Before I Was Wise

Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at: A24’s Reservation, AMC’s Attendance, and a Snake. Let’s go! If you enjoy today’s edition, please hit the like button or leave a comment. “Are You a Good Guy or a Bad Guy?” A24 has released the first trailer for Tony, the Anthony Bourdain origin story, set over one transformative summer in Provincetown, Cape Cod, where a kitchen job becomes the catalyst for his future identity. The trailer plays surprisingly conventional for a figure who spent his entire life actively dismantling convention. Leaning into a familiar biopic rhythm, cookie-cutter montages of rejection, rebellion, first love, and self-realization play against a nonstop kitchen backdrop. Seeing Bourdain as an enfant terrible in Tony is both shocking and inevitable. But only because the adult Bourdain, the one who hit our synapses in No Reservations and Parts Unknown, is, behind all his cynicism, wise, almost enlightened. I believe director Matt Johnson’s (2023’s BlackBerry) style will add this layer of nuance to the behind-the-scenes formative years of Bourdain that the trailer lacked. Johnson’s gritty storytelling is unafraid to show all sides of its subjects. So I’m hopeful we’ll get to see some more glimmers of the Bourdain I recognize along the way. 19-year-old Bourdain is played by Dominic Sessa and it’s a perfect fit. Sessa broke out in Alexander Payne’s beautifully heartwarming The Holdovers (2023), where he exemplified a prickly, loner college student with a kind heart. That feels crucial for Tony: young Bourdain before the wisdom, still figuring out whether he’s a good or bad guy. Tony premieres in August. For More: Tony - Trailer The Holdovers - Trailer BlackBerry - Trailer AMC Theatres’ Q1 revenue rises 21% to $1.04bn as attendance climbs to 47.6M. Netflix adapts YA rom-com Better Than the Movies with Julia Hart directing. Netflix sets docuseries The American Experiment for America’s 250th anniversary. Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions undergoes more development layoffs. CAA names Caressa Douglas Head of Content and Integrations. The Bear drops a standalone Richie/Mikey flashback episode. Isabella Rossellini joins Alice Rohrwacher’s The Highly Incestuous Sisters. Matthew Rhys will play journalist Harold Evans in BBC’s Dragon Slayers. Charlie Kaufman’s Later the War heads to Cannes Market. Mubi takes multiple international territories on Na Hong-jin’s Neon-backed Hope. Cannes Classics sets a 20th-anniversary 4K restoration of Pan’s Labyrinth. Kevin Spacey, Sebastian Stan, and Ana de Armas lead Cannes Market packages. Neon picks up Jeff Nichols’ Southern Gothic thriller King Snake for 2027. Whit Stillman returns after a decade with WWII drama A Night at Claridge’s. Yesterday’s correct answer: The Safdie Bros directed Daddy Longlegs. 37% got it right. AMC Theatres Q1 2026 earnings. Plus, the change from last year: $1.04bn revenue ↑ 21% $117M net loss Down from $202M loss in Q1 2025 47.6M attendance ↑ 13.6% (from 41.9M) CEO Adam Aron stated that: “AMC achieved our best Adjusted EBITDA first quarter result since 2019 pre-pandemic, an Adjusted EBITDA improvement of $96 million year over.” Hopefully, with the new 45-day window commitment by many studios, AMC will be able to achieve profitability. Tidbits: Netflix is all in on Better Than the Movies, a feature adaptation of Lynn Painter’s beloved YA novel, with Julia Hart (dir. I’m Your Woman) attached to the helm. “A love letter to romantic comedies,” this high school-set story follows a young girl who relies on her obsession with rom-coms to fix her love life. The adaptation marks the second collaboration between Netflix and Original Headquarters, following the Sunny Sandler-led Don’t Say Good Luck dropping this August. Netflix celebrates the 250th anniversary of the USA with the doc The American Experiment. Directed by Brian Knappenberger (Netflix Turning Point docs), the five-part docuseries will follow the founding and future of democracy in the U.S. Former VPs Al Gore, Mike Pence, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton. Darlene Love documentary on the way. Production has started for Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, a documentary about the Rock & Roll legend known for her holiday hits. Directed by Barry Avrich (Oscar Peterson: Black + White), the documentary will follow Darlene Love, who was one of the participants for the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom (2013) about backup singers. Mini Tidbits: The Sphere’s newest resident, The Wizard of Oz, has grossed nearly $400M. Vegas’ Sphere Entertainment announced that, since its opening last August, the AI-infused screening of the classic film has sold almost 3M tickets. Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions (Get Out, Him) continues extensive layoffs in its development department. Three folks were let go. Last year, three in the dev department were also cut. Peele has been working on ideas/scripts for his next film for years, but nothing has stuck. His last film, Nope, was released in 2022, and we hope he can get back his creative mojo. CAA Entertainment Partnerships group (Shondaland) has brought on Caressa Douglas in the new role of Head of Content and Integrations. With twenty years of entertainment marketing under her belt, Douglas will work with talent and studios to shape the brand of co-developed content and original IP. Entertainment publicist, Audrey Beth Davis, who worked on iconic series like The Golden Girls and ABC’s The Love Boat, has died. A veteran in industry public relations, she worked on a number of Dick Wolf programs, including the original Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, and Criminal Intent. Netflix’s Narnia carries a $320M+ budget, their most expensive ever. Renewals: NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins (renewed for S2) Trailers: New Line’s Evil Dead Burn Dir: Sébastien Vaniček (Infested) N.A. Dist: Warner Bros Release: July 10 Paramount’s Dutton Ranch Cast: Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, Annette Bening Release: May 15 Netflix’s The Boroughs Cast: Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Bill Pullman Release: May 21 First Look: Netflix’s The One Piece (remake series) Release: February 2027 Home invasion horror The Heretiks Wri(s): Luke Piotrowski and Ben Collins (Hulu’s Hellraiser reboot) Cast: Luke Speakman (Weapons) Headed to the Cannes Market Starz’s Fightland Prod: 50 Cent Release Dates: Hulu’s King of the Hill S15 Release: July 20 Netflix’s Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing The follow-up doc to Downfall: The Case Against Boeing Dir: Rory Kennedy Release: August 19th FX is serving up a cousin-and-Mikey character study we didn’t know we'd ordered. A standalone episode of The Bear just dropped on Hulu, written and starring Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the aimless, but sweet Richie, and Jon Bernthal as the funny, but self-destructive late Mikey. A flashback story, the episode, titled “Gary”, shines a spotlight on what makes this pairing truly magnetic on screen, the imbalance at the core of their relationship. Set before the events of the series, Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach deliver masterful performances shaped by contrasting responses to aimlessness and longing during an hour-long out-of-the-restaurant road trip. Changes are imminent in the kitchen, with the new episode only fast-forwarding the grief of what’s to come when the full fifth season of The Bear heads to Hulu in June. The duo is currently flashing their chemistry, finishing out their sixteen-week run together in the Broadway play Dog Day Afternoon. The highly anticipated film adaptation, The Highly Incestuous Sisters, adds Oscar-nominated actress Isabella Rossellini to its cast. From director Alice Rohrwacher (La chimera), Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan, and Jessie Buckley will play the titular roles alongside Josh O’Connor as a man who disrupts their lives. The film reunites the latter with Rossellini, who played his somewhat delusional, doting maternal figure in Rohrwacher’s last feature, the beautiful Cannes title La Chi…