Good morning: In today’s edition of The Industry, we look at:
HBO Max’s The Pitt, Amazon MGM’s Squish, and a Rose.
Let’s go!
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HBO Max’s The Pitt season 2 once again taps into the chaos of overworked healthcare professionals at a Pittsburgh hospital.
This season navigates through their personal crises, workplace politics, and an existential threat to the hospital itself. All the while, it asks a sinister question: what happens when the leaders in charge of saving lives become untrustworthy?
The cast is led by the righteous but tormented Noah Wyle, who presses through this “deli of death.”
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Paramount clears final non-US hurdle for the WBD merger.
Riley Keough will lead HBO gambling drama Advantage Player.
Amazon MGM is developing a four-quadrant Squishmallows movie.
Netflix orders supernatural YA mystery-romance series Sid & Zoey.
Netflix expands its YA slate with Sunshine Girls and Minimum Wage.
J. Smith-Cameron joins 1980s-set indie romance In Our Own Sweet Way.
Thora Birch boards The Last Seder.
Florin Şerban’s You Don’t Belong Here wins Locarno’s Golden Leopard.
Eskil Vogt (Wri: Sentimental Value) will direct his third feature.
Zach Braff drama Clean Hands heads to TIFF market.
Austria selects Sandra Hüller’s Rose for the International Feature Oscar.
Friday’s highest-voted answer: The Thing (1982), favorite John Carpenter film.
41% agreed.
Noah Wyle (Dr. Robby) is the most problematic of all - click here for more info
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Paramount has secured Mexico’s approval for its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
It’s a big moment, as PSKY now has approval in every area it needs for the deal to close outside the US. That includes:
68 countries (EU, UK, Aus, Can, Brazil, China, etc.)
Of course, even though the US Department of Justice has approved, there’s still the massive 12-state attorney general lawsuit scheduled for March 2, 2027. Details here.
Tidbits:
Nick Reiner, who is indicted for the murder of his parents, Michele and Rob Reiner, is trying to win $586K of the $1.6M in trust money to help him mount a defense. The trustee argues that California’s “slayer statute,” which prevents someone from inheriting from a person they intentionally killed, blocks the payment. A hearing on the dispute is scheduled for today.
Four projects in development:
HBO is landing big with gambling drama pickup, Advantage Player, starring and EP’d by Riley Keough (Under the Bridge). From Media Res (The Morning Show), the project reunites Keough with writer and EP Will Graham, having previously worked together on Prime’s Emmy-nominated musical limited series Daisy Jones & the Six. Based on real-life player Gina Fiore, Advantage Player follows a brilliant misfit (Keough) who discovers her gift for beating the system by scamming casinos at their own game. No word on production dates.
Amazon MGM is trying to create the next big four-quadrant film with the hit toy brand Squishmallows. What the heck is a Squishmallow? It’s a fun little squishy plush toy (website here). Oh, and 600M+ have been sold to kids and adults since 2017. Producer Beau Flynn, whose work includes the live-action Moana, the upcoming Hello Kitty film, and Requiem for a Dream (2000), is on board. Amazon MGM doesn’t have a single film on Nielsen’s top 20 chart for top-streaming movies. So this may level the playing field.
Netflix is developing a supernatural YA series, Sid & Zoey, from Jon Kasdan (Wri: Solo: A Star Wars Story), John Shiban (Wri: Ozark), and Blumhouse Atomic Monster. The eight-episode series will follow a misfit kid from NYC, Sid, who is forced to live with a police chief in rural Mississippi, where he meets a punk-rock girl named Zoey. Together, they investigate the town’s supernatural happenings. Sounds like a fun little Stranger Things variant. Kasdan and Shiban will serve as showrunners.
Netflix is expanding its YA slate with Sunshine Girls from Brat TV’s Rob Fishman and Nuria Anson (A Girl Named Jo). Teenager Olivia’s life is upended when she is forced to move coasts from the Big Apple to sunny California right as she’s starting high school. Sunshine Girls joins another recently announced YA Netflix project, Minimum Wage, a fourteen-episode series about a group of teenagers struggling with service-industry burnout. Both shows will drop on Netflix later this year.
Mini Tidbits:
Sebastian Gibbs is coming back to Netflix. He will serve as the Director, Original Series, including IP and Tentpoles. He’s got a good pedigree, having previously worked at Netflix overseeing Ozark.
A long time coming. Ian Frazier, the writer of the original 1990 New Yorker comic on which Coyote v. Acme is based, will finally see his film released in a couple of weeks. Scott Rudin originally optioned his comic in the 90s, but it lapsed in 2004.
The Golden Globe Foundation has fired CEO Gregory Goeckner amid a lawsuit from former HFPA members challenging the Globes’ takeover. Along with the foundation, Goeckner is being accused of transferring $4M in HFPA funds to the foundation to move along their dissolution. No word on a replacement.
A four-decade Paramount Pictures veteran, Kathie Hoops, has died at 66 after a battle with cancer. The financial executive spent most of her tenure at Paramount as the VP of residuals.
Legendary Field of Dreams editor Ian Crafford has died of cancer at 82. Crafford left school at just 17 to join Britain’s Elstree Studios, launching a prolific career from working on sound for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) to editing James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983) and John Boorman’s Hope and Glory (1987).
Renewals:
HBO Max’s Stuart Fails to Save the Universe (for S2)
MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race (for S19)
MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked (for S18)
Paramount+’s RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (for S12)
Paramount+’s RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars: Untucked (for S9)
Cancellations:
Hulu’s Deli Boys (canceled after S2)
Trailers:
Vertical’s Come With Me (just acquired)
Cast: Theo Rossi, Ron Perlman
Release: Sept 4
Orchid Tree Media’s Take Off
Heartwarming Chinese film about a factory worker who decides to do something with his life and, against all societal pressure, build a jet pack
Release: Sept 17
And here’s a fun little look at the new Beatles crossing Abbey Road in Sam Mendes’ new four-film event.
Noah Wyle (Dr. Robby) is the most problematic of all - click here for more info
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Succession’s J. Smith-Cameron has joined the cast of indie romance drama In Our Own Sweet Way, an '80s-set period film about two discordant neighbors who find an unsettling harmony.
After just finishing a recurring spot on HBO’s comedy Hacks, Smith-Cameron will be taking a darker, deeper detour, describing the new script as “utterly original and imaginative from the moment I started reading it.”
She stars opposite Yellowstone’s Jefferson White in the film, which just wrapped production.
Tidbits:
BAFTA nominee Thora Birch (American Beauty) is back in a family drama, joining the cast of The Last Seder, a feature indie dramedy alongside Barbara Hershey (Black Swan) and Morgan Saylor (Homeland). The film is set during one hilarious and heartbreaking night: the Price family’s last Passover Seder, as each member reaches the next chapter in their own life. Production has just wrapped in LA.
Final Destination: Bloodlines star Kaitlyn Santa Juana joins a band! She stars in The Jam Van, a new indie film that follows a dysfunctional pop-punk band on an awkward road trip to a show that could save or sink them. Santa Juana brought dogged skepticism and wonderful determination that really made Bloodlines feel special.
Keyla Monterroso Mejia is making the TV comedy rounds. Set to join S2 of ABC’s Scrubs, Mejia has delivered hilarious recurring moments on fellow ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary as an underqualified teacher’s aide and as a high-strung assistant on Apple’s The Studio. Now Mejia will take her comedy to the hospital as a sassy surgical nurse named Mimi.
We’re sad to share that Hayden Panettiere (Heroes, Scream 4) has passed away at 36. We’ll have more details tomorrow on the 2x Golden Globe nominee.
Noah Wyle (Dr. Robby) is the most problematic of all - click here for more info
FESTIVALS AND DOCS
The 79th Locarno Film Festival has officially crowned its winners.
Here’s the rundown:
Golden Leopard (top prize)
You Don’t Belong Here
Dir/Wri/Edi: Florin Şerban (If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle)
Synopsis:
Follows a physician who is crushed when police suspect his teenage son of murdering an old Romani man, then discovers his son has a secret life of vandalizing cars with masked vigilantes.
Special Jury Prize:
The Riverbank (A Margem do Rio)
Dir: Matheus Farias (editor The Secret Agent), Enock Carvalho (Unbelievable)
Synopsis:
In Recife, a city of rivers and mangroves, Izaquiel seeks secret encounters in the mangroves at night. His world is turned upside down when he meets Jeremias, a magnetic fisherman who changes everything.
Best Direction / Best Performance
Nowhere to Lay My Eyes
Dir/Wri/Edi: Hong Sang-soo (Right Now, Wrong Then)
Cast: Kim Minhee
Synopsis:
Follows Sanghee as she visits her mother on Jeju Island after 10 years, reuniting with her brother and meeting her stepfather and his daughter while navigating family dynamics and personal pursuits.
Full list of winners here.
Mini Tidbits:
Genre cinema gets its own spotlight at TIFF: The Market this September, as Fantasia’s Frontières unveils seven in-development projects for its inaugural showcase. Here are the standouts.
Distributor and international sales agency Lightdox (Venice’s Do You Love Me) has snagged the rights to Venice sidebar premiering Auber 89, an archival footage documentary from Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Schillaci (Bosco Grande). The doc follows an Algerian actor who, after losing his memory, confronts his childhood through found footage of his youth. Trailer
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Joachim Trier’s go-to writer Eskil Vogt is making his return to the director’s chair for his third feature, Untitled.
A two-time Oscar nominee for co-writing Trier’s Sentimental Value (2025) and The Worst Person in the World (2021), Vogt just received backing in a $1M production grant from the Norwegian Film Institute for his newest feature.
Following his directorial debut, the Sundance premiere of Blind (2014), and his Cannes premiere of the supernatural horror The Innocents (2021), little is known about Untitled beyond that it is a thriller about “art, power and the blurred boundaries between memory and truth.”
Vogt will write and direct, with Sentimental Value producer Mer Film attached.
Mini Tidbits:
Following its Tribeca premiere, Myriad Pictures (Bob Trevino Likes It) will be launching Clean Hands, the Zach Braff-led true-life drama, for international sales at the TIFF market. The film sees Braff as a police officer whose morals are questioned when his own daughter gets caught up in an illegal cycle. Vertical has US rights.
Oscar-nominated director Mark Rydell, best known for 1980’s On Golden Pond, has died at 97. Starring Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda, sharing the screen with his daughter Jane Fonda, the humorous and heartwarming family drama became the defining film of Rydell’s career. Rydell leaves behind a film that has made generations laugh, cry, and feel a little closer to home (trailer).
Austria picks Rose, starring Sandra Hüller, for its official submission for the Oscars for Best International Film. The film premiered at Berlin and won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. Synopsis: A soldier in the 17th century arrives at an isolated Protestant village in Germany claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farmstead. Trailer. Austria’s last Oscar win was Amour (2012), which also won the Palme d’Or.
ON THIS DAY
1939. The Wizard of Oz opens at Loew’s Capitol Theatre, NYC.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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