Vince Vaughn with a Chance of Meatballs
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Vince Vaughn, Zach Galifianakis and Legendary’s Magic.
Let’s go!
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Vince Vaughn and some spicy meatballs.
Vaughn will star in Netflix’s upcoming Nonnas. He plays a man working a dead-end job who loses his Italian mother, which triggers him to open a restaurant and hire grandmas as chefs.
If this was 2005, that could read as a rom-com premise.
Vaughn would have Wedding Crashers levels of fun, getting into some hijinks in the kitchen, accidentally falling in love with one of the grandma’s daughters, etc.
But the trailer plays nothing like this.
Instead, it is not Vaughn with the infectious energy but the grandmas, played by:
Susan Sarandon
Lorraine Bracco (Ray Liotta’s mobster wife in Goodfellas - Oscar Nominee for Best Supporting Actress)
Talia Shire (The shy love interest in Rocky - Oscar Nominee for Best Actress)
Brenda Vaccaro (Midnight Cowboy)
Their charisma is off-the-charts, and that totality of energy is meant to shake Vaughn out of his rut.
As a viewer of many 2000s films, I hunger for that carefree Vaughn. But his role as a career criminal in True Detective Season 2 allowed him to slip into a darker range (with mixed success).
However, this subtle darkness still rests inside the Vaughn we see today. In Nonnas, it will serve as a great contrast to the zesty grandmas. The film promises familiar comfort food with just enough bite to surprise.
Directed by Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Dear Evan Hansen). Release date: May 9th.
For More:
Nonnas trailer.
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Matt Johnson (dir: BlackBerry) is in talks to direct a Magic: The Gathering movie adaptation.
Brandon Camp (dir: Benji) is working on another dog movie, Wishbone.
Brad Pitt’s Plan B is in talks for a second season of Adolescence.
Last Of Us renewed for a third season ahead of its season 2 premiere.
Steven Spielberg’s longtime publicist and advisor, Martin Levy, has died at 96.
Zach Galifianakis will co-star in AMC’s The Audacity set in present-day Silicon Valley.
John Turturro will star in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
Amazon’s series adaptation of Carrie casts Siena Agudong (Resident Evil series).
Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice series eyes Jack Lowden for Mr. Darcy.
Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Dir: The Beasts) is set to be President of the Jury for Cannes Critis Week.
Sundance Institute’s 2025 Episodic Intensive finds eight screenwriting fellows for its 3rd edition.
Briarcliff Entertainment (The Apprentice) acquires The Thing with Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Matt Spicer (dir: Ingrid Goes West) is back working on a new comedy for Netflix, Little Brother.
Just ahead of its premiere, the mafia series Cold Summer has been sold by Beta Film.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Matt Johnson, acclaimed for indie hits like BlackBerry and Operation Avalanche, is in talks to direct a Magic: The Gathering movie adaptation for Legendary Entertainment and Hasbro. A few months ago, we reported that Hasbro had begun development for a cinematic universe, expanding into TV and other media. No other details are known right now, but I'd sure like to Scry 1 on the script, if you know what I mean. Magic is a complex game with worlds stacked upon worlds; there is plenty of lore to mine. But will Magic get non-turbo nerds in seats? I end my turn.
Tidbit:
Benji (2018) writer and director Brandon Camp seems to enjoy working with dogs. Camp is attached to direct Wishbone, a feature adaptation of Barbara O’Connor’s bestselling children’s novel Wish. The story follows an eleven-year-old girl who learns the true meaning of family through the help of her aunt and uncle and the dog of her dreams. Joey Clarke Jr., an up-and-coming screenwriter, is currently penning the script.
Three renewals:
Brad Pitt’s Plan B is in talks for a second season of Adolescence after its massive Netflix success. The aim is to expand the story without losing its core. Director Philip Barantini’s (Peaky Blinders) true, real one-take method is an unbelievable feat of filmmaking. Season 1 trailer here.
Last Of Us is renewed for a third season ahead of its season 2 premiere on April 13th. This is shaping up to be one of the most successful and faithful videogame adaptations of all time.
AMC renews Mayfair Witches for Season 3.
Three Obits:
Two well-known Publicists have sadly passed away.
Steven Spielberg’s longtime publicist and advisor, Martin Levy, has died at 96 years young. In his tribute, the director shared:
“For over 50 years, he was a deeply loyal and exceptional collaborator who was respected and appreciated by all those who were lucky enough to learn from his counsel.”
Outside of his work with Spielberg, he worked on multiple marketing campaigns of films like Taxi Driver (1976), Back to the Future (1985), Shrek (2001), and many more. During his impressively long career, Levy was the only PR rep to ever win an Honorary Academy Award in 2018.
Publicist and marketing executive Susan Senk has also passed, leaving behind a legacy of over 400 films. During her time at Vestron Pictures, she most noticeably led the marketing campaign behind Dirty Dancing (1987), which grossed $213M, making it, at the time, the highest-grossing independent film. Her influence was great, and she will be very missed.
Richard Kahn, former president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, has passed at 95. While he only served a one-year term as president, he had an extensive marketing background involved in films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Oliver! (1968).
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Zach Galifianakis shrugged. Galifianakis will co-star in the AMC and AMC+ series The Audacity set in present-day Silicon Valley, created by Jonathan Glatzer (producer/writer: Better Call Saul, Succession).
Synopsis:
In Silicon Valley's competitive tech world, a power struggle erupts between an ambitious CEO and his manipulative psychologist when a data privacy scandal threatens their careers.
Galifianakis will play a “disillusioned tech entrepreneur” who vows never to return to Silicon Valley. And while Galifianakis excels at being the first one at the party (Hangover), he has a profound disillusionment in FX’s Baskets (trailer) that will map onto this role. The show will premiere sometime in 2025.
John Turturro is a Pickpocket. Turturro will star in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. The line-up is fantastic:
Financier: MRC (Saltburn, Wuthering Heights)
Prod Comp: Rian Johnson’s T-Street (Knvies Out)
Dir/Wri: Noah Segan (Actor: Looper, Knives Out)
Synopsis:
Harry (Turturro), a career pickpocket, is forced into a desperate, high-stakes race against time through the streets of his city.
That’s not a lot of detail to work with, but Turturro plays a quick-witted NYC hustling lawyer in HBO’s The Night Of, and we can see how those street-smart qualities can leak into this performance. Sounds like a fun one. The grittier, the better for our taste.
Currently in production in NYC.
Tidbits:
You may have picked up on Alexander Skarsgård’s machine-like qualities in Sucession (clip). But nothing does it like him playing a literal killing machine in Apple TV+’s Murderbot. Skarsgård stars as a security android gone rogue… emotionally. This means he can run around and help humans kill giant space bugs, but he may feel guilty afterward. The series is directed by Paul Weitz and his brother Chris, who wrote The Creator, another story about a human-like robot. Described more as a slice-of-life comedy than a gritty sci-fi, this could be a pattern for Apple subverting the genre as it did for Severance. Trailer here.
The Amazon series adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie has cast Siena Agudong (No Good Nick) in the series regular role of Sue Snell. Initially one of many bullies involved in the now infamously cruel bathroom prank, Sue is one of the only characters to feel guilty and try to befriend Carrie. Agusong has experience playing immature and easily influenced characters from her Nickelodeon days on the network's Nicky,Ricky, Dicky, & Dawn (2015-2018). Veteran horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Oculus) is behind the series, which is looking to start shooting in Vancouver sometime this summer.
Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice series eyes Jack Lowden for Mr. Darcy. Known for brooding charisma and restrained intensity in Slow Horses and Dunkirk, Lowden seems a natural fit for Austen’s aloof yet smoldering romantic hero.
Showtime’s Shameless. Colleen Hoover’s Leading Man and a Monsterverse:
https://theindustry.co/p/shameless-hoover-monsterverse
FESTIVALS
Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Dir: The Beasts) is set to be President of the Jury for Cannes Critis Week. Daniel Kaluuya will also serve as one of the jury members. More info here.
Locarno Pro launches the Locarno Investment Community to link indie film financiers with European creatives, fostering new funding models and global collaboration for independent cinema. Hooray!
Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition film Sauana (2025) has just sold North American rights to Breaking Glass a genre, romance distributor. The film was also sold to Germany and Spain is set within Copenhagen's queer community (trailer).
Sundance Institute’s 2025 Episodic Intensive finds eight screenwriting fellows for its 3rd edition.
These two projects caught our eye:
Aaron Baumann with The Darkness Inside Us: A documentary crew follows a misfit team of demonology researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison led by Dr. Edgar Gray, who himself is a 3-foot-tall, demon-possessed marionette puppet.
Patricia Kelly with Humdrum: A heartbroken court transcriber inappropriately interferes in the cases she types to try to find justice for victims but quickly loses sight of what’s right and what’s very wrong.
Full list here.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Briarcliff Entertainment (The Apprentice) acquires one of my Sundance favorites, The Thing with Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
It is a wild, visceral, and violent film with Cumberbatch playing a grieving father after the unexpected death of his wife. He shoulders the horrific responsibility of raising his two young sons as a single parent. His grief manifests into a litreal giant crow that haunts the dark corners of his mind and then his home.
Release date October 31st.
Director Matt Spicer broke on to the scene with his dark comedy Ingrid Goes West (2017) and is now back working on a new comedy for Netflix called Little Brother.
Led by John Cena and Eric André as a very funny duo that is both unexpected but also makes perfect sense, the film follows a famous real estate agent whose world is upended when his eccentric “little brother” unexpectedly reappears.
The premise seems a little more lighthearted than his satirical stalker story. In addition to directing, Spicer also wrote the script for Little Brother with David Branson Smith (wri: Adrift). Middle Child Pictures (Immaculate) is producing.
Mubi will release Lurker, a Sundance-acclaimed thriller starring Théodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe.
Here’s the synopsis:
A retail employee infiltrates the inner circle of an artist on the verge of stardom. As he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.
Alex Russell, who served as a supervising producer on Beef and The Bear, is making his directorial debut.
North American theaters on August 22.
Tidbits:
Triple threat couple Jillie and Thomas Simon have begun production on their debut feature Real, True 100 Percent Love, a romantic spy comedy that blends espionage with music. In addition to directing and writing, Jillie also stars in the film alongside an ensemble cast of Jackie Hoffman (Garden State), Josh Cooke (Dexter), Greg Kriek (Rebel Moon), and many more. Mise En Scène Company is on board to produce, with principal photography currently being done in Bucharest, Romania.
Just ahead of its premiere, the mafia series Cold Summer has been sold by Beta Film to Walter Presents for North American distribution. Set in southern Italy in the early 90s, the eight-part series follows the rocky relationship between a small-time Mafia boss and an upright police sergeant. Cold Summer premieres on Channel 4 in the U.K. on April 13th.
ON THIS DAY
1957. 12 Angry Men is released.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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