Motion Picture: Whitney Peak And Camila Morrone Join Michael B. Jordan In ‘Miami Vice ‘85’, Charles Melton In Talks For ‘Naruto’

Marcel Ruiz - Tommaso Boddi-Stringer

Action/Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi: Amanda Warren (The Leftovers) and Evan Jonigkeit (The Hunting Wives) to lead the indie sci-fi horror film Door. The film is currently shooting in Portland, Oregon. It follows a “family whose world is shattered after a father unknowingly opens a door that leads to realities shaped by the subconscious of whoever enters.” Character details are currently under wraps, but Akira Jackson (It Ends), River Blossom (Abbott Elementary), Johnny Sibilly (Hacks), and Henry Ian Cusick (Lost) will round out the cast. This will mark the feature directorial debut of Sara Magness and Wil Magness, who also wrote the screenplay.

Marcel Ruiz (One Day at a Time) and Jaden Smith are set to star in Alex Ullom’s Neon horror film 4x4. Character details are being kept under wraps. The film, which follows eight contestants as they enter an illegal sensory-assault livestream where they must kill or be killed using only what they can order online, just finished principal photography. Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios are producing under their multi-title partnership, alongside Divide/Conquer & Phobos, with Neon taking worldwide rights to the horror flick earlier this year. 

Brother filmmakers Carmelo and Nicholas Chimera have announced Dennis Haysbert (Far from Heaven), Kirk Acevedo (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), and Anji White (Ironheart) as principal cast members for Deify, their independent psychological horror film starring Neal McDonough and Skeet Ulrich, which is currently in production in Chicago. In Deify, a cult leader is put on trial after causing his devoted followers to be burned alive. The film is inspired in part by events surrounding the 1993 Waco, Texas, standoff between members of the Branch Davidians church and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, one of the largest civilian firefights ever recorded on American soil. Haysbert plays the judge presiding over the case. Acevedo portrays the real-life “Butcher of Galesburg,” who was convicted in 1986 for the gruesome murder and dismemberment of his wife. Character details for the others haven’t been disclosed.

Whitney Peak (Trash) joins Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan in the Miami Vice ‘85 feature from David Kosinski. The film will be shot in IMAX with production slated for this year. The film is set for release May 19, 2028. Peak was one of many female actors testing for the part, with the final chemistry test taking place with Michael B. Jordan last month (while unconfirmed, sources say Peak will play Jordan’s love interest in the pic). Peak would ultimately land the role. Peak can next be seen in Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping as Lenore Dove. 

Camila Morrone joins the ensemble and is set to star opposite Austin Butler. The actress has had a big year after earning strong reviews for her role in the Netflix series Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. Following the series’ premiere in the spring, Morrone met on several high-profile projects, with Miami Vice ’85 looking like a strong contender. 

Teyonah Parris (Wanda Vision) is set to join Apple’s next original film, Running from Gavin O’Connor, Starring Spike Fearn, Brian Tyree Henry, and Rhea Seehorn. Bill Dubuque penned the script, which is based on a story by O’Connor and Dubuque. While Parris’s character details are being kept under wraps, the film follows “a homeless high school running prodigy on the hunt for greatness as he uses his gifts to outrun his past and find a family.” This will mark a reunion for Parris and Apple Films as Parris will also star in Apple Original Films’ upcoming live-action adventure Matchbox the Movie.

Industry star Alex Akpobone is slated to join Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Jonathan Bailey (Wicked) in the action-thriller Pumping Black. “Set in the cutthroat world of professional cycling and described as being in the vein of Whiplash and Black Swan, Pumping Black follows cyclist Taylor Mace, who at 35 is finding himself aging out of the sport. He is taken under the wing of Andrea Lathe, a doctor driven by her own thirst for victory and power.” 

Marcus Anthony Thomas sets the cast for his upcoming directorial debut. The psychological thriller Cast Me!, is now shooting in London, and will be led by rising star Iniki Mariano in her debut feature role, with Samuel Adewunmi (The Last Tree), Stella Gonet (Spencer), Dean-Charles Chapman (1917) and Clare Holman (Inspector Morse) rounding out the principal cast. The film is produced by Jordi Morera for 2020Films. Thomas penned the screenplay, which follows “Aanya, a young actor who believes she has landed the role of a lifetime after an audition with a famous actor-turned-first-time director. But when the studio overturns the casting decision, her search for answers spirals into obsession, blurring the line between ambition, performance, and reality.” 

Thomas recently completed Warner Brothers Discovery’s full-time 16-month directing mentorship program, where he shadowed directors on the first season of HBO’s House of the Dragon, including showrunner Miguel Sapochnik. He said of the project, “I’m exceptionally grateful to have had the opportunities to witness the process of so many directors working at the highest possible level, and to marry that observation with my own exploration of who I am as a storyteller, it really feels like the perfect time to be directing my debut feature.”

Extraction 3 adds Train to Busan star Don Lee. Lee joins after inking a deal to star in Tygo, a Korean-language entry in the franchise centered on his former child soldier turned mercenary, which is in post-production. Plot and character details are currently being kept under wraps. Production is currently underway in Australia. Joe Taslim (The Furious), Chi Lewis-Parry (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple) and Siena Agudong (Amazon’s upcoming Carrie series) will also star in the project. The Extraction films are based on the graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks and illustrator Fernando Leon Gonzalez. They follow Hemsworth’s Tyler Rake, an Australian mercenary taking on high-stakes global rescue missions.

Diego Luna - Juan Naharro Giménez

Drama: Watermelon Pictures purchases North American rights to Diego Luna’s (Andor) migration drama Ashes. Luna directed and produced the feature, based on the feminist novel Ceniza en la boca, published in English as Eating Ashes, by prominent Mexican author Brenda Navarro. The film follows Lucila, a young woman who leaves Mexico with her younger brother to reunite with their mother in Madrid after years apart. 

This deal comes following the film’s world premiere in Cannes and ahead of its bow in Toronto next month. Luna wrote the screenplay alongside Abia Castillo and Diego Rabasa.

Octavia Spencer - Gary Gershoff

Comedy/Dramedy/Musical: Dan Perlman wraps production on an unnamed coming-of-age comedy featuring stand-up comedian Yamaneika Saunders. Starring up-and-comers Romo Lee (The Kindergarten Teacher) and Lucas Adler (The Plague), the film is adapted from Perlman’s award-winning short Cramming, with a new plot. It follows two desperate eighth graders at an elite NYC prep school who recruit a crew of misfits to shut down their school, one day at a time, in hopes of evading finals forever. 

Ramy Youssef is slated to star in the new A24 comedy Martha & Muhammad. Youssef wrote the script and will be making his directorial debut with the project. He will star opposite Sharon Stone. The feature will explore class, religion, and immigration. Sources say the feature tackles several hot-button flashpoints as it tells the story of a white widowed socialite in New York who develops a relationship with a young Muslim man. Production is slated to begin this fall.

Charles Melton (Riverdale) is in talks to play Kakashi Hatake in Destin Daniel Cretton’s upcoming live-action Naruto movie. Rumors started bubbling last month when the global Naruto casting search began. There was much speculation on Melton possibly joining the X-Men cast, but rumors were laid to rest at last weekend's D23 event.

Amazon MGM Studios adds Adeline Rudolph and Audra McDonald to their upcoming tennis rom-com Love Love. The film is slated to start shooting in New York this fall. RK Films’ Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum are producing alongside 3 Arts Entertainment’s Ari Lubet and Jonathan Berry. Power, Withers, May, and Alyssa Altman will executive produce. Character details are currently being kept under wraps. “Love Love follows a struggling tennis phenom who falls for a charismatic local ball boy at the US Open. Their unlikely romance just might be the spark she needs to make it to the finals.”

Comedian Kevin Hart’s spy comedy adds Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away With Murder) to the project. McG is directing the project, which hails from writers Jonathan Tropper, Adam and Aaron Nee, and Lizzie and Wendy Molyneux. All character details are being kept under wraps. The logline of the film is as follows: “When two rival spies cross paths in a Lamaze class and their wives become fast friends, their double lives collide in unexpectedly hilarious and dangerous ways, forcing the two men to reluctantly become confidantes and partners on the road to fatherhood.”

Ted Lasso star Juno Temple is set to lead the romantic comedy Intimacy Party. The film follows Cleo Kauffman, a woman determined to save her relationship by recreating the intimacy party where she first met her fiancé, only to discover she fell for the wrong guest. Currently in production in Los Angeles with a California tax incentive, the film is produced by Delirio Films’ Christopher Leggett and Rafael Marmor, alongside Jesse Schiller and Hoffman. Others in the cast include Richa Moorjani (Fargo), Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians), Brandon Kyle Goodman (Big Mouth), and Miles Gutierrez-Riley (Agatha All Along). 

Octavia Spencer and Luis Gerardo Méndez are slated to join Margie Claus alongside Mellisa McCarthy. Kirk DeMicco will direct from a screenplay by Ben Falcone and Damon Jones; Margie Claus will also have original songs written and produced by Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum-selling artist Meghan Trainor, along with Falcone and Jones. The film follows Miss Clause as she searches for her husband, Santa Claus, after he disappears on Christmas Eve. Margie Claus is produced by McCarthy and Falcone through their On the Day Productions banner alongside Oscar-winning producer Michelle L.M. Wong (KPop Demon Hunters). 

Margie Claus was previously dated for November 5, 2027. The only other major studio title on November 12, 2027, next year is Paramount’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow from Sian Heder,starring Daisy Edgar-Jones.

Stephanie Ahn - Stephanie Augello

Industry: Corey Hawkins signs with Range Media Partners for representation. Hawkins is additionally represented by WME, JTWAMM, and Shelter PR. His latest roles include Polybus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Hawkins is a graduate of Juilliard drama school and has had notable roles in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Georgetown, and the 2015 NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, where Hawkins played Dr. Dre.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) fired back at Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass for supporting the settlement in the Paramount x Warner Brothers Discovery merger lawsuit on Thursday. Bass joined other Democratic officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom and his possible successor, Xavier Becerra, in encouraging negotiations in the antitrust lawsuit seeking to foil the $110 billion deal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the action taken by 12 states in parallel with a suit filed by the WGA, has indicated no willingness to engage in talks with Paramount. The trial date is set for next March. “We are disappointed that Mayor Bass has chosen to join Paramount’s pressure campaign on public enforcers to push through a merger that is being rightfully challenged as illegal and will lead to job losses in the entertainment industry,” the WGA asserted.

State legislators in Sacramento, CA, are playing a crucial role in California’s film and TV tax incentives for the near-moribund L.A. industry. The legislative session is set to end on August 31, 2026. Major studios and indies panicked about effectively losing lucrative annual $750 million industry incentives by 2030, a mission to fix the mega-measure that’s already signed into law and caps out business and corporate tax credits over $5 million went from launch to being stuck on the legislative tarmac. A deal was in place last Thursday morning that would have carved out an exception for independent productions and some studio/streamer productions. However, with Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur’s putting in the final language the office legislative leadership told the Hollywood Democrat they were taking a “different approach.”

Black Bear Management has signed NYU Tisch School of Arts alumnaStephanie Ahn. Ahn premiered her directorial debut, Bedford Park, in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Prize for Debut Feature Film. The film was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for worldwide distribution and is due to be released in late 2026 or early 2027, following its international premiere at Toronto. Before her directorial debut, Ahn worked as an editor on films including The Girls and My Old Lady. Her screenplays have been recognized as finalists by Cinequest, the Austin Film Festival, the Final Draft Screenwriting Contest, ScreenCraft’s Film Fund, and Rooftop Films’ Filmmakers Fund, and have also been featured at The Gotham’s Independent Project Forum. She is based in Brooklyn, NY. 

Zero Gravity Management signs horror director Alex Kahuam. The Mexican filmmaker, best known for his work in the indie horror feature space, just wrapped his latest project, House of Holloway, starring Disney alum Laura Morano. The film follows a family of serial killers playing a twisted psychological game, competing with each other to claim the next victim from among six guests staying at their secluded home. It’s currently in post-production and is set for a festival run next year. Next up for the filmmaker are Stay With Me, a supernatural psychological horror film set against the backdrop of a music festival, and an untitled sci-fi horror “in the vein of Alien,” according to his company, Kahuam Films.

JT Takagi and Stephen Maing have been named among a distinguished group of honorees for its upcoming 13th edition, set to unspool in New York this November. The annual Visionaries Tribute will be held on the festival’s opening day at Gotham Hall in Manhattan. Takagi serves as executive director of Third World Newsreel, a progressive alternative media center. Takagi also teaches at The New School and City University of NY. Her filmmaking credits include Bittersweet Survival, Homes Apart: Korea, The Women Outside, and North Korea: Beyond the DMZ. “As a sound engineer, she has recorded numerous public television and theatrical documentaries that have earned Emmy and Cinema Audio Society awards,” notes a release, “including Yance Ford’s Strong Island and Stanley Nelson’s Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.” 

Maing's most recent film, The Great Experiment, which he directed with Eric Daniel Metzgar, premiered in March at the True/False festival in Columbia, MO. His previous films include Union, directed with Brett Story; Crime + Punishment; High Tech, Low Life; and The Surrender. Thom Powers, who oversees the Visionaries event, said of the honorees, “JT Takagi has a remarkable career as both a sound recordist and leader of Third World Newsreel. Stephen Maing has upheld a standard of excellence in observational filmmaking through his works.”