Boulet Brothers Sign Deal With AMC Networks’ Shudder to Expand Dragula Franchise (EXCLUSIVE)

Brent Lang Executive Editor “Causeway,” a new drama starring Jennifer Lawrence as a soldier adjusting to life after returning home to New Orleans, will premiere on Apple TV+ on Nov. 4. The streaming service also announced that “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,” a documentary about one of the founding fathers of jazz, will hit Apple TV+ on Oct. 28. Both films are world premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the company is screening five features, the largest number of Apple Originals to debut at a single film festival. The Canada-bound Apple lineup also includes “Sidney,” a documentary about Oscar-winning actor and barrier-breaking star Sidney Poitier that is produced by Oprah Winfrey and directed by Reginald Hudlin; “Raymond & Ray,” which features Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke as half-brothers; and “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” with Zac Efron and Russel Crowe in a new dramedy from “Green Book” director Peter Farrelly.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Nicole Power has joined the ensemble of the upcoming Netflix drama series“Glamorous.” She will appear alongside the previously announced “Sex and the City” icon Kim Cattrall, as well as actor, singer-songwriter and YouTuber Miss Benny. In the show, Power will portray Mykynnleigh, a seemingly guileless corporate consultant who rolls into town to help make a business deal happen. Although she seems wholesome and unsophisticated, those appearances are deceiving as Mykynnleigh possesses a lot of backbone and business acumen. “Glamorous” tells the story of Marco Mejia (Miss Benny), a gender-nonconforming queer young man whose life seems to be stuck in place until he lands a job working for legendary makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Cattrall). It’s Marco’s first chance to figure out what he wants out of life, who he actually is and what it really means for him to be queer.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Sandbox Films and Gamechanger Films will develop “Under the Dream,” a new documentary feature that will be co-directed and co-produced by Saelyx Finna, Mia Imani and Laurie Polisky. The film is a creative documentary about the uncharted realm of dream technology and the Black-led movement to protect our minds at night. Gamechanger CEO Effie Brown, and Sandbox Film’s Jessica Harrop, head of production and development, and founding director Greg Boustead will be acting as executive producers on the project.   Sandbox is a documentary studio behind “Fire of Love,” a look at married volcanologists that debuted at Sundance before selling to National Geographic Documentary Films, and Gamechanger Films is a production company behind the upcoming A24 release “The Inspection.”

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Russell Crowe will play a former homicide detective tasked with re-examining a brutal murder case from his past in “Sleeping City.” The Nickel City Pictures film marks the directorial debut of Adam Cooper, who wrote the script with Bill Collage. The film is an adaptation of E.O. Chirovici’s acclaimed novel, “The Book of Mirrors.” Cooper and Collage previously penned the scripts for “Assassins Creed” and “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” Crowe played Roy Freeman, who is undergoing a cutting-edge Alzheimer’s treatment. He is forced to grapple with the impact of an investigation from his former life after a death row inmate that Freeman arrested 10 years prior starts to proclaim his innocence. Intrigued and fighting to regain his memory, Freeman enlists his former partner to help him revive the case and discover the truth. Together, they set off to unravel a tangled web of secrets, forcing Freeman to make some horrific discoveries.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Katie Sinclair has been named the new head of development at Riff Raff Entertainment, the development and production company co-founded by Oscar-nominated actor Jude Law and creative partner Ben Jackson.   She joins from Blueprint Pictures, where her credits as a development executive include Martin McDonagh’s upcoming “Banshees of Inisherin,” which is seen as a major awards season player and will screen at both the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals; “The Beautiful Game,” directed by Thea Sharrock; and Andrew Haigh’s “Strangers,” which stars Andrew Scott,  Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, and Jamie Bell. Sinclair has worked on “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” for Sony 3000 and Netflix. She has been heavily involved in sourcing and shepherding Blueprint’s slate of feature film projects. 

EXCLUSIVE: Bodyguard and Line of Duty star Keeley Hawes has been tapped as a co-lead opposite Krysten Ritter in Orphan Black: Echoes, the upcoming offshoot series set in the world of Orphan Black, which is slated for a 2023 debut on AMC Networks’ digital platform AMC+ and linear nets.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media IFC Films has acquired North American rights to “Four Samosas,” a romantic comedy set in the Little India neighborhood of Los Angeles. The film premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. IFC will release “Four Samosas” in theaters and on demand on Dec. 2, 2022.  Ravi Kapoor directs and Venk Potula (“Veep”) leads an ensemble cast that includes Sonal Shah, Sharmita Bhattacharya, Nirvan Patnaik, Karan Soni, Summer Bishil, and Meera Simhan. The film centers on wanna-be South Asian American rapper, Vinny (Potula), who along with three friends — all of them first-time thieves — plans to rob a grocery store owned by his ex-girlfriend’s father, in order to steal her wedding diamonds and disrupt her pending engagement. 

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media DDA is making a series of key hires and promotions. Ryan Langrehr recently joined the entertainment communications company as U.S. head of awards, based out of Los Angeles. He joins from Block-Korenbrot Public Relations and will work alongside DDA partner Dana Archer and awards strategist MJ Peckos, who formed an exclusive partnership with DDA in 2021 and collaborated on a slate of films in the international and documentary category. These included Spain’s “The Good Boss” and Germany’s “I’m Your Man,” both of which were shortlisted for international feature Oscars.  The DDA L.A. awards offering is a complement to the company’s existing U.K. awards business, which it says will offer studios and filmmakers a “cohesive strategy across both sides of the Atlantic.” The U.K. offering is led by Sam Ross in his newly upped role of director of awards, and his team works closely with DDA partner Neil Bhatt. In recent years, the DDA U.K. awards team has handled AMPAS and BAFTA campaigns and delivered successful campaigns for features, documentaries, animated movies and shorts. Sam has been instrumental in successful campaigns across Academy Award and BAFTA-winning films including NEON’s “Parasite” and BFI’s “After Love.” Additionally, the 2022 BAFTAs also saw nominations for “Happening,” “The Hand of God” and “A Quiet Place: Part II.” Their 2021 haul included BAFTA nominations for “Babyteeth,” “Dear Comrades,” “Mogul Mowgli,” “County Lines” and “The Present.”  

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Sister has enlisted “Pitch Perfect” writer and “Blockers” director Kay Cannon to work with best-selling author Taylor Jenkins Reid on a new original comedy film. Cannon will direct the film with Reid co-writing the script. The film centers around four childhood pals who get a drunken voicemail from their former best friend on the eve of her wedding day — confessing that she thinks she’s making a mistake — and set out to stop her wedding and rekindle the bond they once shared.  Ashley Rodger will co-write the film and produce the picture alongside Reid, Sister’s Co-Founder and Global CEO Stacey Snider, Ilda Diffley, Joanna Korshak, Brad Mendlsohn, Cannon and Laverne McKinnon. Shooting will start in the second quarter of 2023.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Utopia has purchased global rights to “American Rapstar,” a look at the rise of SoundCloud rappers. The film, which screened at such major festivals as SXSW, DOC NYC, and the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, pulls back the curtain on a group lo-fi young artists, who boast a rebellious punk energy along with their colorful facial tattoos and penchant for prescription drug use. It’s a rising generation of talent such as Smokepurpp, Lil Xan, XXXTentacion, Lil Peep and Bhad Bhabie, all of whom have disrupted the music industry and used new technologies to grow their audience. “American Rapstar” will begin streaming on Sept. 1, 2022 on Hulu. Utopia will present a global virtual screening via Altavod.com on Oct. 4, 2022 with exclusive bonus content available only on that day, before releasing the film on-demand on all platforms Oct. 11, 2022.

“I knew something freaky was going to happen tonight,” Kate Hudson says in the new trailer for “Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon.” “With a full moon, I feel it in my ovaries, I swear to god.” The film is the latest hallucinogenic nightmare from Ana Lily Amirpour, known for the celebrated indies “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” and “The Bad Batch.”  Starring Kate Hudson, Jun Jong Seo, Ed Skrein, Evan Whitten, and Craig Robinson, ‘Blood Moon’ has been described as a “mind-bending adventure set in the humid, neon-lit streets of New Orleans.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Projected Picture Works, the production company founded by Sean Penn last year, has signed on to produce “Killers & Diplomats.” The political thriller tells the true story of four American missionary women who raped and murdered in El Salvador in 1980. It follows a young U.S. diplomat who cracked the case by cultivating an improbable source — risking everything to gather the key evidence. The film is based on an article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Raymond Bonner. “Killers & Diplomats” is from writers Michael Nourse and John Tyler McClain, whose screenplay was featured on the 2021 Annual Black List. It was developed by producers Jordan Foley and Jonathan Rosenthal of Mill House Motion Pictures. Projected Picture Works partners John Ira Palmer and John Wildermuth are producing with Penn, Foley and Rosenthal. Ray Bonner will executive produce with Yeardley Smith and Ben Cornwell of Paperclip Ltd.  

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaScreen Media has nabbed North American distribution rights to “Virtually Heroes,” an action comedy that was produced by Roger Corman nearly a decade ago but was left without a home.The release of the film has been a long time coming. “Virtually Heroes” was an official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, but despite Corman’s legendary status as the Picasso of B movies, it never landed distribution.

Kate Aurthur editorIn its finale in January, “Yellowjackets” posed a terrifying question: Who the fuck is Lottie Matthews? And now, Showtime has an answer. With Season 2 of the show starting production later this month in Vancouver, the network announced that adult Lottie will be played by Simone Kessell, who recently starred as Princess Leia’s mother Breha Organa in “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and as the mother of Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) on “Our Flag Means Death.”Lottie, who is played as a teenager by Courtney Eaton, emerged as the central antagonist of the show in the first season of “Yellowjackets.” A rich kid whose parents furnished her soccer team with a private plane in order for the Yellowjackets to travel to nationals, Lottie had been forced to go off her anti-psychotic medication after that plane crashed in the wilderness, where the show’s 1996 timeline is set.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaRLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has acquired “Old Man” and is planning to release the thriller this fall. The movie from director Lucky McKee (“All Cheerleaders Die”) stars Stephen Lang, who is best known for his work as the chief villain in “Avatar.” It marks the screenwriting debut of Joel Veach and co-sters Marc Senter (“Starry Eyes”), Liana Wright-Mark (“Ocean’s 8”), and Patch Darragh (“Succession”).

Shudder — AMC’s streamer for horror, thriller and the supernatural — has inked a deal with The Boulet Brothers to expand their Dragula franchise with a new season, a new spinoff series and an additional special to air in the next year.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaVerve has promoted Melissa Darman to partner.Darman, who joined Verve in 2014, started her career at ICM before pivoting to the studio system to work in comedy development at ABC Network. She then moved onto Lionsgate before joining Verve, where she has continued to focus on comedy during her time as an agent on the TV literary team.“Working at Verve continues to be rewarding on a daily basis,” Darman said in a statement.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“Into the Woods,” the acclaimed New York City Center Encores! production of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical, will extend performances through Oct. 16 with a largely new ensemble.Joining the production are Stephanie J. Block as the Baker’s Wife (replacing Sara Bareilles), Sebastian Arcelus as the Baker (replacing Brian d’Arcy James), Krysta Rodriguez as Cinderella (replacing Phillipa Soo), Katy Geraghty as Little Red Ridinghood (replacing Julia Lester), Jim Stanek as the Steward (replacing David Turner).

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeAMC Networks has renewed the Emmy-nominated short-form series “Cooper’s Bar” for a second season, while Acorn TV — AMC Networks’ streamer devoted to British and international fare — has given a Season 2 renewal to “Harry Wild,” starring and executive produced by Jane Seymour.Both pickups were announced Wednesday during AMC Networks’ portion of the Television Critics Assn. press tour.