Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Walton Goggins’ bad day, Michael Mann’s Western, and a Landmark.
Let’s go!
If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Walton Goggins stars in Painter for 20th Century Studios.
Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) will direct Comanche, a Western Michael Mann co-wrote.
Paramount will lay off ~2,000 staff (≈11%) next week.
Apple lands exclusive U.S. Formula 1 rights starting 2026 for $750M.
Fifth Season adapts the upcoming thriller novel The Au Pair for film.
Jeffrey Schlesinger, former WB TV distribution chief, joins Kartoon Studios.
Sumerian Pictures names Rob Williams (ex-Participant Media) President of Content Strategy.
Vinnie Malhotra exits Higher Ground, where he served as president.
Composer Klaus Doldinger (Das Boot, The NeverEnding Story) dies at 89.
HBO’s Euphoria S3 casts Natasha Lyonne, Danielle Deadwyler.
Jake Lacy to star opposite Emmy Rossum in Hulu’s Furious.
Matty Matheson & Imogen Poots join Jeremy Saulnier’s A24 thriller October.
Landmarks (Nuestra Tierra) wins Best Film at BFI.
Sky acquires Cookster: The Darkest Days, a British crime drama.
John Carpenter to EP John Carpenter Presents, a new horror anthology for Elevation Pictures.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Walton Goggins will play a damsel in distress. Goggins (White Lotus Season 3) is starring in the next John-Wick-esque action film, Painter.
The team is top-notch:
Cast: Goggins, Amber Midthunder (Novocaine)
Dir: Garret Warren
Writer: Derek Kolstad (John Wick, Nobody)
EP: James Cameron
Studio: 20th Century Studios
Synopsis:
A young woman (Midthunder), trained in combat from childhood, uses her skills to rescue her kidnapped father (Goggins), embarking on a perilous mission that tests her abilities to the limit.
Immediately when I read the synopsis, I think of Goggins as a passive father, tied up in some lair, waiting to be saved. These tropes are what John Wick writer Kolstad excels at exploring, then exploding.
The casting of Goggins seems to me to say one thing. No matter who this father character is, Goggins brings a tremendous amount of interiority to every role he plays. And one can look no further than the White Lotus hotel in Thailand, a place of paradise, to see how Goggins can turn anything into a mental prison.
Scott Cooper (dir: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Crazy Heart) will direct Comanche, a western that Michael Mann wrote with Eric Roth (Dune) all the way back in the early 2000s.
Inspired by the true story of Cynthia Ann Parker, it centers on a white girl abducted by Comanches who later becomes part of the tribe.
Mann said he’ll produce rather than direct, while focusing on Heat 2, which he hopes to shoot in 2026.
There’s a quality to Cooper’s filmmaking that can quickly flip from heartfelt to gritty that translates to a western quite nicely. His film Out of the Furnace (2013) probably shares the most DNA with Comanche. Or just check out his feature debut, Crazy Heart trailer. Some of these shots already feel like a western.
The layoffs at Paramount are coming.
It’s our understanding that the first round of the post-Skydance Paramount merger layoffs is coming as early as next week. Around 2000 people will be laid off across all departments (11% of staff).
Skydance’s staff is less than 2000 people, and we expect many will be replacing their counterparts at Paramount.
CEO David Ellison is also looking to use these cuts to save around $2bn.
Tidbits:
Apple has secured exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to Formula 1 beginning in 2026, marking the sport’s first full streaming deal. The five-year pact, reportedly worth $140–150M annually, ends ESPN’s tenure and includes full race coverage on Apple TV. The deal builds on Apple’s relationship from F1: The Movie and also mirrors a broader trend across media, with Paramount also investing heavily in live sports rights (7-year, $7.7 billion deal for UFC).
Fifth Season is partnering with novelist Teddy Wayne to adapt his seventh psychological thriller, The Au Pair. The novel follows a former acclaimed novelist whose only form of solace is through his Norwegian au pair, with Wayne adapting the screenplay.
Executive Moves:
Vinnie Malhotra, the former president of the Obama’s production company Higher Ground, exits his role after two years. Previously Showtime’s head of docs, Malhotra produced several of Higher Ground’s biggest projects, like Netflix’s Starting 5, the ten-part basketball series that just dropped its second season on the streamer. There is no word on where Malhotra will go next.
Previous Warner Bros. Worldwide Television President of Distribution, Jeffrey Schlesinger, has boarded Kartoon Studios (Rainbow Rangers). Once WB’s top TV seller overseeing distribution on shows like Friends and Game of Thrones, Schlesinger’s experience will now go towards securing high-profile partnerships across linear and streaming platforms worldwide to build up Kartoon’s brand.
Indie studio Sumerian Pictures (Queen of the Ring) hires Rob Williams as new President of Content Strategy. The longtime film exec will oversee strategy and distribution, looking to expand the studio’s entire film slate. Williams previously worked in sales and distribution at Participant Media (Roma).
Mini Tidbits:
Lindsay Dougherty, the Teamsters Local Secretary Treasurer (who served as the Chief negotiator during the strikes), has been re-elected.
Klaus Doldinger, the German jazz saxophonist and composer behind Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story. Clip. has died at 89. A pioneer of European jazz-fusion, he founded Passport in 1971, releasing dozens of albums over five decades.
Trailer:
Wood Entertainment’s Tim Burton: Life in the Line
Release: Halloween
Release dates:
A24’s The Drama
Cast: Zendaya, Robert Pattinson
Dir: Kristoffer Borgli (Dream Scenario)
Release: April 3, 2026
Brainstorm Media’s Tinsel Town
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Rebel Wilson
Theatrical/VOD Release: Nov 28
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
After a three-year hiatus and much speculation, HBO’s Euphoria is back with an all-new cast. Joining previous stars like Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Colman Domingo, to name a few, some of the biggest new additions include:
Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face)
Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson)
Kwame Patterson (The Wire)
Sam Trammell (Homeland)
While we do know there will be some time jump, all plot details and new character roles remain undisclosed. The Sam Levinson and A24 collaboration is set to finally premiere its third and final season next spring on HBO.
Tidbits:
From The White Lotus to Peacock’s Apples Never Fall, Jake Lacy is taking on a new murder mystery series in Furious, Hulu’s loosely inspired Black Widow (1987) remake. Unlike his previous very unlikeable roles, Lacy will play Marshall, a charismatic and loving former fling of FBI agent Alice (played by Shameless’ Emmy Rossum) in the new series. With no drop date announced, Furious is currently in its post-production stage. White Lotus Jake Lacy Clips.
Matty Matheson (The Bear) & Imogen Poots will join Jeremy Saulnier’s A24 thriller October, starring Corey Michael Smith (Gotham). Plot details remain secret, though it’s being described as a fugitive thriller set during Halloween. We loved Matheson’s work in The Bear as the goofball.
Chloe Coleman (My Spy) joins Taylor Sheridan’s action film F.A.S.T., directed by Ben Richardson (1923) and starring Brandon Sklenar (1923). The film follows a former special forces commando (Sklenar) recruited by the DEA for a covert mission against CIA-backed drug dealers. Coleman will play his daughter.
Oscar-nominated British actress Samantha Eggar (The Collector) has passed away at 86. The actress had a streak of high-profile roles, like in J. Lee Thompson’s Return From the Ashes (1965, scene) and as love interest Emma Fairfax in the original Doctor Dolittle (1967).
FESTIVALS
The 69th BFI London Film Festival has come to a close with a strong lineup of winners.
Landmarks (Nuestra Tierra) took top honors as Best Film in the official competition. The film had its world premiere (out of competition) at Venice. Directed by Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman)
Synopsis:
Armed men kill indigenous leader Javier Chocobar during attempted eviction in Argentina, 2009. After years of protests, a court case opens in 2018, community voices and trial footage amid colonial land struggles.
Other Winners:
The Sutherland Award (Best First Feature):
One Woman One Bra
Dir/Wri: Vincho Nchogu (AD: Driftwood)
Synopsis:
In a rural village, an orphaned girl named Star races against time to prove her family lineage and claim her land deed, facing obstacles from hostile neighbors and shady organizations while unexpectedly finding romance along the way.
Grierson Documentary Award:
The Travelers
Dir/Wri: David Bingong
Synopsis:
An African filmmaker documents his 2014 migration to Spain alongside fellow travelers, capturing their shared bonds, laughter, and unwavering optimism as they pursue their dreams of a new beginning.
Full list of winners here.
Daytime Emmy full list of winners here. Netflix took 10. Apple took 3. Sir David Attenborough took 1.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Sky has acquired Cookster: The Darkest Days, a British crime drama starring Nick Moran (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Harry Potter) and Tracy Shaw (Coronation Street), inspired by writer Jason Cook’s life. It follows a dyslexic teen drawn into the drug trade from 1981 to 1993.
Actress and model Lydia Hearst (mom: Patty Hearst) is starting Barn Loft Productions, a female-led company focused on sharing women’s stories with several projects already in the works.
Barn Loft’s first two features are film adaptations of viral books, Don’t Fall Asleep and Rektok Ross’ Summer Rental, both in the middle of production. The third film is a doc following Lydia’s mother, Patty Hearst, who lived a widely tumultuous life, to say the least, which the Barn Loft founder will direct and produce.
Mini Tidbits:
Some great Korean actors, Yoo Hae-jin (Exhuma, A Taxi Driver), Park Hae-il (Decision to Leave, The Host), and Lee Min-ho (Boys Over Flowers), are set to star in Assassins, a 1974-set political thriller by Hur Jin-ho (A Normal Family). Produced by Hive Media Corp (12.12: The Day), it’s slated for 2026.
U.K.-based Kids Fight Productions (acclaimed doc Kids Fight) is working on their first narrative project, In the Company of Strangers, an adaptation of Pakistani author Awais Khan’s debut novel. Filmmaker Sarah Tareen (dir. Kids Fight) is spearheading the project, hoping to bring more Pakistani stories to the U.K.
Famous horror musician and producer John Carpenter will EP a new horror anthology series, John Carpenter Presents, for Elevation Pictures. Created by Michael Amo (Pure) and Will Pascoe (Orphan Black), its first season is set in the Alaskan wilderness. I am sure Carpenter’s visual style and music will be all over this.
ON THIS DAY
1956. Danny Boyle born in Manchester, England.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram
Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co