Woody Harrelson’s Last Breath
If you know of someone who would benefit from signing up for this newsletter, please forward them this.
If you have been forwarded this email, click here to sign up: https://theindustry.co/subscribe
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
In The Industry News: Focus Features holds their breath. Paramount CEO shuffle. Regal’s new deal.
Actor Spotlight: The evolution of the Evil Queen. Martin Starr rocks.
Festivals: Marrakech Film Festival’s The Cottage.
Indie Filmmaker Spotlight/International News: A Himalayan boarding school slow-burn adolescent thriller.
Let’s go!
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Focus Features’ Last Breath (2025) is a fictionalized retelling of a harrowing true story.
Led by Woody Harrelson, the nailbiting thriller is based on director Alex Parkinson’s acclaimed 2019 documentary of the same name.
Official Synopsis:
Seasoned deep-sea divers battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
Many filmmakers over the years have tackled this nightmare situation with ultimately very mixed responses:
The Abyss (1989) Twentieth Century Fox
$55 M domestic total box office
$90 M worldwide
$43 M budget
Sanctum (2011) Universal Pictures
$23.2 M domestic total
$109 M worldwide
$30 M budget
Underwater (2020) Twentieth Century Fox
$17.2 M domestic total
$41 M worldwide
$80 M budget
The straight drama/thriller underwater diving nightmare film faces a geometric challenge: audience appetite tilts more towards straight horror (Jaws, The Meg) or fantasy (The Shape of Water, Avatar 2), yet the budgets required to capture realistic underwater sequences (as Tom Cruise found out the hard way) need to be substantial.
Regardless, it’s great to see Parkinson leap from doc to narrative in such a spectacular way. He first announced the upcoming Focus Features film back in 2022, saying:
“This film will touch on a lot of ideas; the strength of the human spirit, and the ability to hang on as well, this poor chap who is at the bottom of the sea bed, trying to cling on for as long as possible. It turns into this amazing race against time, which will play out in real time in the film.”
Even though the trailer for Last Breath (2025) is quite tense, there’s something about the wild vérité trailer of Parkinson’s Last Breath doc that pulled me in even deeper.
You’ll have to hold your breath until 2025, when the film premieres in theaters everywhere on Feb. 28th.
Paramount CEO shuffle. As Skydance nears its acquisition of Paramount, plans for the company are crystalizing:
Combining Paramount’s TV networks, including:
CBS
MTV
Comedy Central
Nickelodeon
Showtime
These cuts in linear will bolster the investment in streaming. David Ellison (Skydance CEO) is open to selling any of these channels except CBS, which has been earmarked for Jeff Shell.
They also may be cutting one or two of the CEOs:
Chris McCarthy, Showtime/MTV and Paramount Media Networks
Brian Robbin, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon
Dana Goldberg’s (Head of Production: Skydance) name has been floated to take over Paramount Pictures.
None of this is final, and of course the deal is still pending, expected to now close in March/April.
Tidbits:
Family Guy returns to Adult Swim in January 2025 under a non-exclusive deal, three years after its departure to Warner Discovery and Comedy Central. Often battling against low ratings and controversies, Family Guy has been canceled three times on its home network Fox. This return to Adult Swim is a bit of a homecoming; after its third season and subsequent third cancellation, syndication rights were sent to Cartoon Network, where it exploded in popularity, leading to a revival and what Family Guy is today. Adult Swim will air reruns in primetime and marathon formats. New episodes of Family Guy are still planned to appear in 2025 on Fox and Hulu.
After a monster box office weekend, Regal Cineworld Group just got better terms on its loan:
$350 M revolving credit line to be paid back in 2029
$1.9 bn long-term loan to be paid back in small amounts by 2031
Eduardo Acuna, CEO of Regal Cineworld stated:
“With the refinancing transaction, we will save $60 million per year in interest expense, which puts our successful restructuring squarely in the past.”
With the current $426 M 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, Regal is looking in good shape.
HBO has just announced their upcoming slate of premieres and series returns for the foreseeable seasons.
These announcements include:
White Lotus Season 3
Premiere: Feb. 2025
The Last of Us Season 2
Premiere: Early spring 2025
Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Premiere: Late summer 2025
Euphoria Season 3 (LONG overdue)
Premiere: Early 2026
The Harry Potter TV series
Premiere: 2027 (pushed one year)
Warner Bros. exec and global streaming chief JB Perette made the official announcements yesterday.
Netflix grabs one of TikTok’s most viral books, Quicksilver, a fantasy romance novel from Callie Hart in a 7-figure deal.
The bestselling novel is about a human rebel who binds herself to a handsome Fae warrior after inadvertently reopening a gateway between realms.
Quicksilver is the first title in the Fae & Alchemy series with author Hart EPing alongside Elizabeth Cantillon (prod. Alien: Romulus) under her Catillon Company banner.
Errors and omissions: If you haven’t heard by now, Mattel mislabeled their new Wicked dolls. The URL on the back doesn’t go to the film’s website, as intended, but instead to a porn site. And now, of course, they’re being sued. Read the class action lawsuit launched by a South Carolina mom.
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
The evolution of the Evil Queen. The new trailer for Snow White (2025) is here, CGI dwarfs and all. But what is very real is the delectable wickedness of Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen (trailer).
Other great evil Disney queens include:
Charlize Theron
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
No one was ever so menacing yet so vulnerable, ripping out another human’s heart (clip).
Angelina Jolie
Maleficent (2014)
A perfect evil laugh and a vocal transformation rotten with inflections (clip).
Sigourney Weaver
Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)
A boatload of makeup and pure evil (clip).
We’re excited to see what Gadot does with this role!
Rachel Zegler plays Snow White. Release date: March 21, 2025.
If you are enjoying the newsletter and see its value, please consider supporting the newsletter by becoming a premium subscriber https://theindustry.co/subscribe
Martin Starr (Gilfoyle in Silicon Valley) will be joining 20th Century Studios remake of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. The original film stars Rebecca De Mornay as a manipulative widow who, devastated by the loss of her own baby, infiltrates a family under the guise of a nanny. Her ultimate goal is to take over their lives, claiming both the children and the husband as her own.
The remake stars Maika Monroe (It Follows, Longlegs) as the manipulative nanny, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as the mother, and Raúl Castillo (Smile 2) as the husband. Starr plays a helpful neighbor to whom the mother turns for help.
Starr grew up in TV from Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000), and Silicon Valley (2014-2019) and is now playing opposite Sylvester Stallone in Tulsa King. His next role is a bit more serious, but he had a mean streak as the machiavellian Gilfoyle in Silicon Valley - clip.
It will be interesting to see how Starr navigates a thriller, and we can't wait to see this classic recreated.
Production begins in Los Angeles this month.
1992's Original Trailer… a perfect nightmare.
Paramount+ gives a first look photo of Inglorious Basterds actress Diane Kruger in the psychological thriller series Little Disasters from director Eva Sigurdardottir (prod: Good Night).
Official Logline:
A group of new mother friends are torn apart when one is accused of injuring her baby, fracturing their bond and nearly destroying their families.
Sigurdardottir shared that Kruger is:
“An intelligent and dynamic actress whose sheer presence brings with it a unique quality that leaves you inspired.”
Little Disasters is a six-part series strictly for UK and Ireland Paramount+ that is set to premiere early next year.
Liza Minnelli is really holding her spotlight: The EGOT-winning powerhouse of screen and stage is having a bit of a celebration of life, becoming involved with multiple projects bearing her name. The recently announced LIZA- Documentary and now a forthcoming memoir with a potential television adaptation by Magnolia Hill Productions and Warner Bros.
The memoir, to be published in 2026, draws on 15 years of recorded conversations with her longtime collaborator, Michael Feinstein, and will explore her career, personal struggles, and unique Hollywood perspective as the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli.
The book and series aim to shed light on her battles with substance use disorder while celebrating her resilience and iconic legacy in entertainment. Though it’s not 100% a done deal, it is almost certain the memoir will be adapted; it's just a matter of when not if.
Tidbit:
Stars on both the big and small screen, Morris Chestnut (Boyz n the Hood) and Mindy Kaling (The Office) have been announced to present the nominations for the 82nd Golden Globes in a broadcast on CBS on Dec. 9th. The awards show honoring achievements in both film and television will feature two new categories:
Cinematic and Box Office Achievement in Motion Pictures
Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television
The Golden Globes will air Sunday, Jan. 5th, 2025 on CBS as well as streaming on Paramount+.
Lucy Boynton has quite a range. She stars as Ruth Ellis, the last person to be hanged in the UK in ITV’s A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story.
Here’s the synopsis:
Follows Ruth’s lifestyle as a young nightclub manageress, her violent relationship with the man she then killed in cold blood, her arrest, trial, and subsequent legal battle to get her release before she was hanged.
Boynton has a wonderfully twisted confidence in the trailer. That’s a far cry from her character in The Greatest Hits (2024), where she plays a depressed, meek time traveler (trailer). Also, without looking it up, can you tell by watching both trailers if Boynton is American or British? Yeah, she’s that good.
The Ruth Ellis Story is available on BritBox Feb 17th.
FESTIVALS
Marrakech Film Festival has hosted some glitzy talks with everyone from Sean Penn to Luca Guadagnino (Dir: Queer), who serves as the jury president.
One of the films premiering there caught my eye: The Cottage. Here’s the official synopsis:
Rudi and Silvia, with their children Martín, Federico, and Silvina, escape from the city to spend a few days in their country house. Rudi gets into arguments with the neighborhood landlord. Children wander around the area. Martín likes fire. Fede is scared. One day, the abandoned house in the background suffers an unexpected fire, and a dead person appears: a homeless man suffocated by the smoke. The children did something. Something horrible. Now, we will have to see a way to return to the desired calm.
There’s a fair amount of aggression built up in the young children, made manifest by their desire for mischief (trailer).
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Quiver Distribution (Seven Cemeteries) has obtained rights to Cleaner, an action-thriller from Bond director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Golden Eye). The film is led by Daisy Ridley of the Star Wars franchise and Clive Owen (Children of Men) from Anton and Qwerty Films.
Official Synopsis:
Criminal activists hijack a gala, taking 300 hostages. One extremist plans mass murder as a message to the world. An ex-soldier turned window cleaner now works to rescue the hostages.
Campbell and Ridley have also collaborated on Dedication, a suspenseful hostage story expected to premiere sometime 2025.
Cleaner will have a theatrical release on February 21st, 2025.
Amazon takes the streaming premiere for Girls Will Be Girls a Himalayan boarding school slow-burn adolescent thriller. The film took the Sundance Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic.
Here’s the official synopsis:
16-year-old Mira’s sexy, rebellious coming of age is disrupted by her young mother, who never got to come of age herself.
Watch the trailer here. The simultaneous following and breaking of rules lend well to this Indian drama-romance.
Tidbits:
Arcadia, the wild sci-fi thriller series from Wild Bunch TV, will be coming back for a second season in 2025 across 17 territories. Set in the near future (Season 1 trailer), in a society where citizens’ rights and entitlements are determined by their scores. The series is being produced by Banijay Entertainment’s Belgian banner, Jonnydepony.
The director of A24’s Close (2023, trailer), Lukas Dhont, has lined up his next film, Coward. No plot details have been revealed.
A24 is re-releasing Sing Sing on Jan. 17. We just interviewed director Greg Kwedar and writer Clint Bentley to discuss how they architected this rare non-violent prison film, bursting with humanity:
https://theindustry.co/p/a24-sings
Big congrats!
ON THIS DAY
1949. Jeff Bridges is born in Los Angeles.
See you tomorrow!
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | X
Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co