News

Exclusive: Ordinary Angels and Space Cadet outfit Stampede Ventures has acquired the debut Lgbtqi+ coming-of-age novel Frenesia from author Flavio Nuccitelli for development as an Italian-language series.

The novel was originally published in 2021 by Italy’s Fandango Libri and was honored at Rome’s 2022 Rainbow Awards, which recognizes Lgbtqia+ works. Nuccitelli will collaborate with Stampede Ventures for the book-to-screen adaptation.

Frenesia (which translates as Frenzy in English) charts how one unexpected kiss, given as a joke, shatters the world of an 18-year-old boy and sets him on a reckless, psychedelic journey into his personal hell of excess, fantasies, and boundaries.

“Flavio has created a fantastic lead character in Valerio – who, like so many students his age, is caught between the beauty of ancient Rome and a darker underground side of the city. A place where family, religion, and politics are omnipresent. We saw incredible celebrations around the world during Pride...

Exclusive: Former UTA agent Anna Berthold-Zuk has joined Stampede Ventures as Executive Vice President of Animation and Kids & Family, the company’s President Chris Bosco announced on Thursday.

In her new role, Berthold-Zuk will guide Stampede’s existing kids & family initiatives and oversee expansion in this space as she continues to build out additional creator-driven ventures aimed at launching new franchises. Additionally, she will work to find ways to overcome current hurdles in the kids & family business by building out strategic ventures necessary to support the launch of said franchises in the wake of continual constriction within the industry.

Berthold-Zuk’s appointment bolsters Stampede’s ability to expand its Kids & Family reach in tandem with their existing ventures including Mo Willems’s Hidden Pigeon Company with RedBird Capital Partners and HappyNest Entertainment, a co-venture with UTA, which Berthold-Zuk helped put together. Looking ahead, she will work closely with Sadaf Cohen Muncy,...

Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster and Pablo Schreiber will join the previously announced Alan Ritchson in the action thriller “Motor City.”

Potsy Ponciroli will direct the picture. Production begins July 10 in New Jersey and AlUla, Saudi Arabia as part of Stampede Ventures’ 10-picture slate deal with Film AlUla.

Greg Silverman and Jon Berg will produce for Stampede Ventures, alongside Rohini Singh, Paramdeep Singh and Manmeet Singh of Astro Lion Pictures, and Cliff Roberts and Chad St. John, who also penned the script. Mike Tadross Jr. and Eric Hedayat will executive produce.

Black Bear represents international rights with WME Independent co-representing domestic rights with Stampede, and Sacker Entertainment Law overseeing production legal.

“Motor City” follows John Miller (Ritchson), a Detroit auto-worker whose life and girlfriend (Woodley) are taken away from him when he’s framed by a local gangster (Foster) and sent to prison. On his release, Miller unleashes a maelstrom of...

The former 15-year UTA exec and partner Jim Meenaghan has been tapped as COO of Greg Silverman’s Stampede Ventures.

Meenaghan, who served as co-head of independent film and head of MP business affairs at UTA, will oversee day-to-day operations at the studio under founder and CEO Silverman. “Stampede Ventures is the perfect opportunity for me, the timing could not be better. I’m very excited to join such an ambitious company committed to making great, commercial content with a remarkable executive team and culture already in place,” Meenaghan said in a statement on Wednesday.

In 2018, UTA promoted Meenaghan to co-head the independent film group with partner Rena Ronson after he had been with the agency for nine years and leading the motion picture business affairs group. Having stepped down from UTA at the end of 2023, Meenaghan joins Stampede after it unveiled a partnership with Film AlUla studios, while also...

Jim Meenaghan, the former UTA partner and co-head of UTA Independent Film Group, has joined Stampede Ventures as COO and general counsel.

In the newly formed COO position, Meenaghan will oversee Stampede’s day-to-day operations across all areas, and lead efforts to expand strategic relations across film and television, including the recently announced $350m three-year deal with Film AlUla studios.

He will also work closely with joint venture partner RedBird Capital on the multiplatform children’s and family content company Hidden Pigeon Company, and UTA joint venture Happy Nest.

Meenaghan will report directly to founder and CEO Greg Silverman.

Menaghan...

Pro football is king of this year’s Sports Emmy nominations.

NFL Network’s NFL 360 leads the league with 11 noms, which were announced today by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. CBS and Nickelodeon are right behind with 10 mentions for this year’s Super Bowl Lviii, and Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football is tied with ESPN’s E60 for third with nine. NBC’s Sunday Night Football scored five nominations, tying with ESPN’s SportsCenter.

See the list of noms in all 46 categories below.

Continuing the NFL dominance are Fox’s Fox NFL, HBO’s Hard Knocks and Disney’s Toy Story Funday Football, which are tied with the now-wrapped Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel at four noms each. ABC/ESPN’s Monday Night Football and CBS’ The NFL Today are among a half-dozen shows vying in three categories.

Add to that this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards recipient: James Brown,...

Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, and Gaia Wise have joined Emma Thompson on Stampede Ventures and augenschein Filmproduktion’s action thriller The Fisherwoman.

Brian Kirk is directing from a screenplay by writing duo Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb.

The Fisherwoman centres on a woman (Thompson) trapped in a blizzard in Minnesota who interrupts the kidnapping of a teenager organised by a waif and her congenial husband and realises she may be the youngster’s only hope.

Greer and Menchaca will play the kidnappers.

Stampede Ventures and augenschein Filmproduktion are financing the film with the support of Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, the Dfff,...

Exclusive: Stampede Ventures and Wattpad Webtoon Studios will team for a feature adaptation of Chasing Red, the YA romance webnovel by Isabelle Ronin that has garnered huge attention on the digital publishing platform, Wattpad.

Jessika Borsiczky (Sex/Life) has been set to direct from a screenplay by Lauren Schacher (Hooking Up), and casting is now underway.

Chasing Red tells the story of straight-a student Veronica, who refuses to be college heartthrob Caleb’s next “conquest,” even after a chance encounter sparks an undeniable attraction between them. But with nowhere to stay and on the run from a recent tragedy, Veronica finds herself in need of Caleb’s help, despite the secrets of their pasts threatening to tear them apart. Wattpad’s #2 English-language property, following the massively popular After series from Anna Todd, the webnovel has garnered over 260 million reads since its publication in 2017. It’s been published in print in seven languages,...

Exclusive: Stampede Ventures has optioned rights to the first three books in the bestselling non-fiction series The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone, tapping Zack Stentz (Thor) and his wolf advocate brother Will Stenberg to script a film adaptation.

Published by Greystone Books, the books hail from retired National Park ranger Rick McIntyre. Stentz and Geoff Clark will co-produce through their production company Electric Brain Entertainment, with McIntyre to consult on the project.

Over the course of his four decades observing wolves in the wild, including 28 in Yellowstone National Park, McIntyre has recorded over 100,000 wolf sightings, more than any other person on the planet. A renowned wolf behaviorist, he was one of the first park rangers to work on the Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction Project and educate the public about the park’s wolves.

In his books The Rise of Wolf 8, The Reign of Wolf 21, and The Redemption of Wolf 302, McIntyre brings readers into the wilds of Yellowstone,...

Exclusive: Yvette Nicole Brown (Community) and Jonnie “Dumbfoundead” Park (Raya and the Last Dragon) have joined the cast of K-Pops!, the film marking the directorial debut of eight-time Grammy winner Anderson .Paak, which we were first to report on. Also now aboard the project from Stampede Ventures, which has secured an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA, is new strategic partner Live Nation Productions, which has made an equity investment into the production alongside the former company. It’s been set to enter production in Los Angeles October 30, with additional filming to be done in Korea and AlUla, an ancient Saudi Arabia market city which was scouted through Film AlUla, the film agency of The Royal Commission.

Park joins the cast of the dramatic comedy after developing the project with .Paak, who leads the cast alongside his son, Soul Rasheed. The film is about a washed-up musician from Los Angeles who attempts...

It wouldn’t be wrong of me to say Netflix’s greatest strength is the way they tell real-life stories. Their latest documentary, The Saint of Second Chances, is not only another glorious testament to that; it is probably one of the best documentaries to come out of Netflix yet. The selling point about the documentary is its accessibility. Whether you are a fan of baseball or not, you are bound to enjoy this Jeff Malmberg and Morgan Neville-directed documentary. It is extremely entertaining, very engaging, and brilliantly made from the start to the finish.

Every baseball aficionado probably knows about the infamous “Disco Demolition”, which happened way back on July 12, 1979. It was the brainchild of Mike Veeck, who was in charge of the PR and promotional activities of the Chicago White Sox. The idea seemed like a brilliant one in terms of bringing in the bucks from a full-house stadium,...

Chris Evans as Brenner, Andy Garcia as Neel and Emily Blunt as Liza in ‘Pain Hustlers’ (Photo Cr. Brian Douglas / Netflix © 2023)

Netflix’s fall slate of films includes a new entry in the Spy Kids franchise, a rom-com with a meet-cute on an airplane, and a psychological thriller starring Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor. Emily Blunt and Chris Evans headline Pain Hustlers, Sylvester Stallone’s life and career is examined in Sly, and Michael Fassbender plays an assassin in David Fincher’s The Killer.

The streaming service’s lineup also includes a film that’s generating Oscar buzz following its premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023. Colman Domingo stars as gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in Rustin, directed by DGA award winner George C. Wolfe. Rustin will open in select theaters on November 3, 2023 before streaming on Netflix on November 17, 2023.

September 2023 New Films:

Scouts Honor: The Secret Files...

Fall is officially upon us, and Netflix knows the best way to chill is to fire up a new movie. The streamer has officially announced its full fall film slate, with highly anticipated features such as Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” Todd Haynes’ latest drama May December”, and David Fincher’s adaptation of “The Killer.”

Sign Up $6.99+ / month netflix.com

Plan out your fall viewing and get ready to add all of the following flicks to your Netflix List!

What Movies Are Coming to Netflix in Fall 2023? “Scouts Honor: the Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America” | Sept. 6

Directed by Brian Knappenberger, the new investigative documentary looks at the institutional cover-up of sexual abuse with the Boy Scouts of America and follow the whistleblowers fighting to bring justice against what was once one of America’s most beloved and trusted institutions.

Watch the trailer for “Scouts Honor: the Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America...

September and school have begun, so settle in for some new additions to Netflix this month that will provide comfort amid summertime blues. Those in the mood for love might enjoy the adaptation of Jennifer E. Smith’s book, “Love at First Sight” starring Ben Hardy and Haley Lu Richardson, or the arrival of Sony’s “Love Again” starring Priyanka Chopra and Sam Heughan. Those not aiming for straight rom-com, but a mix of humor and heart will look forward to the fourth and final season of “Sex Education” and the shenanigans of Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield), Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa), Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey) and more.

More serious cinema lovers can look forward to Viola Davis’ Oscar-winning performance in “Fences” (2016) arriving Sept. 1. Eminem’s biographic film “8 Mile” will also arrive that day. Reality lovers can watch Season 4 of “Love Is Blind: After the Altar” before the new Season...

Netflix have offered up a detailed update of all the shows and movies that are planned for the service this September, and we’re here to fill you in on everything you can expect to be added in the coming month!

The Matt Groening-created animated comedy series Disenchantment will return with its final run of ten episodes at the start of the month, and Netflix is adding a long list of library movies to release alongside it, including Jaws 1-3, Superbad, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Later in the month, we’ll also be treated to a fourth season of Sex Education and a fifth season of Love is Blind. For all you nostalgic Spy Kids fans out there, a brand-new movie in the franchise is heading to Netflix in September called Spy Kids: Armageddon, helmed by original director Robert Rodriguez!

Here’s everything else coming to Netflix this month.

Netflix on Tuesday unveiled its full fall slate of films, touting the release dates of awards contenders like Pain Hustlers and The Killer, among other titles.

A crime drama starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans that adapts the book by Evan Hughes, Pain Hustlers has been set to open in select theaters October 20. Directed by David Yates from Wells Tower’s script, the film will make its debut on Netflix October 27, as previously announced. Marking David Fincher’s return to the genre that put him on the map, the thriller The Killer starring Michael Fassbender will bow in select theaters October 27th, having already set its streaming premiere date of November 10th.

Among other buzzy titles coming to the platform that could factor into the awards race is Thom Zimny’s doc Sly, examining the life and career of Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone, which has been dated to hit Netflix November 3rd.

Netflix has unveiled its complete film slate for this fall, including Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire,” Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” Wes Anderson’s short “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” and much more.

The fall film slate features 28 movies that will be released on the streamer beginning in September. Anderson’s short Roald Dahl adaptation will drop on Netflix Sept. 27 following its limited theatrical release on Sept. 20, while “Maestro” and “Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire” premiere in December. Other notable features include “Reptile,” “Rustin,” “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” and Sylvester Stallone’s documentary “Sly.”

Take a look at Netflix’s 2023 fall film slate below.

September Releases

Scouts Honor: The Secret Files Of The Boy Scouts Of America

Release Date: On Netflix September 6

Genre: Documentary

Director: Brian Knappenberger

Producers: Conor Fetting-Smith, Sabrina Parke, Clive Patterson

Executive Producers: Brian Knappenberger, Orlando von Einsiedel...

"This is the true story of a family of baseball hustlers." "All that laughter and fun was going to save us." Netflix has unveiled an official trailer for a documentary called The Saint of Second Chances, arriving for streaming in September. An intriguing doc film telling an unexpected story about someone most people probably aren't familiar with. Mike Veeck, the son of legendary Major League Baseball owner Bill Veeck, blows up his father's career and then spends the next few decades learning the value of a second chance. Co-directed by Oscar-winner Morgan Neville and Jeff Malmberg, narrated by Jeff Daniels, and featuring Charlie Day starring as a younger Mike Veeck (in recreation scenes), The Saint of Second Chances is wildly unexpected, full of heart, and keeps you laughing through a comeback story unlike any other. I love a good doc that plays out with so many twists & turns, without knowing anything about it.

Most festivals don’t want protests. This one encouraged a picket line to form.

The Nantucket Film Festival, which took place June 21-26 on the foggy isle 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast, is uniquely oriented toward the craft of screenwriting. Stars certainly appear — Allison Williams brought the glamour this year — but pen and paper are more important here than primping and pompadours.

The WGA has been a longtime partner of the festival, and the biggest gala event was a Screenwriters Tribute honoring Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, the “To All the Boys I Loved Before” scribe Jenny Han, and Nicole Holofcener, whose “You Hurt My Feelings” screened in the lineup. That film is literally about an author, and so were several others that showed, including Christian Petzold’s “Afire.” And the biggest competition isn’t built around established names at all, but a screenplay contest geared toward finding new talent.

Watch as many documentaries as I do, and you’re bound to see the Chicago White Sox’s notorious Disco Demolition Night come up in a wide variety of contexts. Sometimes the 1979 fiasco is used as a case study in racism and the marginalization of Black voices in music. Sometimes it’s used as a case study in homophobia.

In Morgan Neville and Jeff Malmberg’s new documentary The Saints of Second Chances, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, Disco Demolition Night is reduced to an origin story. Yes, Mike Veeck is remorseful that anybody has read negative subtext into the ill-fated promotion, but he makes it clear that he just wanted to impress his father and pack a stadium. Like several dark things in The Saint of Second Chances, any other insinuations get lost in a sea of stylistic flourishes and heart-tugging button pushing.

Don’t get me wrong,...

Life is, thankfully for us, full of second chances. Humans are forever figuring out how to get it right, but there’s no denying that the universe finds a way to be on our side when our hearts are in the right place. There lies the emotional core of Jeff Malmberg and Morgan Neville’s new Netflix documentary “The Saint of Second Chances.”

The film is a mirror for those of us who have ever had to pick up the pieces after massive failure, and with life being the way it is, it isn’t going to be very hard for this film to find people who develop a cathartic connection to it. “The Saint of Second Chances” is a once-in-a-lifetime documentary for sports that meshes the ordinary with the extraordinary in a way that only the messy hands of time can. And the best part about it? You don...

The 2023 Nantucket Film Festival, running June 21-26, with kick off with four films on its opening day lineup. For the 12th consecutive year, a Disney and Pixar movie will open the festival with “Elemental,” which premieres in May at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Also on Day 1 are Sophie Barthes’ “The Pod Generation,” coming off stops at Sundance and Sarasota — Barthes will also receive the inaugural Maria Mitchell Visionary Award for the film; SXSW-premiere documentary “Joan Baez I am a Noise,” with Baez herself in attendance; and Austrian documentary “Patrick and the Whale,” which premiered at TIFF 2022.

Recent Bleecker Street acquisition “Jules,” starring Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Jane Curtin, will be the closing-night film.

Guests announced to be in attendance include Michaela Watkins (“You Hurt My Feelings”), Allison Williams (“M3GAN”), Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Graham Greene (“Dances with Wolves”), and Julio Torres (“Problemista”).

Other films...