Indie Studio Mandates 2026 — A24, The Arena, Artists Equity, Fifth Season, Legendary, Miramax, Studiocanal, and Working Title

Happy Tuesday, folks!

This weekend, Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl tanked at the box office, grossing $37 million Stateside. Yikes! This is the last shot I’ll take at James Gunn on this issue, but maybe don’t talk about how you only plan to greenlight great scripts, since we all know that the odds of anyone being 100% from the field are zero, because no one has a perfect track record in this town. Again, a little humility goes a long way with fans, and Gunn’s critics won’t be able to shove such quotes in his face if he stops giving them.

To be clear, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not worried about the overall health of the DCU, as Clayface is going to be a big hit in just four short months from now. And I know that can be a long wait for an exec on the perceived hot seat, but Gunn has weathered fiercer storms before. He’ll be just fine…

Anyway, I didn’t see Supergirl over the weekend. Instead, I took my two young nieces to see Toy Story 5 (another winner from Pixar), I showed my old man M. Night Shyamalan’s masterpiece Unbreakable (he didn’t understand the twist ending), and I watched Vincent Grashaw’s indie crime movie Gangland all by my lonesome.

The latter film stars Lou Diamond Phillips as a tribal cop trying to keep the peace and stop the deadly cycle of violence on a rural Indigenous reservation where gangs have run amok. Phillips is his typically sturdy self in the role, and the supporting cast lends authenticity to the suspenseful proceedings.

Due in select theaters and on VOD on July 10, Gangland is another really well-observed tale from Grashaw, whose career I’ve followed since he co-produced, co-edited, and co-starred in the 2011 indie Bellflower. Since then, he has really made a name for himself as an indie filmmaker, leaving me impressed with both his terrifying feature directorial debut, Coldwater, and 2024’s Tim Blake Nelson vehicle, Bang Bang.

Gangland’s original title was Keep Quiet, and I won’t be keeping quiet today, as I have the latest pages from the 19-page document listing Studio Mandates for this summer — a pretty interesting document that I’ve been sharing in its entirety in recent weeks.

The same preamble applies. This is an external document compiled by an agency or management company, and I’m presenting these entries pretty much exactly how they are in the document, with a few formatting and content tweaks based on reporting. That said, I’m “sharing” this stuff more than I am “reporting” it, and I offer my own analysis below as well.

Keep in mind that studio mandates change week-to-week, if not day-to-day, but generally speaking, this document has been spot-on, based on the feedback I’ve received.

This series will conclude with a bang later this week — Amazon MGM, Amazon AI Creative Studio, United Artists, Apple, and Netflix — though I may split that issue into two parts, just to milk this thing — because it’s Hollywood, baby! No one does it better…

However, today, I focus on eight indie studios — A24, The Arena, Artists Equity, Fifth Season, Legendary Miramax, Studiocanal, and Working Title. If you’re wondering where Neon or MUBI are, they weren’t included in the document, so they have been spared — this time. Mwahahaha…

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