Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Reed Hastings’ State, Blumhouse’s exits, and Straight Outta Space.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings makes his first foray into producing.
Video AI firm Moonvalley raises $84M from CAA and Comcast Ventures.
Justin Alvarado Brown is promoted to co-CEO of Scott Free.
Kathleen Remington exits CAA to launch management company.
Blumhouse lays off six staffers.
HBO offers first look at Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter
Robin Wright gives House of Cards vibes in Prime’s The Girlfriend.
Daniel Dae Kim leads Amazon’s Butterfly, a spy thriller.
Fantasia Festival debuts Straight Outta Space.
Locarno-premiering Exile acquired by MAD World.
Eva Longoria directs Anita De Monte Laughs Last for Searchlight.
Ballard C. Boyd, longtime Colbert director, makes feature debut.
Martin Rakusen becomes COO at 42.
UK/Ireland rights to Berlinale’s Dreamers sold to We Are Parable.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Suits are hopping behind the camera.
Reed Hastings, co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, has joined the independent crime-thriller 52nd State as an EP. This will be his first-ever film or TV producing credit.
Directed and co-written by former Netflix Head of Product exec Todd S. Yellin and starring Moisés Arias and Teresa Ruiz, the Colombia-shot film follows a man who uncovers a criminal scam targeting elderly Americans and seeks to dismantle it.
Now, being the former top brass of Netflix, Yellin and Hastings obviously love movies, now they can put their money where their mouth is… or I guess in a way put their mouth where their money is.
But the most exciting part of this? Jay Van Hoy, one of the best indie producers of the 2010s (The Witch, The Lighthouse, Beginners), is producing.
Sony Pictures Television signs a first-look deal with Dakota Johnson and her producing partner, Ro Donnelly’s production company TeaTime Pictures (Cannes’ Splitsville).
The partnership will cover the development and production of scripted content aimed at both their streaming and cable outlets. The deal reunites Johnson with current Sony Pictures president Katerine Pope, who, in her position over at Chernin Entertainment, EP’d Johnson’s first lead role and first TV gig, Ben & Kate (clip), a Fox comedy series.
TeaTime, launched in 2019, has backed Johnson’s rapidly growing resume.
Tidbits:
Moonvalley, the AI firm that gives filmmakers cinematic controls (like motion mapping and camera controls), got an $84M investment from CAA and Comcast Ventures (a venture capital firm whose parent company is Comcast). Moonvalley’s first consumer product is Marey, and even as a big AI skeptic, I was impressed. Here’s a preview. Their special sauce is that they’re training their model on licensed footage.
Ridley Scott just promoted Justin Alvarado Brown to co-CEO of his production company, Scott Free. After previously serving as COO, Brown will now work alongside fellow co-CEO Luke Scott, continuing to oversee all deal-making and management of the company’s global operations.
Kathleen Remington is leaving CAA and forming a management company. She’s been a longtime agent at CAA, repping Eric Pearson (wri: Thunderbolts*, Godzilla vs. Kong) and Gary Dauberman (wri: It). A few legendary agents have started management companies. Most notably, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, who founded The Gotham Group after a stint at WME.
Blumhouse has laid off six employees across film, television, and casting. These cuts come just two weeks after the underwhelming opening of Blumhouse’s campy horror M3GAN 2.0, which made $36M at the box office (vs the OG’s $182M WW). This news also comes not long after the downsizing of the TV division.
Mini Tidbit:
ABC News will launch its first daily news show for Disney+, What You Need To Know, hosted by James Longman and Rachel Scott. Airing on July 21st.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
You’re a wizard, Dominic McLaughin.
HBO’s highly anticipated Harry Potter series releases a first look image of the young actor in his official wizarding robes as cameras begin rolling.
Newcomer, McLaughlin, is taking on the role of the boy who lived, made famous by Daniel Radcliffe.
Several new additions to the ensemble cast have also been announced:
Rory Wilmot (FBI: International) as the timid Neville Longbottom
Amos Kitson as Harry’s bully of a cousin, Dudley Dursley
Louise Brealey (Brian and Charles) as flying instructor Madam Rolanda Hooch
Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones) as wand shop owner Garrick Ollivander
The magical series will debut on HBO in 2027.
Well, this looks unhinged.
Robin Wright is giving harsh, megalomanical House of Cards vibes in Prime’s The Girlfriend trailer.
The conceit is pretty pulpy; Wright plays a mom who is a little too interested in her son’s girlfriend (Sound of Metal’s Olivia Cooke). There are some wild scenes of her in the sauna with her son, throwing him seductive winks (trailer). And it gets fairly bloody.
Wright excels at manipulating anyone she deems lower than herself for her gratification. We love to see it.
Releasing Sept 10th.
Andrew Garfield is confirmed to co-star in Amazon MGM’s Artificial. The project is coalescing rapidly:
Dir: Luca Guadagnino (Challengers)
Cast: Garfield, Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), and Yura Borisov (Anora)
Prod Co: Heyday Films (Harry Potter, Barbie, Wonka)
This film follows OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the tumultuous days when he is fired and then rehired. Cooper Koch (Eric Menendez in Monsters - 2024) also joins the cast.
Tidbits:
Daniel Dae Kim is Amazon’s Butterfly. The spy thriller starring and EP’d by Kim (Lost) follows a former U.S. intelligence agent thought dead by everyone, including his own daughter… who is also an operative. That’s the hook that allows us to watch Kim pulled between his need to protect his daughter and his guilt for abandoning her (trailer). Release: August 13th.
Coming-of-age love story, Easy, has found its leads in Lizzy Greene (Ransom Canyon) and Harry Collett (House of the Dragon). Adapted from Tammara Webber’s best-selling novel, the feature follows a college freshman (Greene) who is rebuilding her life after meeting a troubled and enigmatic classmate (Collett) who becomes an unexpected source of connection. Easy has wrapped filming.
Emerging actress Madeleine McGraw (The Black Phone) has been cast in SuperUnknown, a supernatural coming-of-age thriller to be directed by Thee Brothers Riedell (A Nice Girl Like You). The film will follow a high schooler who discovers her parents have been harboring a supernatural creature that starts to terrorize the town. McGraw gave a standout performance in Blumhouse’s The Black Phone (2021), showcasing her emotionally charged range—great casting for a tense thriller.
More Street Fighter keep tagging in for the new movie. Most recently, Indian actor and martial artist Vidyut Jammwal (Comando) has been announced as Dhalsim, a fighter known for his flexibility and weird stretchy legs. This will also be Jammwal's Hollywood debut. Street Fighter releases March 20, 2026.
Mini Tidbits:
Richard Harmon, the guy who gets his nose ring stuck in Final Destination: Bloodlines, has joined Fox’s upcoming thriller Memory of a Killer, starring alongside Patrick Dempsey. The series follows a hitman with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
This Is Us actress Chrissy Metz is the newest addition to Apple and A+E Studios’ untitled series based on the bestselling crime novels by Lars Kepler. She will be playing a single mother who faces a living nightmare after her children go missing.
Zachary Quinto’s Dr. Wolf has a new nemesis in Bellamy Young (Scandal), who has been cast in the second season of NBC’s Brilliant Minds. Young will take on the role of Dr. Amelia Frederick, a longtime doctor and worthy adversary to Dr. Wolf.
Mekhi Phifer (ER) joins ABC’s High Potential Season 2 in a recurring role. His character is tied to the criminal underworld. The murder mystery series led by Kaitlin Olsen will return this fall on ABC and Hulu. Season 1 trailer.
JB Tadena (CW’s Kung Fu) joins Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth, set to film this July for Netflix. He may play a gangster/film financier.
FESTIVALS
Fantasia Festival has genre films galore. Some that have premiered at other festivals like Neon’s Together, Mubi’s Lurker, SXSW’s Redux Redux, etc. Some have caught our eye:
Omniscient Reader is like Stranger than Fiction meets Train to Busan. Here’s the trailer.
Lucid is a phantasmagorical punk nightmare directed by Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall (trailer). The film started as a short and is now a fully fleshed (pun intended).
I couldn’t stop smiling through the Straight Outta Space trailer. Yes, it’s Straight Outta Compton meets Independence Day, set in the Netherlands.
Fantasia Festival kicks off tomorrow, July 16th.
Plus, they have their own development lab with some cool projects, including one starring Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) and another starring Hiam Abbass (Martha in Succession).
Locarno-premiering Exile is picked up by MAD World.
Synopsis:
After a deadly factory explosion leaves him injured and his friend dead, a steel worker discovers dark secrets behind the incident and sets out on a dangerous path of vengeance.
Tunisian director Mehdi Hmili’s previous film Streams (trailer) was also represented by MAD World. There’s a monochromatic poetic softness that abounds in Hmili’s work. Just check out the first look photo of Exile.
Sundance 2026 will run January 22–February 1st in Park City for the last time. The biggest loss is that The Egyptian (the best and most intimate theater at the festival) will not screen films. I have fond memories there, including screaming very loudly during the premiere of Hereditary.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Following her Oscar-nominated directorial debut, Eva Longoria is back in the director’s chair for Anita De Monte Laughs Last for Searchlight Pictures.
The NYT bestselling novel by Xóchitl González follows an Ivy League student who uncovers the work and mysterious death of artist Anita de Monte. The new film will reunite the Desperate Housewives actress with the studio that directed her debut narrative feature, Flamin’ Hot (2023, trailer), which premiered at SXSW and put up high streaming numbers on Hulu.
Steering the project as both a director and producer through her Hyphenate Pictures banner, the film marks a notable shift for Longoria in her new journey as a filmmaker, moving from documentaries and biopics to more character-driven dramas. But still retaining that love of following outsiders, who like her are deeply ambitious.
Ballard C. Boyd, who has produced 509 and directed 126 episodes of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, is making his feature directorial debut with Jackrabbit.
Synopsis:
When a reporter and an actress become reluctant roommates in NYC, their rivalry over a mutual friend turns into an uneasy alliance after she vanishes, leading them to uncover dark secrets beneath her disappearance.
Boyd has a unique voice. Okay, we’ve heard that, but check out his goofy short Night Session, about a divorcee (Richard Kind) who doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed about being robbed; in fact, he takes the opportunity to have a therapy session (full short). Boyd has an uncanny ability to turn bitter enemies into friends, which seems like the thread of Jackrabbit.
79th & Broadway Entertainment is the sales rep.
Tidbits:
The Future of Film is Female will release Sundance’s Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake), which premiered in the US Dramatic competition category. The film co-stars Karsen Liotta (Ray Liotta’s daughter). Here’s a short BTS video. It will premiere at IFC. Joanna Hogg (Dir: The Souvenir) is the EP.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Berlin Panorama’s Dreamers sells UK and Irish rights to We Are Parable (A24’s Earth Mama). The film centers on two women who strike up a tepid romance in a detention center, where they are being held (trailer).
Former FilmNation TV UK exec Martin Rakusen is brought on by 42 (Prime Video’s Holland) as new COO. The former FilmNation TV UK exec, for the LA and London management and production company, Rakusen, will be responsible for running the business globally while overseeing production across its portfolio. Rakusen will be replacing David O’Donoghue.
Owen Wilson's animated family movie, Charlie the Wonderdog, has been picked up by Global Constellation for international sales. It follows Charlie the dog (voiced by Wilson), who gains superpowers.
ON THIS DAY
1988. Die Hard is released in the US.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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