Sony’s Beatles
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Beatles, Brawler and 27.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Sony drops a bundle of new trailers at CinemaCon.
Zack Snyder’s next film, Brawler, is an official collaboration with the UFC.
Paramount has pushed the release of the South Park creators’ comedy to 2026.
Legendary's Gundam live adaptation is rumored to be circling Sydney Sweeney to star.
Warner Bros Discovery ads tech veteran Anton Levy to its board.
Ketchup Entertainment acquires Coyote Vs. Acme from Warner Bros. for roughly $50M.
Jason Momoa’s historical epic Chief of War premieres August 1st on Apple TV+.
Hereditary breakout Milly Shapiro is in talks to star as Carrie for Mike Flanagan’s series.
Paradise season 2 adds Shailene Woodley.
Cristin Milioti joins Elizabeth Olsen in FX’s drama pilot Seven Sisters.
Kal Penn joins Max’s Industry for Season 4.
Cannes selects six filmmakers for their prestigious residency.
Eli Roth’s new horror label has acquired the alien abduction splatter-fest Jimmy and Stiggs.
Last year, we covered April Fools. Here are the best pranks in cinema history:
https://theindustry.co/p/april-fools
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
CinemaCon kicked off yesterday. Here were the highlights:
SONY. We got to see the flow of their releases:
I Know What You Did Last Summer - First Trailer - Release date July 18th
Caught Stealing, starring Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz - First Trailer - Release date August 19th
Big Bold Beautiful Journey starring Margot Robbie & Colin Farrell - First Trailer - Release date Sept 19th
Anaconda re-boot - currently shooting in Australia - Release date Dec 25th.
The newly titled Spider-Man: Brand New Day, starring Tom Holland, set a release date of July 31, 2026
Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse - showed first footage - set a release date of June 4, 2027
At the Sony event, Sam Mendes announced that his four Beatles films would be released on the same day in April 2028. Each movie will center on a different band member:
Harris Dickinson (John Lennon)
Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney)
Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr)
Joseph Quinn (George Harrison)
Sony called it the “first binge-able theatrical experience."
Zack Snyder’s next film, Brawler, is an official collaboration with the UFC and will follow a young fighter from LA as he battles personal demons on his way to a championship. This sticks with Snyder post-Rebel Moon reckoning where he seemed more keen on smaller, less CGI-bloated projects. More traditional money sources may have their taps temporarily closed to Snyder. Thus, Dana White and Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh will invest. Filming in Las Vegas and Riyadh. Though Snyder originally approached Adam Driver for the lead, no casting has been confirmed yet. If there was one thing about Snyder's early success with 300, he does have an eye for guys in slow-mo beating each other up.
Paramount pushes the release of original comedy with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and producer Kendrick Lamar. It will move from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.
Here’s the synopsis:
Centers on a young Black man who is interning as a slave re-enactor at a living history museum and discovers that his white girlfriend’s ancestors once owned his.
Paramount co-CEO Brian Robbins stated:
“This script is one of the funniest, craziest, and most original scripts we’ve ever read, and it’s certain to create some fireworks....”
We can’t wait.
Get in the robot, Sydney Sweeney: Legendary's Gundam live adaptation is rumored to be circling Sweeney to star. Since 1979, giant robots have been fighting under the name of Gundam, finding massive success in Japan and becoming one of the earliest crossover successes in America with its series Gundam Wing being immensely popular. We don't know the details of Sweeney's part, but it should be noted that until 2022's The Witch From Mercury, most protagonists were usually men. It most likely signals that this will not be a retelling of a certain core of Gundam but a reinterpretation. Gundam has it all: action, violence, impactful death, and some really cool robot fights. I'm all for it so far. Let's see what comes next.
Tidbits:
Warner Bros Discovery is making a big addition to its board of directors, adding media and tech veteran Anton Levy, the current advisory director at private equity giant General Atlantic. Levy’s appointment comes after a comprehensive search process led by WBD’s nominating and corporate governance committee to enhance their board with further industry experts.
Ketchup Keeps Coyote. Faster than a speeding road runner, Ketchup Entertainment acquires Coyote Vs. Acme from Warner Bros. for roughly $50M for worldwide rights. This is great as Ketchup just tested the waters after buying the once-doomed The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which had a great theatrical debut ($3M opening) with $10M so far worldwide. Warner Bros. had shelved Coyote vs. Acme in 2023 for a $30M tax write-off, which had the entire industry up in arms. The film stars Will Forte and John Cena. Release date 2026!
Sony sets The Breadwinner for 2026 release. Stand-up comic Nate Bargatze writes and stars in his first feature film. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’s Eric Appel will direct. No plot details are known about the comedy, but for a sense of Bargatze’s family-focused, self-deprecating humor, check out Netflix’s The Tennessee Kid and Greatest Average American.
News of theatrical expansion:
AMC will build 40 new Dolby cinemas by 2027. Putting the total number of Dolby Cinemas at over 200.
Warner Bros partners with Cosm - a dome-esque theater in LA and Dallas for a “shared reality” experience of The Matrix on June 6th
IMAX goes Dutch! IMAX will open 9 new theaters across Europe (Netherlands, Spain, Belgium), Canada, and the US with the help of Belgian cinema chain Kinepolis (parent company Landmark Cinemas and MJR Theatres).
Double Feature: Director Michael Mann is finished with his screenplay for Heat 2, and it is now in the hands of Warner Bros.
James Gunn shared a new Supergirl photo featuring Milly Alcock, teasing the 2026 film’s ComicCon preview. First look.
Phoebe Waller Bridge (creator: Fleabag) renewed her deal with Amazon. It is a nonexclusive first-look deal for much less than her previous $20M overall deal.
Black Mirror Season 7 new trailer. Release date: April 10th. The show is more relevant than ever:
https://theindustry.co/p/black-mirror-blankie-for-our-times
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Jason Momoa’s historical epic, Chief of War, premieres August 1 on Apple TV+. The nine-episode series, co-created by Momoa and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett (writer of 3 Momoa films including Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom), follows warrior Ka’iana’s efforts to unify the Hawaiian Islands before Western colonization in the late 18th century, and features a predominantly Polynesian cast. This marks Momoa’s first television writing credit, with him also directing the season finale and serving as EP alongside Doug Jung (writer: Mindhunter), who acts as showrunner. Mamoa had one of the first ever Apple + series See when the platform launched, so it's good to see he is still able to take a bite out of the apple.
She may get covered in pig’s blood, but at least she can keep her head… Hereditary breakout star Milly Shapiro is in talks to star as Carrie in filmmaker Mike Flanagan’s (dir. Life of Chuck) eight-episode adaptation of the iconic Stephen King novel. Shapiro has an uncanny ability to terrify, and I will never get those tongue clicks out of my head. The upcoming limited series is supposedly set to begin production this summer.
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Tidbits:
Everyone’s new favorite political thriller, Paradise, is adding Big Little Lies’ Shailene Woodley for a major recurring role in its second season. The first season (trailer) was ranked No. 1 on Hulu throughout its entire eight-episode run, with Woodley’s character supposedly being directly involved with Agent Xavier Collins’s (Sterling K. Brown) newest mission. Filming on season two is currently underway.
Cristin Milioti joins Elizabeth Olsen in FX’s drama pilot Seven Sisters, playing Olsen’s sister. The series follows a family unraveling after one begins hearing a mysterious voice. No one is more gifted at leveling hawkish criticism than Milioti who achieved rave reviews for her turn in The Penguin. Seven Sisters is directed by Sean Durkin (Iron Claw).
Nathan Fillion joins HBO's Lanterns. It's not a huge surprise for those who have already seen Fillion as Guy Gardner in James Gunn's Superman. In DC lore Gardner is a member of the Lantern core, known more for his bad attitude than anything else. Piece by piece we are covering this growing show, which is sure to be a big event for Gunn’s DCU.
Kal Penn joins Max’s Industry. Hulu’s limited series finds Alex Murdaugh’s son. And a Severence star dabbles in a Netflix romance:
https://theindustry.co/p/netflix-penn-severance
FESTIVALS
Cannes selects 6 filmmakers for their prestigious residency. Previous participants have included Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine as Light) and László Nemes (Son of Saul).
A couple of the filmmakers stuck out:
Hungary’s Flóra Anna Buda, whose short film 27 won the Palme d’Or and is like a punk rock Tripletes of Belville (trailer).
Constance Tsang, who directed Cannes Critics Week winner Blue Sun Palace, which centers on the tragedy that united two migrants in a Chinese community in Queens (clip).
Tsang shared her excitement for the residency:
“Writing, for me, is both a frustrating and joyful process - one that often demands intense focus and can feel profoundly isolating.”
Here’s the full list of selected filmmakers.
3388 Films has picked up North American rights for Vietnam’s Detective Kien: The Headless Horror.
Here’s the synopsis:
Detective Kien investigates a headless body found in a rural Vietnamese village during the Nguyen Dynasty. As supernatural elements emerge, he faces chilling twists in this 19th-century mystery.
The trailer is gorgeous, and you can tell some serious production value is happening here. No word on a US release.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Eli Roth’s new horror label, The Horror Section, has made its first major acquisition with Joe Begos’ alien abduction splatter fest, Jimmy and Stiggs. When Roth announced his quasi-crowdfunding fan-based production arm, he promised horror IP that pushed gore to its limits. Jimmy and Stiggs look pretty juicy. In theaters on August 15th via Iconic Events.
BBC’s annual plan for 2025/2026 laid bare the challenges it faces. Their income dropped roughly £1 billion/year compared to 2010, despite cutting 2,000 roles. Without additional intervention or funding reform, maintaining the current volume and ambition of UK-produced content (£1.75 billion spend in 2023) will be difficult.
On the bright side, BBC’s iPlayer became the fastest-growing long-form streaming service, with viewing time per person up 23% year-over-year (YoY). Major successes include Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (21.6M viewers).
Studiocanal’s The Desert Child (first look) has sold to 9 territories, including Eastern Europe and Indonesia.
Here’s the synopsis:
True story of a youngster raised by ostriches in the Sahara.
The director, Gilles de Maistre, has a special prowess in combining stories of youngsters and animals. His last film was Autumn and the Black Jaguar (trailer). The Desert Child will be released in 2026.
Sony Pictures Television’s double life dramedy series, Yo no soy Mendoza, is going over to Netflix in Latin America. The Mexico City set original series is the last project from the late Colombian screenwriter Fernando Gaitán (Yo Soy Betty, La Fea).
ON THIS DAY
2012. Jack and Jill wins Golden Raspberry Award.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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