IP Surveillance #5

This Week’s IP Surveillance – August 2025

Early‑stage adaptation oxygen is thick this month. Our August sweep surfaces unoptioned or barely‑buzzed properties across books, audio, journalism, games and theatre—each with a clear “why now” spark and expandable world‑building:

Intimate & off‑beat fiction: a Swedish widower’s fight for autonomy (When the Cranes Fly South), a canine‑tinged 18th‑century mass hysteria (The Hounding), and four suburban moms cracking a cold case over PTA carpools (The Carpool Detectives).
Audio with built‑in arcs: the creation myth of the NYPD (Empire City), Ireland’s oldest missing‑person mystery (Stolen Sister), and Brazil’s rainforest murders (Missing in the Amazon).
Long‑form big swings: a Trump‑branded Albanian island development, Indigenous rangers versus cartels in the Javari Valley, and London’s suavest legal fraudster—each begging for limited‑series treatment.
Wildcard spotlights: mythic Afro‑fantasy platformer (Tales of Kenzera: Zau), dystopian space‑fugitive RPG (Citizen Sleeper 2), a debate‑club dark comedy (Trophy Boys), and a Seoul robot‑romance musical (Maybe Happy Ending).

Let us know what you're hunting for.

Clive Barker seated and speaking at an event in Seattle in 2007.

The Candyman rights notice nobody has reported

A notice ending a US grant on the story behind Candyman took effect on Tuesday. Plus the Goncourt winner and Belgium’s cocaine supercop.

Audience seated in a darkened cinema facing a lit screen

Friday Briefing #21: The Box Office Is Breathing Again

Hollywood finally got a week that felt less defensive. Theaters have a real hit on the board, another ambitious film still drawing crowds, and just enough momentum for executives to talk about growth again instead of only cuts. None of that cancels Sony’s layoffs, the labor question, or the fight...

Shadowy many-armed figure surrounded by glowing orbs in a fiery haze

IP Surveillance #22

The market this week is drawing a harder line than it used to. Buyers still want IP, but they increasingly want it to arrive either pre-legitimized by prestige, talent, or institutional weight, or pre-scaled by franchise logic and audience behavior. That is why A24 moved early on Patrick

Poster for the animated film GOAT, with a silhouetted goat holding a basketball in a spotlight

Friday Briefing #20: The New King of the Mountain

Netflix folds. Paramount wins WBD. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms sticks the landing. Project Hail Mary first reactions are extraordinary. And Glen Powell's new movie is dead.