Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
The Oscars, The FCC, and The Kidnapping of Chris Pine.
Let’s go!
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I want to thank The Academy for inviting me to The Oscars, the Scientific and Technical Awards show, the one you don’t see on TV.
The night celebrated the unsung heroes of the film industry, the engineers, the technicians, the chemists, the programmers, with jokes like:
“Can we have a moment of silence for dialogue editors?”
The entire night was a mini masterclass in the most cutting-edge technological inventions that shape the molecular structure of the movies we love.
Here are three of my favorite Technical Achievement Award-winners:
Benjamin Graf
Designer and engineer of dxRevive Pro, a tool that restores noisy/unusable on-set dialogue without sacrificing the realism and continuity of the on-set performances.
Potential danger: It uses a neural network trained on ethically sourced data samples, thereby reducing the need for ADR in post-production.
Pav Grochola and Edmond Boulet-Gilly
Designers and engineers of beautiful 2D hand-drawn animation tools that supercharged the look of Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Their program, Superdraw and Kismet, allowed for detailed linework without the need to draw every frame. Lines actually followed a performance.
Sony’s visually sumptuous explainer video here.
Justin Webster
For creating Matchbox, a program that tracks picture edit changes and synchronizes them with your sound designers’ sessions. Result: You don’t need to wait for picture lock to start doing sound design.
If you’ve ever edited, this is a huge game-changer.
The Scientific and Technical Oscars ceremony was a wonderful demasking of movie magic in a way that paradoxically made me fall in love with cinema even more.
For more:
Full list of winners here, including three companies that removed lead from squibs.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
FCC opens review of Disney-owned ABC’s broadcast licenses.
Prime Video develops NASCAR family drama Godspeed.
Blumhouse Television adapts Shusuke Shizukui’s Japanese thriller Sparks.
Shubhangi Shekhar directs Indian basketball doc Hoop Like This.
FilmLA reports LA shoot days are up quarterly but still down YoY.
Empire Strikes Back Oscar-winning sound mixer Steve Maslow dies at 81.
Vanessa Kirby & Lewis Pullman star in Kitty Green’s sci-fi feature The Spacesuit.
Laura Dern replaces Helena Bonham Carter in The White Lotus S4.
Annecy slate includes Netflix’s Ray Gunn and Alley Cats.
Cannes Market titles include The Saviors and Sender.
Oscilloscope picks up Chris Pine’s film The Kidnapping of Arabella.
Adam Gyngell and Fred Fernandez-Armesto write Netflix’s Black Box.
Greenwich acquires Sundance-winning drama The Friend’s House Is Here.
Yesterday’s correct answer: Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit, Tarantino’s first script.
11% got it right.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
The FCC has opened an accelerated review of Disney-owned ABC’s broadcast licenses, tied to the recent public controversy surrounding Kimmel’s late-night show comment referring to the first lady as an “expectant widow”.
FCC chairman Brendan Carr has ordered Disney to file within 30 days, despite the station’s renewals originally scheduled for 2028 and 2031.
The now Josh D’Amaro-led Mouse House released a statement signaling its confidence in its compliance with FCC regulations. We’ll see if they bend over or take a stand.
Read our cover story on Kimmel’s return this past fall here.
Tidbits:
Apple loves F1, and Amazon loves NASCAR. The streamer is developing Godspeed, a family racing drama from Underground co-creator Joe Pokaski. Prime already has extensive NASCAR coverage with the series set to follow one of the last family-owned teams in racing, who, after a death on the team, must rally together to protect their legacy and chase a championship. If greenlit, the series begins production early 2027.
Billionaire Barry Diller, who was the head of Paramount Pictures from 1974 to 1984 and the founder/chairperson of the media company IAC, which owns Dotdash Meredith (People, Entertainment, Travel + Leisure) and The Daily Beast, is cutting staff. Under the new brand name “People Incorporated,” 77 IAC roles are expected to be eliminated as the company is “consolidating corporate functions.”
Blumhouse Television acquires the rights to Shusuke Shizukui’s Japanese novel Sparks. Krystal Houghton Ziv (The Purge) will be the writer of this psychological thriller. The original novel that sold over 770K copies follows a serial killer suspect who moves in next door to the home of a judge who freed him two years ago. This isn’t the book’s first adaptation; Fuji TV (major Japanese TV network) already turned it into a critically acclaimed miniseries back in 2016.
Mini Tidbits:
The production company behind Netflix’s You, Alloy Entertainment, has upped Chelsea Kardos (prod. Amazon’s The Probability of Miracles) to VP of TV. Previously, a longtime exec at AMC Networks.
Film and TV production in LA is showing early signs of recovery, though still below the previous year’s numbers, according to FilmLA’s latest report:
Q1 On-Location Shoot Days 2025 → 2026
TV: 1,353 → 1,215 SD
↓ 10.2%
Feature Films: 451 → 463 SD
↑ 2.7%
TV Pilots: 17 → 13 SD
↓ 23.5%
The total shoot days for the quarter are up ↑ 10.7% (5,121 SD) from last quarter (4,625 SD) but ↓ 3.3% YoY (5,295 SD 2025 Q1).
The slight overall dip masks some real movement; film activity is steadily rising while television production remains in flux.
Read the full FilmLA report here.
Steve Maslow, the sound mixer of The Empire Strikes Back, dies at 81. Apart from his Oscar-winning work for the Star Wars title, Maslow has also worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Speed (1994), Dune (1984), and Waterworld (1995).
The man behind He-Man, Roger Sweet, has died at 91. Sweet created the action figure that later spawned into the ‘80s cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-85) as well as many other iterations, including Amazon and Mattel Films’ live-action version this June.
Renewals:
Netflix’s Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 (Renewed for S2)
Prime Video’s Hazbin Hotel (Renewed for S5)
Trailers:
Apple TV’s Ted Lasso S4
Cast: Jason Sudeikis
Release: Aug 5
First Look:
Prime Video’s Sterling Point
Dir: Megan Park (My Old Ass)
Cast: Ella Rubin, Jay Duplass
Release: Aug 5
Netflix’s The Last House
Dir: Louis Leterrier (Now You See Me)
Cast: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura
Release: Aug 7
Release Date:
Neon’s Animated Feature Ally
Dir: Bong Joon-ho
Newly acquired
Release: Early 2027
Focus Features’ Hot Spot
Dir: Agnieszka Smoczyńska (The Silent Twins)
Cast: Noomi Rapace
Release: Aug 21
Hulu’s Docuseries The Cult of NatureBoy
Dir: Ben Zand (CEO of Zandland)
U.S. Release: April 28
International Release: July 15
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Laura Dern is joining the season four cast of HBO’s The White Lotus, following Helena Bonham Carter’s sudden departure.
Dern has a long history with both HBO (Big Little Lies) and show creator Mike White, with whom she co-created the underrated satirical dramedy Enlightened (2011-13), also for the prestige TV network.
While the Oscar winner has never appeared onscreen in The White Lotus, she did voice Michael Imperioli’s estranged wife in the show’s second season. Dern will take over Bonham Carter’s role (although Mike White is writing something new for her) with filming ongoing in France.
Looks like the Invisible Woman is going to space again.
Vanessa Kirby (Fantastic Four: First Steps) will star in writer/director Kitty Green’s (The Assistant) science fiction feature The Spacesuit. Another Marvel star, Lewis Pullman (Thunderbolts), joins her in the cast.
The film follows an astronaut (Kirby) who is forced to make an impossible decision after her co-pilot (Pullman) causes a disastrous incident days before lift-off.
It would be interesting to see Kirby’s take on a grounded science-fiction role. HanWay Films is the sales rep.
Casting Tidbits:
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Susan Wokoma
Sam Neill
Here.
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival just revealed its slate for this year. Here are some top projects:
Netflix’s Ray Gunn
Prod: Skydance Animation
Dir: Brad Bird (The Incredibles)
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits
Synopsis: Ray Gunn, the last human private detective, in a futuristic world inhabited by humans and aliens.
Netflix’s Alley Cats
Wri: Ricky Gervais
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Kerry Godliman, David Earl
Synopsis: Follows a group of feral British cats navigating life, companionship, and survival in a disused basement.
Full list of Annecy animations here, including Laika’s Wildwood with Carey Mulligan and Mahershala Ali.
Cannes Market additions:
The Saviors
Int. Sales Rep: Protagonist Pictures (Int. Sales The Brutalist)
Dir/Wri: Kevin Hamedani (Junk)
Cast: Adam Scott (Severance), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Greg Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine)
Prod. Co: Amasia Entertainment (Wild Mountain Thyme)
Premiered at SXSW
Synopsis:
An estranged couple rents out their Airbnb, but soon start to suspect their guests might be plotting something nefarious. As the couple investigates, they rekindle their relationship and discover something stranger than they could have imagined.
Full list of Cannes Market projects here, including SXSW’s Sender starring Rhea Seehorn and Britt Lower.
Mini Tidbits:
Andy Garcia (Ocean’s 11) is back in the director’s chair with Diamond, playing Out of Competition at Cannes. The Veterans (Paper Tigers) have boarded as the sales rep. The cast includes Brendan Fraser, Dustin Hoffman, and Bill Murray.
Canneseries’ Disney+’s Alice and Steve, starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement, won Best Series and two other awards. From writer Sophie Goodhart (7 eps Sex Education). First look and more details here. The 2027 Canneseries will be held in February.
Full breakdown on the Gotham TV Awards here:
https://theindustry.co/p/gotham-tv-awards-nominees-2026
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Oscilloscope Laboratories picks up North American Rights to The Kidnapping of Arabella, co-starring Chris Pine in his first Italian-language film.
The film premiered at Venice’s Horizons section last year and is the 2nd film from Italian filmmaker Carolina Cavalli.
Alongside Pine, actress Benedetta Porcaroli (who also starred in Cavalli’s film debut, Amanda) will star as a young misfit named Holly who is convinced she is the wrong version of herself until she meets a 7-year-old who makes her change her mind.
Releasing this summer. Here’s a clip.
Writers Adam Gyngell and Fred Fernandez-Armesto (writers: 1 ep Apple TV+’s Hijack) are writing Netflix’s Black Box.
It’s a remake of the French film, following an audio engineer who specializes in isolating noises in black box recordings of airplane crashes.
Tim Fehlbaum (September 5) will direct. And he must be in dusty, old school media heaven. Check out the trailer for the OG French Black Box.
Tidbits:
Iranian drama The Friend’s House Is Here has been picked up by Greenwich Entertainment. Shot secretly in Tehran, the film follows two young women within Tehran’s underground art scene. It has its world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance, where it won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast. Greenwich is aiming to release the film in theaters this fall.
Parasite (2019) production company Barunson E&A is taking the reins of international sales of Indonesian zombie movie Zona Merah: Dead City. Based on a TV show of the same name (trailer) that had more than 34M views in Indonesia, the film follows a factory worker named Maya who races against time to find her missing younger sibling amidst a zombie outbreak.
Mini Tidbits:
Zombie horror-comedy
Police detective drama
HBO + Beta + Canal+
All those mini tidbits and more here.
ON THIS DAY
1957. Daniel Day-Lewis born in London.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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