movies

AI Questions Spoil Book & Movie Heat On ‘Call Me, I’ll Hide The Body’ Novel

Published

53 seconds ago

July 30, 2026

EXCLUSIVE: That screeching sound you heard Wednesday from international publishers and film rights buyers was an abrupt application of the brakes after a fevered pursuit of the unpublished debut novel Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body.

The novel by Jerry Falade sold to Minotaur/Macmillan Publishers for a what sources said was a $2.4 million deal for the novel and a follow-up. What has imperiled this novel from following in the footsteps of publishing phenomena from The Horse Whisperer to 50 Shade of Grey and The Hunger Games?

It comes down the infiltration of AI in the publishing and movie/TV industries.

Basically, questions were raised over whether the author, an SMU grad student, used AI as a tool in the writing of the book. The problem: publishers and movie companies cannot register copyright and come away with a clear title chain if there is anything AI in the mix. That’s because AI-aided copy is an amalgamation of many other copyrighted works.

From what I’m hearing, this will be an important teaching moment for writers with aspirations to become serious bankable authors. The lesson: stay the hell away from AI.

I’m told it’s routine for publishers and their reps to ask authors if they used AI, and all parties proceeded in good faith after getting assurances from the author that he did not. That was called into question after the Call Me rights began selling around the world, and movie/TV interest heated up. There are apparently fingerprints, or something that raised the flags of AI censors.

On Thursday, Sandy Hodgman, an independent from Hodgman Literary who sells foreign rights for Europa Content, pulled back its submission of the novel to eager international publishers. Here is the email, which Deadline secured:

Jerry Falade produced an incredible manuscript that dazzled us and the top publishing professionals around the world. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion. During the submission process we vetted the manuscript with Jerry for AI and felt trusting in his reassurance that it was written without utilizing AI as a resource in the writing or editorial process. We can no longer substantiate that, and we are withdrawing the book.

This raises so many questions about authorship and what AI means for this industry but those are questions for another day. We regret that our enthusiasm led to this outcome and we apologize to our publishing partners.

UTA and Europa Content are selling the rights, and their efforts took off when a huge U.S. offer deal was set in place. After the extraordinary email, everything is up in the air. It might be difficult to get the momentum back, even if proper assurances are in place that the author did all the work himself, with no help from AI. Conceivably, a rights buyer would have no more protection than anyone publishing a work in the public domain. It’s one thing to dust off a classic like The Odyssey, still another when the work is fresh and the rights messy and tangled.

The novel sounds awesomely promising. The protagonist, Femi Johnson, sounds a bit like The Wolf, the “Cleaner” character played in Pulp Fiction by Harvey Keitel. Here, the protagonist trades his “cleaner” origins in Lagos, Nigeria, to pursue a chemistry PhD in Houston. His ability to make bodies disappear brings him opportunities and peril as circumstances lead to employment by a cartel operator.

Stay tuned. This just happened yesterday, so when there is something to update, we will add any comments.

movies

Spider-Man: The One Blockbuster Franchise Nobody’s Messed Up

Published

8 minutes ago

July 30, 2026

qasimgillani

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, in recent years, has been rather messy — to say the least.

DC movies, for whatever reason, have always been hit or miss.

Star Wars is lost in space.

The Fast and Furious veered off the road with its last two efforts.

Then there’s Spider-Man…

When was the last time you saw a bad Spider-Man movie?

Ever since we first met Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker, getting a surprise visit from Tony Stark in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the character has lit up the screen.

Holland’s jittery, earnest, winsome take on the iconic 64-year-old comic iconic was instantly likable, radiating teen-geek charisma.

Each of Holland’s first three solo Spider-Man films has performed better than the last. In 2017, Homecoming grossed $880 million globally. Then 2019’s Far From Home racked up $1.1 billion. Then No Way Home made an incredible $1.9 billion. All scored above 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Some critics say Brand New Day, which opens this week, is the best in the franchise. It’s poised to explode at the box office, tracking to open at $465 million globally. The anticipation for the film is remarkable considering how little Brand New Day relies on the usual superhero franchise pump-up mechanics. There’s no cliffhanger storyline leading into this film, no splashy new villain in the trailers, no end-of-the-world stakes, or parade of returning legacy stars. Brand New Day is simply: Hey, Spider-Man is back. As analyst Jeff Bock put it on X: “Superhero fatigue is real, but Spider-Man fatigue is not.”

The success is all the more remarkable considering Spider-Man’s wonky joint custody corporate stewardship. Peter Parker is like a kid with divorced parents who’s been forced to split his time between mom and dad. The solo films are Columbia Pictures releases financed by Sony, with Marvel Studios acting as a creative manager, and handling MCU integration in the crossover films. Plus there’s former Sony boss Amy Pascal, who helped engineer the Marvel deal in 2015, and has continued producing the solo movies through her Pascal Pictures banner and acting as a bridge between Sony and Marvel.

It’s seemingly a “too many cooks” recipe for disaster, but it’s somehow worked. One wonders, if Disney had managed to seize full control of the character, if the franchise would enjoyed the same stellar track record (one can only imagine the mandatory Disney+ spin-off series).

All of Spider-Man’s responsible parties would presumably love to exclusively claim credit for the franchise’s success. But Marvel has had its stumbles of late, and Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent villain movies (like Madame Web, Morbius and Kraven the Hunter) have largely flopped, so neither is otherwise flawless at franchise management. Few ever talk about the writers on superhero movies, for some reason, but clearly Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (who co-wrote Homecoming and are the sole credited writing team for the three other Holland films) deserve plenty of credit (while Holland’s appearances in Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame were scripted by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely).

But also: One suspects the way Holland has played Parker has helped inform how the character has been written and directed. A script informs an actor how to play a role. But particularly in a franchise, the actor’s delivery can teach its creative shepherds how best to use him moving forward. One can argue over which actor has been the best Spider-Man, but there’s no argument over which actor has been the most successful Spider-Man.

Notably, the two animated Spider-Verse movies were also box office and critical hits. So was nearly every Spider-Man movie since Sam Raimi launched the franchise’s modern era back in 2002. There is only one outright creative dud in the mix — 2007’s Spider-Man 3. Many likewise bash 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, though, in my book, Marc Webb’s film is very underrated. Still, even if you count Amazing Spider-Man 2 as a disappointment, that’s still a success rate of nine films out of 11 (assuming Brand New Day is a hit, which is basically a given).

So there’s perhaps another reason for the franchise’s continued success: This is a character that’s so beloved and straightforward, he’s actually tough to mess up. On the DC side, the equivalent is probably Batman. You can make a lousy Spider-Man or Batman movie … it’s just tougher to do so.

It helps that Spider-Man’s name is inaccurate. The character — in the films, if not always in the comics and multiverse guest visits — is never really a man, exactly, with all the assorted baggage a fully grown male character carries. Parker is perpetually just on the verge of manhood — youthful, optimistic, with a somewhat innocent boyish sense of romance. It’s an inherently lovable combination — not cloyingly childish, but not spoiled by the heaviness of adulthood. The films are set in modern times, but the character is stealthily nostalgic. Peter Parker is what we remember about ourselves.

movies

Mike Darnell Strikes Overall Deal With Netflix

Published

29 minutes ago

July 30, 2026

qasimgillani

EXCLUSIVE: Mike Darnell is back.

The reality television luminary has struck a major deal with Netflix as he enters his third act. Darnell has signed an exclusive, multi-year overall deal with the streamer. He will also provide “strategic creative guidance” across its entire unscripted slate.

The surprising move comes three years after Darnell left Warner Bros., where he spent ten years as President of Unscripted Television.

Darnell spent ten years on the studio side, working on shows such as The Voice and The Bachelor, and nearly 20 years on the network side at Fox, where he was behind countless hits such as American Idol, MasterChef and So You Think You Can Dance as well as headline-making titles such as Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, When Animals Attack! andWho Wants To Marry A Multimillionaire.

At Netflix, he will develop and produce a range of projects from competition series to dating shows and reality ensemble projects.

Darnell, who is known for “loud” ideas and shows that “push the boundaries”, has had particular success with shiny floor entertainment shows, which has been a focus for Netflix in recent years. The streamer has been keen to crack its version of these types of formats.

Deadline understands that he will also help guide its unscripted slate, which includes big-ticket competition series such as Willy Wonka-themed The Golden Ticket and an adaptation of iconic board game Monopoly as well as its plethora of reality shows and lifestyle series.

The company said that he will “collaborate with the team on creative development and shape new ideas across the portfolio.”

The deal comes as Netflix is entering a new phase with unscripted television following the departure of Jeff Gaspin, who ran the division as VP, Unscripted Series.

Darnell started at Fox in 1994 as director of specials and rising to President of Alternative Entertainment.

American Idol was arguably his biggest hit at the network with the U.S. adaptation of the British music competition becoming a massive hit and running for 15 seasons on Fox from 2002. Other credits at the network include Temptation Island, which is now on Netflix and heading into its third season, Joe Millionaire, So You Think You Can Dance, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, The X Factor, The Simple Life and a trio of Gordon Ramsay shows: Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares and MasterChef, all three of which are still on the air.

When he left Fox in 2013, Rupert Murdoch called him a “pioneering force in shaping the reality programming genre”.

Later that year, he joined Warner Bros as President of Unscripted Television, where he oversaw hundreds of shows. In addition to overseeing The Voice and The Bachelor franchise, he was behind a raft of cable projects as well as series such as NBC’s Ellen’s Game of Games, Fox’s Mental Samurai, CBS’ The World’s Best and The Ellen DeGeneres Show as well as Friends: The Reunion.

Darnell is repped by UTA.