sociopathic major forces them to absurd and devastating extremes.
Four more titles here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Vertical Films acquires US + UK rights to Desert Warrior, Saudi Arabia’s first major Hollywood film.
The $150M historical epic starring Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley was originally shot in 2021 but was delayed due to “creative challenges”. Director Rupert Wyatt (dir. Rise of the Planet of the Apes) even exited the film at one point but returned to the project shortly after.
From Saudi studio MBC (The Voice of Hind Rajab), the film is set in pre-Islamic Arabia and tells a war story between tribes and the Persian-Sasanian Empire.
No word on release dates.
Cineverse picks up North American rights for the 2024 AFM project: Dragn, starring James Paxton (Twisters) and directed by Peter Webber (Girl With a Pearl Earring).
Synopsis:
A group of co-workers on a routine corporate team-building trip, which transforms into a nightmare when they unwittingly become the prey of a rogue AI-driven drone.
Feels more prescient now than ever, given the recent El Paso drone airport closure. Cineverse slays with this kind of pulp sci-fi (Toxic Avenger), but they’re still chasing the $54M box office high of Terrifier 3.
Mini Tidbits:
Greenwich Entertainment buys worldwide rights to The Scout, which premiered at Tribeca in the US Narrative Competition. This clip reveals how painful it is to be a location scout. That tracks as the director Paula González-Nasser scouted Never Rarely Sometimes Always and HBO’s High Maintenance. Releasing later this year.
Omnibus Entertainment (The Wailing) acquires Tribeca title Animals in War (trailer), starring Sean Penn. The Ukrainian-made feature is compiled of a collection of short stories, each looking at the damage and consequences of war, not just on the lives of people but also on animals. Omnibus will handle North American distribution.
Irish Cowboy Productions’ Abbey Morris (EP The Umbrella Academy) moves to Blumhouse Television (Prime Video’s Scarpetta) as SVP of Development & Programming. Alongside President Melissa Aouate, Morris will help curate the studio’s upcoming scripted slate.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
It has been a busy few months for MK2 Films (It Was Just An Accident)…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Industry to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.