Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Robert Pattinson’s Time, Alan Ritchson’s Reach, and Cheese.
Let’s go!
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Robert Pattinson doesn’t mind wading into slippery moral territory.
He’s now taking on the role of Chris Hansen, most famous for hosting Dateline’s To Catch a Predator (2004-2007) series, which outed child predators live on TV.
The dicey morality of that show was recently explored in Paramount+’s doc Predators (2025), which ultimately showed how these accused child predators were ensnared by a TV show designed for drama at the expense of their mental and physical health. At one point, the doc shows us a man caught by Hansen, who, instead of surrendering to the authorities, ends his own life.
We love this role for Pattinson because it allows him to play in both territories in which he excels: the slimy self-confident protagonist, as demonstrated so well in Tenet (2020) and Good Time (2017), while also delving into the more twisted ethical territory that his recent films occupy.
Recently, he starred in A24’s The Drama, where he must reckon with the newfound information that his soon-to-be wife (Zendaya) has a past so twisted it may be beyond repair. Previously, Pattinson was paired with Jennifer Lawrence in Mubi’s Die My Love (2025), where he was confounded by her violent postpartum depression, moving from an equally wild partner to a disenchanted caretaker.
To see Pattinson move from self-confident to morally corrupt is a beautiful arc that bridges the emotional territory of his iconic performances. We can’t wait to see what he delivers.
For More:
A24’s Primetime trailer.
Paramount+’s Predators trailer.
A 6-minute quasi-trailer for Dateline’s original To Catch a Predator show.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Alan Ritchson signs three-year first-look TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios.
David E. Kelley adapts book Nightshade as HBO Max series Welcome to Catalina.
Amazon MGM sets Michael Bublé and Drew Scott hockey docuseries.
Matthew Perry’s former assistant gets 3.5 years in prison.
Curry Barker (dir: Obsession) fields eight-figure offers for his next original film.
Ted Danson cast as Elizabeth Banks’ father in Apple’s new comedy series.
Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie casts Willa Dunn as Nellie Oleson.
Amazon MGM greenlights three AI series.
Tribeca premieres AI-produced feature Dreams of Violets.
Mk2 picks up sci-fi feature Two Sleepy People.
Greenwich Entertainment acquires Plan B’s micro-budget film Olmo.
Willa acquires Take Me Home, which premiered at Sundance.
Obscured Releasing picks up cheese-competition doc The Big Cheese.
AF México acquires remake rights to Italian hit Follemente.
Yesterday’s correct answer: 2002, the year Focus Features was founded.
42% got it right.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Alan Ritchson (Reacher) signs a three-year first-look TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios. Under the new deal, Ritchson and his production company, Dancing Skeleton, will develop new projects for Prime Video.
Ritchson has been building an ongoing relationship with Amazon MGM as the titular character Jack Reacher for 3 seasons in Prime Video’s Reacher, with the fourth season set to premiere later this year. Season 3 of the show garnered more than 54M global viewers in its first 19 days of release, setting a record for the most-watched returning season of television on Prime Video.
Ritchson is also a producer and a star in two Amazon MGM films, the Christmas movie The Man With the Bag starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and an untitled Vietnam War film.
Prime’s biggest series all seem to tilt toward action from The Boys, to The Rings of Power to Fallout to Reacher, so doubling down on Ritchson is smart business.
Tidbits:
Big Little Lies and L.A. Law creator David E. Kelley is adapting bestseller Nightshade into a series inspired by yet another Michael Connelly crime novel for HBO Max. Titled Welcome To Catalina, the series is centered on an exiled former country sheriff whose slow-moving, quiet work on Catalina Island is interrupted when a lifeless body is found in the harbor. The development news comes amid filming for the fifth and final season of Kelley and Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer.
Amazon MGM Studios recruits Grammy-winning artist Michael Bublé and Property Brothers’ reality realtor Drew Scott for the docuseries Hometown Giants. The six-part series will follow the two stars as new part-owners of their childhood’s local hockey team, the Vancouver Giants. In similar Welcome to Wrexham fashion, the docuseries will explore its two dedicated star owners and a team overflowing with potential, this time set in the competitive world of Canadian junior hockey.
Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison (he faced up to 15 years). Iwamasa stopped seeing Perry in his callous pursuit of profit. Read more about Perry’s incredible life and battle with addiction here: https://theindustry.co/p/matthew-perry-sylvester-stallone-a-cactus
Mini Tidbit:
Curry Barker (Dir: Obsession) is getting 8-figure offers for his next movie that he hasn’t even pitched yet. Studios have gone as far as offering $10M for Barker’s next original film. And that tracks as Obsession has already made $80M on a $1M budget.
The Jim Henson Company, formerly known as Muppets, Inc., hires Shirley Bowers as VP of Global Distribution.
Private investment firm Advaya Capital completes a deal to buy Box Office Data firm Comscore Movies. They paid $70M.
Byron Allen closes major purchase: 52% of BuzzFeed for $120M. He will become the majority shareholder and the CEO.
Howard Storm, the director of legendary sitcoms of the 70s and the 80s, dies at 94. Storm’s extraordinary career included ABC’s Mork & Mindy, which was Robin Williams’ big break, as well as episodes of Full House, Rhoda, ALF, and Valerie.
Renewals:
Prime Video’s The Rings of Power (renewed for S4)
Filming: 2027
Toho’s cult anime Dorohedoro (renewed for S3)
Trailers:
Sony Pictures Classics’ Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
Cast: Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, John Slattery
Release: July 10
Prime Video’s Groundswell
Cast: Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson
Release: June 5
Mubi’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Dir: Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow)
Cast: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson
Release: Aug 7
Universal Pictures’ Disclosure Day
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Release: June 12
Action Thriller Citizen Vigilante
Dir: Uwe Boll
Cast: Armie Hammer
Release: June 19
Netflix’s Enola Holmes 3
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Louis Partridge, Himesh Patel, Henry Cavill
Release: July 1
Tandem Pictures’ Test
Release: TBD
Disney+’s X-Men ‘97 S2
Release: July 1
First Look:
HBO’s The White Lotus S4
First Look at Cannes scene
Cast: Chloe Bennet, Ben Kingsley, Vincent Cassel, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Charlie Davis
Apple’s Last Seen
Release: Sept 19
Release Dates:
Penny Lane’s Owl doc Wild Inside
Cast: Flaco, the Eagle-Owl
U.S. Premiere: July 29
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Ted Danson is beginning to learn his way around a retirement community. Apple TV’s next comedy series cast the Cheers actor to play divorcée Elizabeth Banks’ father, whose retirement sexcapades get in the way of her second act for herself and her kids.
In the recently renewed Netflix comedy A Man on the Inside, Danson plays a retired professor who goes undercover at a retirement community as a favor for a private investigator.
The untitled Apple series has not yet begun production.
Mini Tidbits:
Adam Godley (Elliot in Breaking Bad) has Conviction. Godley joins the cast of Hulu’s Conviction, a legal drama starring Elisabeth Moss from creator David Shore (House). No word on Godley’s role, but he had a fragile stiffness as the billionaire in Breaking Bad that was iconic.
It wouldn’t be Laura Ingalls Wilder’s story if a pestering Nellie Oleson wasn’t over her shoulder. The second season of Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie reboot casts Willa Dunn (Only Murders in the Building) as Nellie, the spoiled playground bully who, beneath her mean-girl persona, yearns for true friendship. S1 premieres on Netflix this July.
A$AP Rocky, who’s had quite a year acting in a pair of A24 films (Highest 2 Lowest and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), is getting Tribeca X’s Filmmaker of the Year Award.
Two obits:
Charles Cioffi, best known for his performance as Tom Cruise’s dad in All the Right Moves (1983) and Lt. Vic Androzzi in the original Shaft (1971), dies at 90. He also made appearances in TV shows like Days of Our Lives, The A-Team, The X-Files, NYPD Blue, and Hawaii Five-0.
French actor Pierre Deny (Tomorrow Is Ours), known for his role on Netflix’s Emily in Paris, has died at 69 from his battle with ALS. Deny appeared as the scene-stealing fashion boss Louis de Léon, a recurring antagonist in the drama’s third and fourth seasons.
TECH SECTION
AI film is flooding the zone. Today, three big announcements:
First, Amazon MGM and Amazon Web Services greenlit 3x AI series, including Cupcake & Friends from BuzzFeed Studios. Full details here.
Second, the Tribeca Film Festival is premiering the first fully AI-produced feature, Dreams of Violets (trailer), EP’d by Tom Rogers (former Pres: NBC Cable).
Third, Artlist, the stock footage site, is serving as the production company on an AI horror film, Terrarium, produced by Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity).
Luckily, if any of these end up on YouTube, they’ll be labeled as AI creations.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Mk2’s Iron Lung play. French sales rep mk2 (which had 7 films at Cannes, including Grand Prix winner Minotaur), just picked up European rights for Two Sleepy People.
Synopsis:
Two office colleagues become spouses each night, only to return as strangers when morning comes.
It’s almost like a dream-like version of Groundhog Day by way of Severance. Incredibly, the film was made for $100K by digital creators Baron Ryan (2.9M TikTok followers) and Caroline Grossman (294K IG followers).
We’ve been seeing massive success for digital creators turned filmmakers recently:
Iron Lung
Dir: Markiplier (38.6M YT subs)
$40.9M domestic total
$50M worldwide
$3-4M budget
Club Kid
Dir: Jordan Fistman (823K IG followers)
Sold to A24 at Cannes for $17M
Backrooms
Dir: Kane Parsons (3.1M YT subs)
A24 film that is tracking to open at $40M
We wish mk2 the best of luck for this sci-fi mind-bender.
Three acquisitions:
Plan B’s first micro-budget film Olmo just got picked up by Greenwich Entertainment for North American rights. When the film premiered at TIFF we did a deep-dive interview with the director, Fernando Eimbcke (Duck Season) and Plan B co-president Jeremy Kleiner: https://theindustry.co/p/plan-b-a-gem
Olmo premieres August 7.
Willa (dist: The Voice of Hind Rajab) acquired rights to the Sundance premiering Take Me Home, Liz Sargent’s feature debut. The film follows Korean adoptee Anna who while caring for her aging parents experiences in their Florida suburb experiences a sweltering heat wave that changes everything. Willa is planning a fall theatrical run.
Indie distributor Obscured Releasing (Endless Cookie) has picked up North American rights to The Big Cheese. The film follows an underdog American team that competes for first place at France’s Cheese Olympics. It plays like a heartfelt cheese version of those old Food Network chocolate sculpture competitions (trailer). Releasing in August.
International tidbits:
AF México’s remake
Warp Films (Prod Co: Netflix’s Adolescence) new hire
All3Media exec retires
All those tidbits and more here.
ON THIS DAY
1976. Taxi Driver wins the Palme d'Or.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Madelyn Menapace, and Tony Jaeyeong Jeong.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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