An Epic, a Web-Slinger, and a Coyote’s Comeback: LAFS & LARS Alumni on 2026’s Biggest Productions

LAFS alumni productions

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey. A new Spider-Man. The Looney Tunes lawsuit Warner Bros. tried to bury. Disney’s live-action Moana. The last ride for the Pogues. Dolly Parton’s life, set to music, on Broadway. Six of the year’s most-searched productions, and LAFS and LARS alumni show up in the credits of every one of them. Here’s who did what.

The Odyssey

Nolan’s mythic take on Homer’s epic hit IMAX screens July 17, shot across Morocco, Sicily, and open water with Matt Damon as Odysseus. Four LAFS and LARS alumni worked the production from camera to final mix. Alumni Israel Literas worked as a Swing, the department that keeps every other camera job moving. Edgar Gonzalez (Film, 2013) covered additional second assistant camera duties on the Morocco unit and again for the underwater sequences, a credit that means he was setting focus marks both in the desert and below the surface. In post, Jessie Pariseau (Film, 2019) cut sound effects and Mikaela Padilla (Audio Production, 2022) handled Foley, the footsteps-and-fabric work that makes a decade-long sea voyage sound like it’s actually happening around you. Four credits, two departments, one very large ship.

Coyote vs. Acme

Warner Bros. shelved this one in 2023, a completed film written off for a tax break alongside Batgirl. Fans organized. Ketchup Entertainment bought the distribution rights for a reported $50 million, and Coyote vs. Acme finally opens August 28. Two LAFS and LARS alumni are on the crew. Brandon Trost (Film, 2000), one of our most established working alumni, serves as cinematographer, with a resume that includes both Sonic the Hedgehog sequels, This Is the End, Neighbors, and MacGruber. Phillip Bladh (Recording Arts, 2008) is the production sound mixer. Bladh is the first LAFS or LARS alum known to have personally won an Oscar, for Sound of Metal, along with a BAFTA, a CAS Award, and an AMPS Award for the same film. He signed onto Coyote vs. Acme back in 2023, years before Ketchup Entertainment rescued it from the vault. A Looney Tunes lawsuit comedy is, on paper, a strange next credit for two people with resumes like these. In practice, it’s exactly the kind of tonal range the job calls for.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

The highest search volume on this list belongs to the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man film, out July 31 and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Brett Pawlak (Film, 2004) is the film’s director of photography. Pawlak isn’t a name buried in the crawl; he’s the person responsible for how the whole movie looks. He and Cretton have worked together since Short Term 12 in 2013, through Just Mercy and the Marvel series Wonder Man, and Brand New Day marks their biggest collaboration yet, with a visual approach built around a grounded, street-level tone rather than the cosmic scale of prior MCU chapters.

Moana (Live Action)

Disney’s live-action Moana opened July 10, with Dwayne Johnson back as Maui and newcomer Catherine Laga’aia in the title role. Two LAFS alumni worked the production: Blane Eguchi (Film, 2012) served as a loader on the Hawaii unit, the same role he held on Red One when we featured him in our November 2024 roundup. Lorin Flemming (Film, 2018) worked as Art Director, building out the physical world of Motunui for a shoot that spanned Atlanta soundstages and Hawaiian coastline. A returning alum and a first-timer on the same franchise-refresh is about as clean a two-for-one as this list gets.

Outer Banks (Season 5)

The Pogues’ final season dropped all ten episodes at once on August 20, closing out a show that’s logged nearly 200 million views across its run. Shelby Holt (Film, 2012) worked as a casting associate and casting assistant on the season. Casting decides whether every face on screen is the right one, and on a show fans have followed for five seasons, that call carries as much weight as anything shot on camera or cut in the edit bay.

DOLLY: A True Musical

Dolly Parton’s stage musical, officially titled DOLLY: A True Original Musical, begins previews at Broadway’s St. James Theatre in December, with an opening set for January 19. Chase Thomas (Entertainment Business, 2020), Founder and President of Funding Beni Entertainment, is attached to the production. Thomas has built a career on the licensing and financing side of entertainment since graduating, most recently through Thomas Global Media’s Broadway division. A bio-musical built entirely around one artist’s catalog and life story is a genuinely hard needle to thread commercially, and getting a show like this to opening night takes producers who understand both the material and the financing behind it.

In the News

Two additional pieces of recognition worth a mention. Kevin Otte (Film, 2011), whose paranormal docuseries Haunted Discoveries we’ve profiled before, won a Golden Telly Award in the Craft: Editing category for “Haunted Discovery: Family Spirits.” And Brett Pawlak, already covered above for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, gets a feature in American Cinematographer’s September 2026 issue. Two different kinds of craft recognition, on two very different scales of production.

Know an LAFS or LARS alum with a credit we should be tracking? We’d love to hear about it.