Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Warner’s 3 Bids, Amazon’s Fallout, and Rome.
Let’s go!
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Warner Bros. Discovery has received three bids to acquire the company. No word yet on the exact offers, but here’s what we know:
Paramount, A Skydance Company (PSKY)
Wants to buy the full company (including studio, streaming, and linear TV assets)
This is their 4th bid, expected to be $27-$28/share
Netflix
Wants to buy Warner Bros. Studio and HBO
Combined subs of Netflix and HBO would = 427M, but there is a large audience crossover
Comcast
Wants to buy Warner Bros. Studio (imagine a combined WB + Universal). Also wants to buy HBO to combine with their fledgling Peacock
Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to hold out for $30+/share. This share price would value the company at $74.4bn+. For reference, Paramount’s last bid came in at around $24/share.
The bottom line here is that all three of these scenarios, if they get approved (and expect a fight from the theaters), are going to reduce the number of films in cinemas.
It’s worth being skeptical when David Ellison of PSKY says it would keep the studios separate, and of Netflix’s promise that it would continue releasing its films theatrically. Note that Warner Bros has a typical theatrical window of 45 days, vs. Netflix’s straight-to-streaming release or a limited awards run on a few hundred screens.
Expect non-stop updates through the end of the year.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
CA Film Commission issues $313M to 17 shows.
Imagine Entertainment is developing some of their IP like 24 and Liar Liar.
Netflix wins rights to Hello Sunshine’s Smother in Law romcom.
Working Title adapting Bolu Babalola’s Honey and Spice.
HBO’s Harry Potter S2 writers’ room already underway.
Paramount wins 2027–31 Champions League rights (UK/Germany).
AMC Networks renews CCO Dan McDermott through 2028.
HBO renews 5 shows.
Emma Corrin starring in A24’s new horror film.
Gabrielle Union leads Prime Video Italy’s romcom Blame It On Rome.
Netflix pairing Leighton Meester & Jared Padalecki in holiday romcom The Bodyguard.
Holt McCallany leads thriller Paradise: Disturbed.
Dekanalog picks up The Blue Trail.
Justin Lee signs multi-picture deal with Trinity Content Partners.
Screen Cornwall launches $2.9M SCEPI equity fund for high-end UK productions.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
The new $750M CA state tax credit continues to give. They’ve just allocated $313M to 17 TV shows.
All in all, this is projected to generate $1.2bn in stimulus for CA while also employing 5,165 cast and crew.
There were even three shows that relocated back to CA for a total in-state spend of $211.6M (Fox’s Baywatch reboot, Amazon’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith S2, and Sony’s The Night Agent S4).
Here is a breakdown of how much each studio was allocated:
$85M - Disney
$43.14M 20th Century Fox
$21.1M Fox
$20.8M FX (Snowfall spinoff)
$73M - Amazon
$31.6M - Sony
The Night Agent S4
$29.1M - Universal
The Paper
The Dig
Untitled PI show from Brooklyn Nine-Nine creators
$22.1M - Netflix
Forever S2
$5.4M - Imani Media Group
Blood Ties S2
Lot Patrol S2
The biggest credit allocation is for:
Amazon’s Fallout (S3)
Creator/Writer/EP: Jonathan Nolan
104 days filming in CA
$42M CA tax credits
Nolan stated:
“California has always dreamed in cinema. But for far too long we have been letting that dream slip away.”
It’s great to see the new tax credit bolstering the CA film economy at a vital moment.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment celebrates its 40th birthday. Some of their new projects in development/pitching stuck out:
A 24 film/series. Imagine Jack Bauer back in action circa 2025!
They’re also interested in Liar Liar and The Grinch.
Liar Liar in 2025 sounds like a prime way to dissect our society’s influencer and social media culture. The consequences would probably be higher, and the lies would have to be more intricate, given how online everyone is these days. Maybe Giamatti will don the full-body blue one last time?
Here’s to another 40 years!
Three New Project Tidbits:
Netflix has won the rights to Hello Sunshine’s Smother in Law, a comedy film following a woman choosing to help her single mother-in-law find love. From Big Little Lies to Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, the Reese Witherspoon-run studio has a strong track record of developing maternal stories and looking at women’s relationships with mothers. In-demand writer April Prosser (Netflix’s Look Both Ways) penned the spec.
One of the biggest producers in the romcom game, Working Title (Notting Hill, Love Actually), is moving forward with Honey and Spice, a romance novel from Nigerian author Bolu Babalola. The story follows a woman closed off from love who gets involved in a fake relationship with a man she does not approve of. Babalola will adapt her own novel, marking her debut as a feature film screenwriter.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity will co-produce Turbulence: The Greatest Mind in Formula One, a documentary on legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey. The film will cover his 40-year career, spanning triumphs with multiple championship teams, and his 2025 move to Aston Martin during major regulation changes.
Two Sports Tidbits:
Paramount will take over UK and German Champions (football/Soccer) League rights from 2027 to 2031 after a costly auction ($1bn+). Amazon gets first-pick Tuesday matches in the UK while Sky secures future Europa and Conference League rights. Spain’s Telefonica retains most Champions League coverage.
Vice TV is launching a new sports-controversy doc franchise titled Out of Bounds, starting with a deep dive into Bill Belichick’s odd, hyper online relationship with Jordon Hudson and his various antics. Future installments will cover Antonio Brown’s chaotic public unraveling and, in 2026, a two-hour special on the rise and fallout of sports gambling. It’s Vice, so it’s leaning a bit into the mess.
Tidbits:
While fans will have to wait until 2027 for HBO’s new Harry Potter series, the gap between seasons might not be as long. HBO CEO Casey Bloys revealed that the writers’ room for season two is already up and running, even as production continues on the first season.
AMC Networks ups CCO Dan McDermott’s contract through till the end of 2028. Also, the AMC Studios President, in addition to producing, McDermott has helped to build up the network’s streaming presence with their collection of properties, e.g., Shudder, AMC+, and Acorn TV.
Robert Pietranton, longtime Warner Bros. Television publicity executive, has died at 56. A respected, behind-the-scenes leader, he guided major series like Abbott Elementary, Ted Lasso, and The Pitt. He mentored hundreds in PR, and will be remembered for his deep dedication to the film industry.
Mini Tidbits:
Nevada Senate rejects $120M subsidy for Film & TV tax credits. This would have gone to expanding the tax credit and funding a studio.
Shane Black’s Play Dirty is now one of Amazon’s 10 most-watched Prime movies, with 57M viewers in 28 days. For comparison, Red One had 50M in 4 days.
Renewals:
Netflix’s The Night Agent (for S4)
Not officially greenlit, but received CA Tax credit to shoot
SkyShowtime’s Veronika (for S3)
PBS Masterpiece’s All Creatures Great & Small (for S7 + S8)
HBO’s five renewals:
Task (for S2)
I Love LA (for S2)
The Chair Company (for S2)
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (for S2)
House of the Dragon (for S4)
Debut: 2028
Also, White Lotus S4 is confirmed to take place in France.
Cancellation:
Hallmark’s The Way Home (cancelled after 4 seasons)
Trailers:
Obscured Releasing’s Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter (doc)
EP/interviewee: Jamie Lee Curtis
Release: Nov 19 (LA), Nov 21 (NY)
Netflix’s Train Dreams
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones
On Netflix/In Theaters: today
HBO’s Paul Anka: His Way (Doc)
Release: Dec 1
Netflix’s Cover Up
Co-Director: Laura Poitras (dir: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the 2nd doc ever to win the top prize at Venice)
Release: Dec 26
A24’s The Moment
Cast: Charli XCX, Rachel Sennott
Release: Jan 30
Pixar’s Hoppers
Release: Mar 6, 2026
Lionsgate’s Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
Cast: Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Elle Fanning, McKenna Grace
Release: Nov 20, 2026
Lullaby For The Mountains
EP: Béla Tarr
Premiere: Sheffield DocFest 2025
GrowthDay Network (24/7 self-improvement FAST channel)
Available on: Roku, Prime, Fire TV Channels
Key Date:
TV Academy’s Televerse festival
Aug 14 - Aug 16, 2026
Release dates:
Hulu’s Living Proof (doc)
Release: Dec 1 (World AIDS Day)
Prime’s Beast Games (S2)
Release: Jan 7, 2026
Adult Swim’s Primal (S3)
Creator: Genndy Tartakovsky
Release: Jan 11
HBO’s Lanterns (series)
Cast: Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre
Release: End of Summer 2026
Apple TV+’s The Hunt (series)
Release postponed
Release Height:
Excel Entertainment’s 120 Bahadur
Release Height: 16,452ft (Chushul village, Ladakh)
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
From one horror to the next, Emma Corrin (The Crown) is headlining an ensemble cast in A24’s untitled horror film from writer-director Arkasha Stevenson (The First Omen).
Plot details are unknown, but it supposedly follows a bachelor party that goes wrong, but I can’t imagine it’ll be anything as terrifying as Corrin’s recent foray in the unsettling, death-filled world of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu.
Corrin isn’t just embracing the horror genre; on the complete other end of the spectrum, she just wrapped filming Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice series as the sweet Elizabeth Bennet, where the only scary thing is her intimidating intellect.
Similarly to Bennet, the actress has shown a soft and gentle side to her as Princess Diana in season four of The Crown (clip), yet her haunting performance in Nosferatu (Spoiler! scary scene) confirms her ability to inhabit both vulnerability and darkness, perfect for an A24 movie.
Corrin is joined by Euphoria breakout Hunter Schafer, Bottoms’ actress Havana Rose Liu, and Sophie Wilde, who previously starred in another A24 horror film, Talk to Me (2022). Ari Aster’s Square Peg is on board to produce.
Holt McCallany (Mindhunter, The Iron Claw) leads Paradise: Disturbed, a Savannah-shot thriller about ritual golf-club murders. He plays a retired OSI investigator hunting a taunting killer.
He has plenty of experience playing across serial killers in Mindhunter, his steely gaze still showing hints of vulnerability as the detective slowly cracked after being surrounded by such insanity. It led to a compelling and rounded character.
With McCallany’s experience in Mindhunter closely mirroring this plot, you can assume this one’s in good hands.
Tidbit:
Gabrielle Union is going abroad! The Bring It On actress is joining Prime Video Italy’s English-language romcom Blame It On Rome alongside Michele Morrone (Another Simple Favor). The film sees Union as an NYC art executive who travels to Rome for a valuable painting, but after a messy end to her engagement, decides to stay in Italy. This will be Union’s first leading role in an Italian production, with filming having just begun.
Netflix pairs Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester and Gilmore Girls’ Jared Padalecki together in The Bodyguard, a new holiday romcom film. Based on Katherine Center’s sweet but silly romance novel, Padalecki will play a no-nonsense bodyguard assigned to Meester’s movie star, with the magic of Christmas sparking an unexpected love connection. The in-development holiday film adds to Netflix’s growing catalog of BookTok adaptations, following the massive success of Purple Hearts (2022).
Spenser Granese (Marty Supreme) has joined Julian Labrádor’s untitled Lionsgate home-invasion thriller. The film follows a mother and her 12-year-old son trapped in a real-time home-invasion nightmare monitored only by their security cameras. Granese will apparently be playing the home invader.
CBS is bringing back NCIS: New Orleans regular Necar Zadegan for their upcoming drama show, CIA, an FBI offshoot series. The new series follows two unlikely partners, a rule-breaking CIA officer and a wise FBI agent. Zadegan is set to play a lead role, though details about her character are still under wraps.
Gretchen Mol (American Gigolo) is joining the upcoming fourth season of Paramount+’s Tulsa King as a series regular alongside Sylvester Stallone. The drama series’ Emmy-winning producer Terence Winter previously worked with Mol for all five seasons of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (2010-14).
Indie feature Road to Recovery adds actress Sarah Shahi (Hulu’s Paradise) to its cast. The film will take place during a cross-country road trip between a father and his terminally ill daughter. It is unclear the role Shahi will take on, but filming is ongoing in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Canadian actor Spencer Lofranco (Jamesy Boy) has unexpectedly died at 33. His last and final role was as the quieter and more grounded John Gotti Jr. opposite John Travolta in Gotti (2018, scene). The cause of death is unknown, but the young actor had shown remarkable promise and the potential for a truly bright career.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
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