We Need to Talk About Lynne Ramsay Pt 2
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
In The Industry News: Ramsay’s 4th. Skydance's losses. HBO’s new Star.
Actor Spotlight: Rami Malek is out for blood. Lady Gaga’s Wednesday.
Indie Filmmaker Spotlight: A24Y2K. Radu Jude’s Dracula.
International News: Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here.
Let’s go!
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
In July, I wrote about Lynne Ramsay’s new film, Die, My Love. And why I believe she is the greatest living director in their prime:
https://theindustry.co/p/we-need-to-talk-about-lynne-ramsay
We now have some first-look images from her film, which stars Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson & LaKeith Stanfield:
They’re all tinged with Ramsay’s patented hyper-first-person perspective, tilting on psychological surrealness.
Die, My Love just wrapped production and is expected to premiere at Cannes.
If you don’t have time to read Paramount’s 669-page SEC filing, here is the breakdown of Skydance's (previously unreleased) profit/revenue over the years:
2024 (first half)
$43.5 M net loss
$286.5 M revenue
2023
$56 M net loss
$991.73 M revenue
2022
$8 M net income
$966.9 M revenue
2021
$81.5 M net loss
$768 M revenue
Compare this with Parmaount’s paltry $1 M net income this quarter on $6.73 bn revenue. That’s not a great sign for both companies, as the merger is set to be finalized next year. Luckily Skydance has the infinite backing of CEO David Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison (net worth: $231 bn).
HBO has clinched a high-profile comedy project, Kansas City Star by the creators of Hacks. The half-hour show is headlined and EP’d by Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory, The Flight Attendant).
Produced under Warner Bros. Television, Kansas City Star follows Cuoco’s character, a semi-famous actress who returns to her hometown to join a regional theater troupe.
Not much else is known.
Tidbit:
CAA appoints John Storey as its new CFO, succeeding Carol Sawdye (2021-2024). With nearly two decades of experience, Storey previously served as president of finance and operations at Asurian, an IT company. Storey will help CAA expand into “new business areas and international markets.”
After three years Netflix’s VP of Original Film, Nilja Kuykendall is leaving her position. The producer oversaw a newer department that focused on mid-sized holiday, faith-based, and young adult movies. Prior to Netflix, Kuykendall served for 13 years as executive VP of production at Warner Bros. The streamer has not revealed the reasoning for the departure. Interestingly, faith-based holiday films are raking it in at the box office, see Lionsgate’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
Alamo Drafthouse made big changes in its higher-ups, following the announcement of the theater chain’s CFO Matt Vonderahe, who decided to step down at the end of the year.
Dana Pearson who was hired as a consultant in 2020 quickly moveed up the ranks to VP of Finance is being promoted to Chief Financial Officer and VP of Product & Digital.
Alex Shullman was brought on the Austin-based Alamo as VP of Product and Digital Experience and is now taking over the role of Chief Product & Strategy Officer working in bettering both the digital and in-theater experience.
Award-winning production company Amplify Pictures (100 Foot Wave) has hired Luke Esselen, a former CAA, Quibi, and Picturestart exec to take on a senior role within the scripted department. His addition will be crucial in recreating the financial model the company uses for its unscripted shows for its scripted programming.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Rami Malek is a nerd out for Blood.
The Amateur asks one simple question: what happens when the “guy in the IT chair” steps out for a little murderous revenge killing spree?
Rami Malek plays a CIA Agent who seems content running surveillance and sitting at a desk, until his system shows him a video of his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) being murdered. He snaps and uses all of his CIA training to take to the field to exact revenge on his wife's killers.
The only problem is he can't use a gun, he just doesn't have the training, so he's going to have to get creative luring each killer into a techie trap for revenge.
Malek kind of cut his teeth on being a nerd out for blood in the much-acclaimed series Mr. Robot, as that show grew in popularity, so did Mr. Malek's star power, winning 3 Emmys and two Golden Globes for the series. Clip.
The Amateur looks like a fun time, maybe a bit more brains than brawn for our calculating killer, it will be in theatres on April 11, 2025.
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Now this seems like a very obvious match made in heaven. Lady Gaga will be joining the season 2 cast of Netflix’s Wednesday. Season one of Tim Burton’s Jenna Ortega led Addams Family series became the most watched original show on the streamer with over 250 M views to date. Gaga herself is just coming off the premiere of Todd Phillips’ sequel Joker: Folie à Deux as the unhinged comic book villain, Harley Quinn. Gaga has become so much more than just a popstar in movies as she has given award winning performances in 2021’s House of Gucci and Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born (2018). A clip of Wednesday dancing went viral last year featuring Gaga’s 2011 song Bloody Mary that you can watch here.
Wednesday began filming in Ireland late April of this year and will be streaming on Netflix in 2025.
Tidbit:
My favorite scene in Emilia Pérez is this wickedly choreographed Zoe Saldaña dance number, where she unloads her anger onto corrupt politicians. Watch here.
Maria Bakalova (The Apprentice, Borat 2) stars in the marvelously absurdist sci-fi Bulgarian film Triumph. Here is a clip of the weirdest military exercise I’ve ever seen.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
A24’s new disaster comedy, Y2K, written and directed by SNL standout Kyle Moone, has a new and very 1999 trailer.
Here is the Official Synopsis:
Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999. The night becomes even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight.
Y2K picked up lots of attention at its premiere at this year’s SXSW, with actor/director Jonah Hill and The Bear creator Christopher Storer also attached as producers of Mooney’s apocalyptic comedy.
Watch the very chaotic and very 90s trailer here ahead of its theatrical premiere on December 6th.
Grab your garlic, grab your Crucifixes, incoming the resurgence of Dracula! Don’t Expect Too Much From the End of the World (2023) director Radu Jude is bringing his take on the legendary character with his next film, Dracula Park.
The Romanian director is looking to take back the infamous vampire saying:
“It’s only Hollywood that has done it 1,000 times. We shouldn’t let Hollywood dominate our Dracula.”
1,000 times is not that far off! Just in the next year there are multiple films centered on the classic monster.:
Nosferatu
The Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse) take on the 1922 horror classic starring Lily-Rose Depp (The King) Nicolas Hoult (The Menu), Aaron Taylor Johnson (Bullet Train), and, of course, Willem Dafoe (Poor Things)
Premiering Dec. 25th
Dracula: A Love Tale
A Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) scary fantasy film with Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) and Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Premiering 2025
Dracula
A Keanu Reeves, Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) project announced to premiere sometime 2025
Reeves previously starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Last year, Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World was a social commentary on both cinema, the inner workings of our current society, and their inevitable relation to each other. The innovative black comedy was both internationally acclaimed and one of my favorite films to come out of last year. It will be exciting to see the eccentric filmmaker’s follow-up project as it starts shooting early next year.
Tidbit:
Buffalo 8 will release Anna Baumgarten’s debut feature Disfluency. The film tells the story of Jane, who returns to her hometown after unexpectedly failing her final college class. With the help of her friends, family, and a nostalgic summer by the lake, she confronts the trauma that disrupted her senior year. Disfluency did pretty well in festival circuits among those winning the Austin Film Society. Disfluency will be in theaters on Jan. 10, 2025, followed by a digital release on Jan. 24
Gravitas Ventures has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to Matt McClung’s religious horror film Inhabitants, starring Anna Jacoby-Heron and Josh Andrés Rivera.
Logline:
A young woman moves in with her lapsed Catholic boyfriend, only to discover that they’re being haunted by the vengeful ghost of his childhood youth minister. A fun fright about Catholic guilt.
Set for digital and VOD release in February 2025.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Brazil’s official Oscar submission, Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here gets a trailer. This is the director’s first narrative feature in over a decade and was bought by Sony Pictures Classics straight out of the Cannes market.
The Brazilian filmmaker Salles is known for critically acclaimed films like the Oscar-nominated, Berlin Film Festival-winning Central Station (1988, trailer), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), and the adventure adaptation On the Road (2012, starring Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). The latter two films dug into the heart of restless youth, exerting their life force into travel, seeking something larger than themselves.
Here is the official synopsis for his latest I’m Still Here:
Set in Brazil in 1971, it charts a country in turmoil and the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s best-selling memoir, it follows his housewife mother, who is forced to reinvent herself as an activist when her husband goes missing.
I’m Still Here’s trailer is vibrant like the texture of a sun-soaked memory, until it flips into the asphalt-tough texture of the real world.
Sony Pictures classics is giving this an Awards week release this month with a limited release on Jan 17th and a wide release on Feb 14th.
Brazil has never won an Oscar in any of the Best Film categories. The last nominated Best International Feature Film was Salles’ Central Station in 1999.
Prime Video International is promoting exec Andrew Bennett to the role of VP, Prime Video Europe & Global Business Development overseeing the global third-party device business development and partnerships team globally for the company.
Kelly Day, VP of Prime Video International announced via email saying:
“Andrew will bring 12 plus years Prime Video experience working across content acquisition, partnerships, and business development, marketing, and product/tech, to his expanded role leading our Prime Video teams in Europe.”
Bennett will be replacing Barry Furlong who was able to add the Middle East and Africa divisions during his time in the position, the change will be made effective by the end of the year.
ON THIS DAY
1976. Network premieres in LA and NYC.
See you Friday!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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