Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Warner Bros. Cuts, Prime Video’s Crimes, and a new Sherlock Holmes.
Let’s go!
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THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Warner Bros. cuts 10% of Motion Picture Group staff.
Hulu is developing Stay Tuned, a comedy series starring Josh Gad.
Tyler Perry announces threequel to Why Did I Get Married?
Prime Video picks up a trio of true crime docs.
Aaron Sorkin wants Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison to star in The Social Network 2.
Trainspotting’s Robert Carlyle cast as Sherlock Holmes in CBS’s Watson S2.
Jim Parsons cast in cult thriller The Leader, inspired by Heaven’s Gate.
Lily James cast in Amazon MGM’s thriller Subversion.
Dane DeHaan joins fashion biopic Queen of Fashion.
Bradley Cooper’s third feature Is This Thing On? will close NYFF.
Dark Star acquires SXSW dramedy $Positions.
Oscar-winner Roger Ross Williams co-directs doc on Fela Kuti.
Utopia acquires Marc Maron doc Are We Good?
Briarcliff acquires the animated film Stitch Head.
Turkey selects One of Those Days When Hemme Dies as its Oscar entry.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Warner Bros. Discovery split last week; now come the cuts. 10% of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group is getting the axe. The following departments are hit:
Production
Distribution
Marketing
Strategy
Operations
Theatre ventures
WB is trying to get lean as the company has $40bn in debt.
Although the good news is that they’re the top-grossing studio of 2025, pulling in $2.8bn. Pam and Mike bet on originals, and that’s been their lifeblood. By comparison, Disney has roughly $2.6bn so far in 2025.
Hulu is developing Stay Tuned, a comedy series starring Josh Gad (Frozen) and Andrew Rannells (Girls). The show will follow two men trapped inside a TV, loosely based on the 1992 cult film (trailer). I think the weirdness and at times darkness of the original film is probably what is most intriguing about this project. I hope they don't sand off those edges.
Aaron Sorkin wants Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison to star in The Social Network 2, which he is writing and directing for Sony. The film is still early, but Sorkin’s sequel will be based on The Wall Street Journal’s The Facebook Files, which detail the nefarious ways in which the platform operates.
Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married is getting a threequel, Why Did I Get Married Again. The first two films collectively grossed $116.5M at the box office (99% coming from domestic).
SAG-AFTRA has renewed its deal with Nielsen, which will act as its third-party verifier for monies owed when its members’ shows/films perform well on streaming.
Prime Video picks up a trio of true crime docs from Firecrest Films. They include Rampage: The Raoul Moat Manhunt and Fantasist, Fraudster, Fugitive: Unmasking Nicholas Rossi. Moat is a fugitive who went on a killing spree. Rossi is a sex offender who faked his own death.
Story Syndicate (Prod Co: Netflix’s Titan disaster doc), which got boycotted at the Tribeca Festival over its refusal to join the Editor’s Union, has signed with CAA. Recently, the WGAE ratified the contract with the company after 2 years. No word yet on the Editor’s Guild contract.
Actor and comedian Andrea Savage (TruTV’s I’m Sorry) is back in the TV game with Perf (working title) from Fox Entertainment Studios. The network has been pushing multi-camera comedies recently, with Savage’s new show, which she is writing, directing, and producing, tackling the humor in adulthood.
Trailers:
Sony Pictures Classics’ Nuremberg
Cast: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon
Trailer - historical drama best actor buzz abounds!
Premiere: TIFF
Release: Nov 7
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions’ Twinless
Cast: Dylan O’Brien, James Sweeney
Premiere: Sundance (one of my top 3 films of the fest)
Release: Sept 5
Greenwich Entertainment’s Love, Brooklyn
Cast: André Holland
Premiere: Sundance
Release: Aug 29th
Disney’s Zootopia 2
Cast: Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Quinta Brunson
Release: Nov 26
Zootopia won: Best Animated Feature Oscar
Zootopia’s gross: $1bn
Hulu’s Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox
Cast: Grace Van Patten
Release: Aug 20
Film Movement’s Happyend
Premiere: 2024 TIFF, Venice, NYFF
Release: Sept 12
Previously a Metrograph Pictures film, but has reverted back to Film Movement
First Look:
Emily Blunt’s return as Miranda Priestly’s faithful assistant in The Devil Wears Prada 2 is seen in a first look image while filming in NY. Dressed in designer clothes on top of designer clothes, it seems the character has not changed all that much.
Release Dates:
Neon’s The Secret Agent
NY/LA Release: Nov 26/Dec 5
Cast: Wagner Moura
Premiere: Cannes (won Best Actor)
Netflix’s Left-Handed Girl
Co-writer: Sean Baker
Premiere: Cannes Critics Week
Release: Nov 14
Streaming Release: Nov 28
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Robert Carlyle will be suiting up to play Sherlock Holmes in season 2 of CBS’s medical mystery drama, Watson.
Waiting the entire first season w/o Sherlock was a big choice and needed someone with Carlyle's gravitas to make the payoff worth it.
Known for roles in Trainspotting, The Full Monty, and Once Upon a Time, Carlyle excels at portraying a brilliance laced with volatility, which suits the manic detective just fine. Having faked his death, his return will surely shock Watson (Morris Chestnut).
Carlyle’s presence should bring back Holmes from a mythic figure into a haunted, living presence.
Watson season 1 trailer.
Jim Parsons trades comedy for cult chills in new true-crime thriller The Leader. The film is inspired by Heaven’s Gate (not the infamous movie), the infamous religious group that committed the largest mass suicide to ever take place in the US.
The Emmy-winning actor is best known for his portrayal of super genius Sheldon Cooper in CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, a character who transcended the sitcom format to become a cultural phenomenon.
The Leader director, Michael Gallagher, shared:
“Parsons’ mesmerizing tour-de-force performance will leave audiences with their jaws on the floor.”
Parsons has a very distinct on-screen presence, with his roles commanding yet often socially “other”, which makes his casting compelling regardless of whether he is a cult follower or leader. He joins a strong duo of Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga, with his character not yet disclosed.
The Leader is now in production.
Without a major breakout role in some time, Chronicle’s Dane DeHaan is set to star in Queen of Fashion, an upcoming biopic following stylist and fashion editor Isabella Blow (played by To Leslie’s Andrea Riseborough).
DeHaan will star as Blow’s husband, Detmar, which feels like an intentional pivot for the actor in comparison to his more well-known fantasy, genre-bending roles (Valerian, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, etc.).
Shooting has officially wrapped in the UK.
Mini Tidbits:
Lily James stars as a Coast Guard officer hell bent on catching Chris Hemsworth in Amazon MGM’s thriller feature Subversion from German director Patrick Vollrath (Everything Will Be Okay).
Team Black has gained a new fearless warrior in young Australian actress Annie Shapero (Red Skies), cast as Alysanne Blackwood in HBO’s House of the Dragon S3. Blackwood is a legendary figure in House Stark whose character will be a key player in the long-awaited third season, currently shooting in the UK.
Rohan Campbell joins Netflix’s untitled Newfoundland thriller as a series regular, opposite Josh Hartnett and Mackenzie Davis. Currently filming in Newfoundland, the series will follow a fisherman battling a mysterious sea creature.
Hulu’s upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival pilot has added Kingston Vernes. He will play a young Olympian and popular student. He joins Sarah Michelle Gellar, reprising her role as the OG vampire slayer.
Edwin Hodge, whose work tilts a little sci-fi (Parallel, The Tomorrow War), has a guest role in Chris Pratt’s The Terminal Season 2
Some cast additions for MGM+’s The Westies, horror film Horrified, and Netflix comedy Free Bert: https://theindustry.co/p/mgms-the-westies-netflixs-free-bert
FESTIVALS
NYFF’s closing film is set to be:
Bradley Cooper’s Hollywood comedy Is This Thing On? Cooper directs, produces, and acts in the film while also serving as the B camera operator, marking his first time operating a camera on one of his films.
Synopsis:
As their marriage unravels, Alex faces middle age and divorce, seeking new purpose in the New York comedy scene while wife Tess confronts the sacrifices she made for their family, forcing them to navigate co-parenting and identity.
He co-wrote the script with Will Arnett, who stars in the movie alongside Laura Dern.
SXSW’s $Positions has been picked up by Dark Star Pictures (Berlinale’s Night Positions) for North American rights.
Synopsis:
A Midwest worker risks his savings on crypto, spiraling into gambling addiction and straining ties with his girlfriend, disabled brother, and recovering addict cousin in this anxious modern comedy.
Releasing in 2026.
It doesn’t hurt to have Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) as your producer. Sompot Chidgasornpongse is making his narrative feature directorial debut with 9 Temples To Heaven.
Synopsis:
A man takes his sick mother and nine family members on a single-day temple pilgrimage after his boss predicts she may die soon.
Chidgasornpongse served as the First AD on Weerasethakul’s Memoria and Cemetery of Splendor. Great to learn from the master of Thai surreal and slow cinema.
9 Temples To Heaven was just awarded $57K from the TorinoFilmLab.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
An Oscar-winner and a BAFTA-winner co-team on a doc about Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician who was a big influence on Bob Marley both musically and politically. Roger Ross Williams and Andy Mundy-Castle will team on this 4-part docu-series:
Ross Williams won an Oscar for his short doc Music by Prudence (2009). He also wrote/directed Amazon’s Cassandro, starring Gael García Bernal. Mundy-Castle won the Specialist Factual BAFTA for his doc White Nanny, Black Child (2023).
No word on shoot dates. Alex Gibney previously did a doc on Kuti (pictured above, trailer).
Richard Gere and Oren Moverman are getting wiser. The actor and director EP the Dalai Lama documentary, Wisdom of Happiness. Abramorama (Exit Through the Gift Shop, Invisible Nation) just picked up the film for distribution.
The doc centers on the Dalai Lama, 89, who discusses the universal search for inner peace and happiness in the modern era.
Gere, a well-known Buddhist who has known the Dalai Lama, stated:
“This is a small movie that can have a big impact on the future.”
Releasing Oct 17.
Tidbits:
Briarcliff Entertainment has secured U.S. distribution rights for Stitch Head, an animated feature directed and adapted by Steve Hudson (True North). It premiered at Annecy last June. With Briarcliff originally platforming harder hitting stuff like The Apprentice and Magazine Dreams, this definitely feels like a bit of diversification, similar to what we have seen from A24, simply put, kids need art too. Based on the children's book by Guy Bass, it's set for wide release on October 29th.
Utopia has acquired North American rights to Are We Good? A doc about comedian, podcaster, and actor Marc Maron exploring his grief over losing his partner and his comedy career re-emergence. In theaters this October, marking the end of his WTF podcast.
New R-rated dramedy Perfect Wedding Days from The Bachelor (1999) director Gary Sinyor sees him move on from a big studio classic romcom to a more irreverent romance story. Outlander’s David Berry will lead the film with popular TikTok creators Adam Rose and Leah Kirkup, newly announced additions.
Launching just a year ago, production company Sunset Lane Media has acquired the rights to the memoir The Missing Peace, written by former US diplomat Dennis Ross. The story exposes the behind-the-scenes, intense 15-day spanning negotiations at the 2000 Camp David Summit.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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