Warner Bros. Auteur Horror
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Weapons, Michael Bay, and a kitchen.
Let’s go!
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Warner Bros. is on a winning streak.
Minecraft is a propulsive Gen Z juggernaut on its way to $1bn.
And their ambitious slate of originals has just popped off with the biggest original film opening in half a decade with Sinners, one of the top-rated horror films of all time.
But the crowning jewel may be the upcoming Weapons by director Zach Cregger.
In a time when horror remains the only non-IP genre regularly leading the box office — and a proven launchpad for breakout auteurs — Weapons feels poised to continue a tradition sparked by landmark first films:
Rob Eggers’ The Witch (2016)
Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018)
Rose Glass’ Saint Maud (2019)
Cregger is the latest in this lineup with his first feature, Barbarian, debuting in 2022. It is one of the strangest yet most rewarding films in this genre. And Cregger’s ability to play with filmic structure, e.g., the cut to Justin Long, is diabolical.
We’re told his new film, Weapons, is structured in the vein of P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia — also a New Line/Warner Bros. release. Naturally, our film-nerd amygdala kicks into hyperdrive.
Here’s a synopsis:
When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
If Weapons delivers on its promise, Warner Bros. won’t just have a hit—they’ll have minted the next master of modern horror.
The film is stacked with Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich (Fair Play), and Austin Abrams (Wolfs).
Release date August 8th.
For More:
Weapons trailer.
Barbarian trailer.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
The Academy is changing the rules on eligibility, AI, and PR.
Universal is adapting Sega’s OutRun with Michael Bay directing and Sydney Sweeney producing.
Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse and his son are developing a new live-action Star Wars series for Lucasfilm.
The original Tremors creators at Stampede Entertainment have reclaimed rights to the franchise.
Ready or Not: Here I Come casts Sarah Michelle Gellar and Elijah Wood.
Joel McHale is dipping his toes in the musical genre with Reimagined.
Succession’s Alan Ruck is the latest to join the upcoming horror thriller Corporate Retreat.
Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) replaces the late Carl Weathers as Combat Carl in Toy Story 5.
Edward James Olmos (Blade Runner) joins the cast of the series M.I.A from the co-creator of Ozark.
Mubi acquires domestic streaming rights for La Cocina, our favorite film of last year.
Gravitas Ventures has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to the thriller What We Hide.
Historical epic Chhaava has grossed a massive $84M in India.
Film viewership among Netflix’s APAC subscribers grew by 20% in 2024.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
The Academy is changing the rules. After last year’s Oscars, where there were reports of members not watching the 3.5-hour The Brutalist, The Academy has codified that all members must watch all the nominated films to be able to vote in the final Oscars round.
Other changes were AI-focused, with The Academy stating:
“With regard to Generative AI and other digital tools used in the making of the film, the tools neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination. The Academy and each branch will judge the achievement, taking into account the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship…”
To me, this says that if you make a film that heavily leans on AI, it can still get nominated, but the voting humans will be the final arbiter of how award-worthy something made of non-human components is.
Seems fair.
And finally, a word regarding PR:
“Public communications (including any social media posts, reposts, shares and comments) may not disparage the techniques used in or subject matter of any motion picture. Any Academy member, motion picture company or individual directly associated with an eligible motion picture found to be in violation will be subject to penalization.”
Read the full list of rule updates here.
Universal is gunning for another video game cash grab, this time adapting Sega’s OutRun—a game known for vibes, not plot—into a Michael Bay-directed explosion-fest.
Surprisingly, Sydney Sweeney has signed on to produce, but has not yet acknowledged if she will act in it. With Bay at the wheel, expect slow-mo stares, fast cars, and at least one Ferrari airborne by minute 12.
Excuse the pun, this is definitely in his wheelhouse, it just feels like the meaning of this is paper thin, and I fear we are running out of good video game adaptations by the minute. Do we really think OutRun is going to bring home the gold?
Come on y’all…
Carlton Cuse (Showrunner of Lost) and his son Nick Cuse are developing a new live-action Star Wars series for Lucasfilm, marking their first collaboration together. Details about the project remain tightly under wraps. But the timing of this makes it the first newly revealed Star Wars series in a quieter era of Disney+ development. With Disney's scaling back and refocusing on less niche Star Wars shows, this could be them pulling out the big guns.
Mini Tidbits:
The original Tremors creators at Stampede Entertainment have reclaimed rights to the franchise and are planning for a new sequel. Kevin Bacon’s return is possible, but no remake is planned. The original was a fun but terrifying film that harkened back to horror B movies with a satisfying grime. Trailer.
The PGA Awards will take place February 28, 2026.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
The highly anticipated Ready or Not (2019) sequel is officially titled Ready or Not: Here I Come and sees the addition of Sarah Michelle Gellar (I Know What You Did Last Summer), David Cronenberg (the director!), and Elijah Wood, joining the returning Samara Weaving.
First gaining mega mainstream recognition for LOTR, Wood has seen some sort of resurgence this past year with a recurring role on Paramount+’s plane crash thriller Yellowjackets and the Neon Oz Perkins’ horror film The Monkey (trailer). He has a bright innocence that can cover his darker motivations like in Eternal Sunshine when he impersonates Jim Carrey to win Kate Winslet.
The original film (trailer) was an unexpected hit for Searchlight, earning more than $57M worldwide on a modest budget of $6M. Original directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are returning to write the script, with production just beginning in Toronto.
Joel McHale is dipping his toes in the musical genre as he is set to star in Reimagined, a musical feature and directorial debut of composer Mateo Messina (Juno). McHale will star alongside Paula Patton (Sacrifice) with the story adapted from an original symphony by Messina called The Pageant.
Official Synopsis:
Felix grapples with the loss of his mom (Patton), a beloved concert director. When her show is taken over by a cocksure director (McHale), he secretly sabotages the event, only to realize that saving the show might be the only way to keep his late mother's spirit alive.
McHale shining character trait across his TV roles is being “cocksure.” In his breakthrough role in NBC’s long running hit comedy Community (2009-2015), he plays Jeff Winger a cocky former lawyer who plays his friend group like a fiddle. And in FX’s The Bear, he breathes power as an intimidating chef.
Reimagined is currently shooting in NY.
We can’t wait for the series M.I.A from the co-creator of Ozark, Bill Dubuque. More cast have been announced:
Edward James Olmos (Bladerunner)
Billy Burke (Twilight series)
Sônia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
The series synopsis for M.I.A. leans heavily into some of the elements that made Ozark so great, no accident, I’m sure:
Etta Tiger Jonze seeks to avenge her family's murder and become the most powerful crime queenpin in South Florida.
No word yet on production dates. Or when it will premiere on Peacock.
Tidbit:
Succession’s Alan Ruck is the latest to join the upcoming horror thriller Corporate Retreat from writer/director Aaron Fisher (Inside the Rain). What starts off as a team-bonding weekend takes a turn for the worse, devolving into a bloody fight to survive the tests of a vengeful executive. Ruck is no stranger to Corporate Retreats, although not a horror, he took some shots at his dad in HBO’s Succession (scene). The Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actor is joining a cast of Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction) and Aston Sanders (Moonlight) with principal photography starting this June.
Wallace Shawn, best known as the fast-talking Vizzini in The Princess Bride (1987), leads the upcoming drama The Man Who Changed the World. Inspired by the life of visionary entrepreneur Lawrence “Bud” Stoecker, the film spans generations and follows a systems theorist and architect whose philosophies ripple through time. Shawn stars alongside Christopher Lowell (Promising Young Woman) and Jeanine Mason (Upload), bringing his signature mix of confidence and cerebral wit to a role that subtly echoes the sharp intellect that launched his career in The Princess Bride. Directed by Greg Pritikin (The Last Laugh), the film recently wrapped production in Colorado. A release date has yet to be announced.
Mini Tidbits:
Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame replaces the late Carl Weathers as Combat Carl in Toy Story 5. Combat Carl was a beloved addition to Toy Story 4's ensemble, and spoofed the GI Joe franchise, even putting out a funny parody of one of the old infomercials. Toy Story 5 is in theaters June 19, 2026.
DJ Qualls was a staple of early 2000s films. He was Rat in The Core (2003), watch him torch his computers scene before an FBI raid. And he was also in Road Trip (2000) and Hustle & Flow (2005). His new film, 1780, is an early American war film, co-starring Kevin Spacey (trailer).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Historical epic Chhaava (trailer) isn’t slowing down on its unstoppable theatrical run, grossing $84M (INR 7.11 bn) in India alone. The Dinesh Vijan and Maddock Films’ feature takes place during a crucial period in Indian history following legendary Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj. Originally premiering this past February, the record-breaking drama dropped on Netflix just last week, bringing its global total to $94 M.
Film viewership among Netflix’s APAC subscribers grew by 20% in 2024, with more than 100 APAC films leading Netflix’s top 10 list for non-English films. Announced at this year’s APAC Showcase, Netflix is looking to expand its offerings across Asia this year.
Netflix’s Bet shows a high-strung gambling teen enrolling in college for the children of the crime bosses. Based on the popular Manga. Here’s the trailer, it feels very much in the YA space. May 15th release.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
La Cocina (The Kitchen), which premiered in Berlin, was just picked up by Mubi for US online distribution.
It was my favorite film of last year.
I sat down with director Alonso Ruizpalacios to discuss his stunning work, what he called a fable of “late-stage capitalism.”
Rooney Mara plays a waitress entangled in a romance with Raúl Briones, a cook with a wild bestial ferocity brought out by the pressure of a Times Square kitchen that unites and ensnares its staff.
Ruizpalacios discussed drawing from his own experience working as a dishwasher and then a waiter in college at the Rainforest Cafe:
“They have this saying, what happens in the rush stays in the rush. It's a very tense, high pressure atmosphere. It gives you like a sort of a PTSD. I remember, at night, I would still kind of dream of orders.”
But he did not remake The Bear. The halls of the kitchen in La Cocina are shot as if it's a cathedral, a mecca to those undocumented workers who believe they can make a life here, only to be ripped apart in the process by putting themselves into a cruel, absurd, fatalistic machine.
The film is inspired by a 1957 play, The Kitchen, which is a referendum on the immigrant experience, as Ruizpalacios detailed:
“It made me see [working in a kitchen] in a different light with a sort of an anthropological curiosity.”
The identity of everyone in the film, from the European owners to the American waitresses to the Mexican cooks, reflects broader social and economic hierarchies, transforming the characters into symbols within a mythologized narrative of labor, class, and national identity.
It is this hierarchy that brings the core relationship in the film to a boil.
Rooney Mara’s romance as a waitress with a cook, Raúl Briones, or the possibility of it, is a dream that Briones is dead set on actualizing.
Ruizpalacios expanded:
“So the scene where the cooks sit down to share their dreams… it's kind of the reason that I wanted to make this film… And there's a moment where Pedro [Briones] creates an atmosphere for people to know each other. He provides that and I think there's something really beautiful about that.”
To go any deeper into the plot would rob the film of its power.
But let's just say this: Ruizpalacios is working on a level where he is molecularly connected to the tissue of his film, and it plays like a symphony.
Releasing on Mubi on May 2nd.
Check out the trailer here.
Tidbits:
New documentary production company Outerboro Films has just been launched by journalist and director Daniel Lombroso, as well as longtime comedy producer Kerry Mack. The studio will largely focus on the fringe absurdity of modern American life, not typically highlighted in feature-length films. With a bold first impression their first doc out the gate is You’ll Be Happier, a deeper look at the world of penis enlargement.
Gravitas Ventures has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to What We Hide, a thriller by Dan Kay starring McKenna Grace and Jojo Regina. Releasing in August, the film follows two sisters hiding their mother’s overdose death to avoid foster care.
ON THIS DAY
2012. Veep premieres on HBO.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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