👋 Good morning. A great controversy is gripping the land: where are Maui's nipples? Fans have looked upon Dwayne Johnson’s chest in the 'Moana' trailer and found it troublingly smooth. Some are convinced Disney airbrushed the areolas clean off, blaming a supposed studio rule against nipples in its movies. Johnson himself insists otherwise, swearing they're right there, just buried under tattoos and a whole lot of pec. The Dailies remains Switzerland on the matter of Nipplegate. See the evidence for yourself when live-action 'Moana' hits theaters today.

Anyway, welcome back. You've survived to Friday, so pour yourself a well-earned cup and let us handle the catching up. ☕️👇

TOP STREAMED
📊 This week’s top-streamed originals…

FILM	TV
Netflix Enola Holmes 3	Netflix Worst Neighbor Ever
HBO Max Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story	HBO Max The Pitt
Disney+ Hamilton	Disney+ X-Men '97
Prime Video The Sheep Detectives	Prime Video Elle
Paramount+ Clifford the Big Red Dog	Paramount+ Dutton Ranch
Hulu Vacation Friends	Hulu The Bear
Apple TV The Gorge	Apple TV Silo
Peacock Strung	Peacock Love Island USA

LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES
	Enola Holmes 3 NetflixFILM The week's top streaming movie across all platforms. It pulled 4.3M domestic views in its first 7 days according to Luminate, a steep 54% drop from 'Enola Holmes 2,' which opened to 9.4M in its first week. Netflix says the third installment racked up 20.7M views worldwide in its opening weekend.
	Elle Prime VideoSERIES The pilot debuted at 3.5M domestic views, while the binge-released season averaged 2.0M views per episode, adding up to 12.7M hours watched. A solid debut by Prime's standards, landing right in line with the streamer's recent YA series 'Off Campus' (1.9M views per episode and 13.2M hours watched in its first week).

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) July 2 to July 8. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
🏝️ Gen Z can’t stop watching ‘Love Island’…

The cast of ‘Love Island USA’ S8

Every night at 9 o'clock, millions of teens and twentysomethings put their phones down, cancel their plans, and tune in live. The conventional wisdom said streaming had killed appointment TV, especially for younger audiences lost to the algorithm. And reality TV, the genre that once owned the schedule, had faded hard, its share of top broadcast shows shrinking by two-thirds since the early 2010s.

Then along came 'Love Island USA', rebuilding appointment TV six nights a week. S8 had the biggest debut in Peacock's history, and this Sunday's finale should be the biggest night yet. The scale of it:

• 824M minutes viewed across the first three episodes, and 2.3B in the first two weeks (per NBCU), outpacing plenty of scripted tentpoles in the process.

• Nielsen ranked it No. 1 across all of streaming for the June 1-7 week, with 59% of viewing from adults 18-34.

• 80% of viewers who started in the first two days watched at least 15 episodes, a retention rate that almost never happens with this demo.

• S7's 2.2B social impressions made it the most talked-about entertainment series on TV, and S8 has kept pace, passing 1B video views in 16 days.

So how does it keep everyone showing up? Near-daily drops mean spoilers are everywhere, so viewers either watch live or spend their commute dodging TikTok. Fans vote in the app for their favorite couples and put others on the chopping block, giving viewers a real stake (they crashed the app this season, its own kind of rating). Recap creators on TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram rack up millions of views and keep the conversation going between episodes. And it’s even moved offline, with bars screening it next to the NBA Finals and World Cup.

The bigger picture: Streamers have long leaned on the binge model, releasing everything at once and losing subscribers who finish fast and cancel just as quickly. 'Love Island' flips that, and makes the subscription feel worth it to viewers, a nightly habit they keep coming back to. And it isn’t a one-off: 'The Traitors' and spinoff 'Beyond the Villa' are thriving too, more proof Peacock is building a whole slate around appointment viewing.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Live channels on Netflix, Television City, Meta’s AI…

🔴 Netflix is quietly turning back into TV. A recent slide in engagement has the streaming giant reportedly considering live channels, which would run continuous streams of certain programs or genres, plus bundling rivals like Peacock right into its app. It's a bit of an admission that the on-demand-only approach that turned Netflix into a verb might be hitting a ceiling. With shares down more than 40% over the past year and its US viewership share recently hitting a multi-year low, the company that spent a decade burying cable is now inching its way back toward, well, cable.

🏚️ Hollywood's landlord is running out of lots to lose. Hackman Capital is about to lose Television City, the storied Fairfax lot that has hosted everything from 'All in the Family' to 'American Idol' since the 1950s. Hackman ran up more than $357M in debt on the lot, and lenders are forcing a sale. Hackman bet big on soundstages during the peak TV boom, but with LA production now sitting near record lows, it's been losing the lots one by one (Radford, Kaufman Astoria, and Manhattan Beach among them). Radford is already headed to Netflix for a fraction of what Hackman paid back in 2021.

🎨 CAA and SAG-AFTRA are calling out Meta's new AI tool. Muse Image, which launched this week, lets anyone tag any public Instagram account, and generate new AI images from that person's photos. No permission needed, since every public profile was opted in by default. It's a similar move to OpenAI's Sora rollout last year, which sparked enough industry backlash to force a switch to opt-in (before the product died altogether). CAA called on Meta to make protection "the default, not the exception," while SAG-AFTRA deemed anything short of a clear opt-in "unacceptable."

AWARDS SEASON
🏆 Emmy noms are out. ICYMI here’s the rundown…

Nominations for the 78th Emmys dropped Wednesday morning, and while the headlines likely found you already, here are some of the bigger takeaways…

• HBO Max dominated. The streamer topped all platforms with 122 nominations and owns both the most-nominated drama ('The Pitt') and comedy ('Hacks'). All while the Paramount Skydance deal inches toward the finish line.

• Which makes Paramount's own showing a little awkward. Paramount+ walked away with one nomination total, a stunt nod for 'Tulsa King.' Taylor Sheridan got shut out yet again, even with buzzy seasons of 'Landman' and 'The Madison.' Not exactly new territory: across all his shows ever, Sheridan has nine Emmy nods, all below-the-line. Luckily for them, HBO Max's haul is about to be theirs anyway.

• Apple TV keeps punching above its weight. A company-record 87 nominations and six series in the top program categories, including freshman breakouts 'Widow's Bay' (19 noms) and 'Pluribus' (18). Not bad for a streamer with a fraction of its rivals' viewership.

• 'Hacks' is now the most-nominated comedy ever. Its final season pulled 24 nods, breaking the record of 23 that 'The Bear' and 'The Studio' shared.

• The Gen Z effect is (slowly) reaching the ballot. 'Dancing with the Stars' earned its first reality competition nod since 2016 after an influencer-heavy season brought in younger viewers and its best ratings in a decade.

• And YouTube got a foot in the door. Kareem Rahma's subway interview show 'SubwayTakes' scored its first nomination in the short form category. 'Hot Ones' missed, but the Academy acknowledging creator content at all is the story here.

• See the full list of nominations here. 👀

Looking ahead… Final voting runs August 17-26, the Creative Arts ceremonies happen September 5-6, and the main show airs September 14 on NBC and Peacock.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• 'Elsinore,' the Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman drama, is heading to Focus Features ahead of a fall festival debut and awards-season release. (more)

• Reinaldo Marcus Green, the 'King Richard' director, is writing, directing and producing a Roberto Clemente biopic over at Teton Ridge. (more)

• Paul Feig is set to direct the horror thriller ‘Detention’ for Blumhouse, Atomic Monster and Platinum Dunes. (more)

• 'Free Willy' is getting a fresh reimagining at Warner Bros. and AGBO, with Mary-Margaret Kunze and Jade Halley Bartlett handling the script. (more)

TV Development 📺

• 'Jupiter Island,' a new golf drama from 'Love Story' creator Connor Hines and A24, is getting a series order at Netflix. (more)

• Isabel May, of '1883' fame, is starring in and executive producing 'Love Love,' a romcom for Amazon MGM from writer-director Joey Power. (more)

• 'The Retrievals' is bringing on Lila Neugebauer to direct its pilot and executive produce the upcoming Netflix drama. (more)

• 'Task' S2 is crossing over with 'Mare of Easttown,' with Julianne Nicholson reprising her Emmy-winning role as Lori Ross. (more)

Business 🤝

• Fathom Entertainment is naming ex-Disney and MetaMedia exec Jason Brenek as its new CEO, taking over from retiring chief Ray Nutt. (more)

• Netflix is poaching yet another YouTuber, signing the Stokes Twins and their 141M subscribers, with a video archive July 18 and a series in 2027. (more)

• Netflix Podcasts is landing an exclusive deal for video versions of Vox Media's 'Unexplainable' and 'Switched on Pop.' (more)

• Artists Equity, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's studio, is launching a scripted TV division, tapping Universal alum Griffin Zucosky as SVP to run it. (more)

• Banijay is officially closing its $8B merger with All3Media, creating the world's largest independent TV production company. (more)

• Kara Smith is getting promoted to Head of Drama as Amazon MGM Studios reshuffles its TV division, with three veteran execs on the way out. (more)

• 18M pounds lost: Experts say this is the future of weight loss, and it doesn't require GLP-1, diets or calorie counting. (more)*

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RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Moana: Live-action remake of the 2016 animated hit, starring Dwayne Johnson and newcomer Catherine Laga'aia.

• Evil Dead Burn: Sixth installment in the horror franchise, directed by Sébastien Vaniček and starring Souheila Yacoub, with Sam Raimi producing.

• The Invite: Comedy directed by Olivia Wilde, starring Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton, expanding wide after its Sundance breakout.

📺 STREAMING

• Little House on the Prairie: (Netflix) Reboot of the classic frontier drama based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, already renewed for S2 before premiere.

• The Five Star Weekend: (Peacock) Drama starring Jennifer Garner, Gemma Chan, and Regina Hall, based on Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling novel.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: Projections for Disney’s live-action ‘Moana’ have slid from an early $85M down to a $45-65M debut, which looks shaky against a $250M budget and the franchise's worst reviews yet. For reference, 'Moana 2' opened to $139.8M just 19 months ago. 'Evil Dead Burn' is tracking at $15-30M, right in line with previous entries. Together the two should keep the summer above the $100M weekend mark before 'The Odyssey' arrives next weekend.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! The Emmys have named a host: NBC gave the 78th Emmy Awards to 'Law & Order: SVU' star Mariska Hargitay, the first host since 1993 who isn't a comedian or TV personality. She's spent 27 seasons keeping a straight face through wild testimony, so the acceptance speeches should be manageable. And if the show doesn't open on a dun-dun, what are we even doing here. Nominations go live later this morning at 8:30 a.m. PT. Tune in here.

Welcome back to The Dailies, Wednesday edition. Let’s get you caught up. 👇

CLOSEUP
📉 Netflix keeps losing viewers after season one…

Somewhere in a Netflix conference room, an executive is asking why nobody finished 'The Four Seasons.' A string of once-buzzy shows have posted brutal viewership drops for their return seasons, and the streamer is now reportedly digging through its own data trying to figure out why.

Take 'Avatar: The Last Airbender,' one of Netflix's most-watched titles of 2024. Its second-season premiere last month pulled nearly 60% fewer views than its first-season debut did. It's got plenty of company:

• 'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder' took the worst hit, shedding a rough 76% of its audience.

• 'Beef' dropped close to 60% for a second season that arrived as a whole new anthology story (which probably didn't help).

• 'One Piece,' the company's most-watched show of 2023, was down just over 30%, the mildest of the big slides.

• 'A Man on the Inside' fell so far it never cracked Netflix's Top 10 the second time around.

Return seasons almost always dip. Netflix is bleeding more than usual, though, and quality doesn't seem to be the issue. Most of these second seasons actually scored higher on Rotten Tomatoes than their firsts.

The likely culprits are multi-year gaps between seasons, short episode orders, and a binge model that front-loads an audience instead of building one. Broadcast shows used to peak mid-run as word of mouth kicked in. Netflix shows tend to peak on day one and slide from there.

Investors are getting antsy about engagement, too. Time spent on Netflix grew less than 2% last year, and the stock has been shaky since the company chased, then walked away from, Warner Bros. Discovery. Weekly-release rivals like 'The Pitt' (HBO Max) and 'Severance' (Apple) are actually growing in season two, which points to the problem being baked into how Netflix releases things.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 More mergers, Tilly Norwood, and physical media…

Sky CEO Dana Strong (Simon Ackerman/WireImage)

🇬🇧 Comcast is buying one of the UK's biggest broadcasters. Comcast-owned Sky agreed to buy ITV's networks and streaming arm for up to $2.13B, a deal that brings together two of Britain's best-known media brands under a single American owner. The wildcard here is ITV Studios, the arm behind 'Love Island' and 'Britain's Got Talent.' Sky didn't buy it, so it becomes its own independent company, and it's already tipped as a takeover target for buyers like Banijay. The deal’s another domino in the media consolidation wave, right behind Paramount-WBD and Banijay/All3Media, as the old guard keeps merging to keep pace with platforms like YouTube and Netflix.

🤖 Tilly Norwood just booked her first feature film. The AI "actor" that ruffled Hollywood’s feathers last year will headline 'Misaligned,' a comedy-drama from Particle 6 (the London studio behind her). The plot follows an AI who breaks free of her guardrails and turns "terrifyingly human," set inside the "Tilly-verse," a digital world somewhere up in the cloud. Particle 6 calls it a "hybrid production," with real directors, writers, and editors working alongside AI specialists. SAG-AFTRA, unmoved, has already ruled Tilly "not an actor," but a character trained on the work of countless performers "without permission or compensation."

🎮 Sony's discontinuing physical game discs. The company will retire the format for all new PlayStation games starting January 2028, sending new releases digital-only (retail boxes will just carry download codes), a move some are calling the death knell for physical media. The shift, which Sony chalks up to consumer preference, follows 'Grand Theft Auto VI' going discless and lands amid loud backlash over the erosion of true ownership. Just last month, Sony deleted 550+ digitally purchased movies (including 'Terminator 2') from European buyers' accounts over a licensing lapse, a reminder that a digital "purchase" is really a revocable license to stream.

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

'CODA' director Sian Heder

🇨🇦 TIFF picked its opener: 'Being Heumann,' from 'CODA' director Sian Heder, will kick off the fest. The Apple drama follows disability rights activist Judy Heumann through a 28-day 1977 protest occupation. Toronto also lined up premieres for 'Prima Facie' and 'The Assassin(s).' The festival runs Sept. 10 to 20.

🎨 Animation is grabbing a huge chunk of California's tax credits: The category didn't qualify until last year, and now it's pulling 59% of the latest round. Four films from Disney, DreamWorks, and Pixar took $71M of the $122M for major studios, led by 'Shrek' prequel 'Donkey' ($19.2M) and Disney's 'Hexed' ($18.5M).

📺 Netflix is stocking up on snackable video: Starting in August, short-form video content from BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, Hearst, People and Penske Media brands (THR, Billboard, Variety) will hit the streamer’s homepage. The clips run three to 20 minutes, and it’s another Netflix jab at YouTube's short-form dominance.

🤝 The details on Neon's 'Artificial' deal are in: Amazon dropped the Luca Guadagnino film about OpenAI, apparently wary of releasing it after its own $50B OpenAI partnership. Neon swooped in, and is paying nothing upfront but committing $15M to marketing and release. It cost about $46M, and a fall release is expected.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Takashi Yamazaki, the 'Godzilla Minus One' director, is making his Hollywood studio debut with original sci-fi film 'Nue' for 20th Century. (more)

• Rain Spencer and Ariana Greenblatt are set to star in Anne Hathaway’s Somewhere Pictures film, ‘Little Five.’ (more)

• John Goodman is joining Brie Larson in Sony's creature-horror thriller 'Skeletons,' with JT Mollner directing. (more)

• David Chase is writing and directing a film about the CIA's LSD experiments, making it his top priority alongside his HBO MKUltra series. (more)

• Jude Law is headlining a new getaway driver thriller written by Zach Baylin and produced by his Riff Raff Entertainment banner. (more)

• Dwayne Johnson is set to star in 'Free Byrd,' playing a motorcycle stuntman hiding a dementia diagnosis, with Greg Kwedar directing. (more)

• Bleecker Street is picking up U.S. rights to Rachel Zegler’s psychological thriller ‘NDA,’ which also stars Penn Badgley and Amy Ryan. (more)

• The ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ prequel added Vicky Krieps, George MacKay and Omar Sy to its growing cast alongside Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper. (more)

• Liz Meriwether, the 'New Girl' creator, is writing the screenplay for Universal's film adaptation of Britney Spears' memoir, 'The Woman in Me.' (more)

TV Development 📺

• Netflix's 'Myron Bolitar,' an adaptation of Harlan Coben's novels, is filling out its cast with Colin Woodell, KJ Apa and Diane Guerrero. (more)

• Julia Garner is starring in and executive producing Apple TV+’s true-crime thriller, ‘Guilty Creatures,’ with Craig Gillespie directing. (more)

Business 🤝

• Viola Davis and her JuVee Productions are signing a first-look TV deal with Universal Global Television, launching with romantic drama 'Pawn.' (more)

• Oregon's attorney general is asking a court to force Paramount to hand over lobbying records and pause its WBD merger for 60 days. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Prince Harry lost his privacy lawsuit against the Daily Mail publisher after a U.K. court dismissed all claims. (more)

• Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' hit the London red carpet for its world premiere, with the star-studded cast out ahead of its July 17 release. (more)

• 18M pounds lost: Experts say this is the future of weight loss, and it doesn't require GLP-1, diets or calorie counting. (more)*

*sponsored

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

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👋 Good morning! Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married at Madison Square Garden on Friday, in front of roughly 1,000 guests, with Adam Sandler (ordained for the day) officiating. The black-tie crowd was stacked, with Steven Spielberg, Emma Stone, Brad Pitt, and Bradley Cooper among the many who made it in. If your invite didn't show up in the mail, don't take it personally (ours didn't either). Most of the actual details are still being kept quiet, so we'll assume Sandler kept it dignified and only did the “Opera Man” bit during the rehearsal dinner.

Hope you had a solid Fourth and made it out with all ten fingers. Now that the smoke's cleared, let’s get you caught up. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ A franchise-low weekend for the little yellow guys…

‘Minions & Monsters’

The bigger picture: It was a sleepy holiday frame, down from both last week and last year. A Saturday July 4th plus a nationwide heat wave meant the BBQ and fireworks won the weekend. 'Minions & Monsters' wasn't the movie to change that. Still, the year's still doing just fine, comfortably ahead of 2025 YTD.

Up next: Disney's live-action 'Moana' is up next weekend, and then July closes out with a heavy hitter each in Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' and 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day.' If they all land, summer could reach $4B for just the second time post-pandemic.

CLOSEUP
🌐 Two more internet horrors are headed to theaters…

Zach Cregger and Steven Spielberg.

Ever since 'Backrooms' and 'Obsession' proved internet-born horror could pack theaters with younger audiences, the town has been trying to bottle the same lightning.

In the weeks after those hits, agency assistants were reportedly combing through Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok like truffle pigs, sniffing out the next viral property. One agency vet claimed they'd already flagged "a bunch" of subreddits and short stories as potential films (a Sydney Sweeney project pulled from r/nosleep is reportedly already in the works). That land grab is now producing deals, and two big ones landed within 24 hours of each other:

• 'Siren Head' went to Warner Bros. out of a five-studio bidding war. The property is a towering, rotting cryptid with two sirens for a head, dreamed up by creature designer Trevor Henderson in 2018 (billions of TikTok views since). 'Weapons' director Zach Cregger is co-writing the script with 'Whalefall's' Brian Duffield, who'll direct. The rights alone went for low seven figures, and Cregger's involvement (one of the biggest names in horror right now) is a big part of why studios chased so hard.

• 'The Mandela Catalogue' went to Scott Stuber's United Artists, Spielberg's Amblin, and Amazon MGM a day later, out of an eleven-way bidding war. It's one of the best known titles in analog horror (the found-footage, fake-broadcast corner of YouTube), set in a Wisconsin county invaded by shape-shifting doppelgangers, with well over 100M views.

The two deals take opposite approaches to who's behind the camera: ‘Mandela' hands the job to its creator, with Alex Kister directing his own IP (the same path Kane Parsons took on 'Backrooms'). 'Siren Head' goes the other way, handing the property to two outside filmmakers (Cregger and Duffield) who had no hand in creating it.

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CLOSEUP
🤖 Hollywood’s new side hustle is training the AI…

Three years ago, AI fears helped fuel the 2023 strikes. Now, with Hollywood work harder to find, some of those same writers, editors, and execs are taking side gigs training the very AI models that could one day compete with them.

The work is called RLHF (Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback), which is a fancy way of saying humans grade the machine's homework. You score a model's outputs (say, whether a character would really crack a joke two seconds after a funeral), and that data eventually trains the AI to do it on its own. Some details:

• It's one of the few growing corners of the business. Per Indeed, AI postings in the arts nearly doubled (about 5% to 11%) between May 2025 and April 2026.

• Most workers come in through Mercor, a recruiting platform now valued at $10B, with a reported 30,000+ contractors billing around $95/hour on average.

• It's not always steady, though. Pay swings widely (from roughly $16/hour for entry annotation to $150+/hour for specialized writing work), and NDAs, unstable scheduling, and abrupt cancellations are common.

Opinions are all over the map. Some have leaned in out of curiosity, wanting to understand the tech from the inside before it understands them. Others took the work out of necessity, to cover rent after long dry spells. And some want no part of it, arguing it's a short-sighted trade that quietly hollows out the creative sector.

The guilds are in a tough spot, and so far they've stayed quiet on it. With LA on-location production still running nearly 20% below its five-year average, more workers may take these gigs to bridge the gap, and leadership can't really tell struggling members not to earn a paycheck (even one that funds the very thing they're fighting).

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

🔫 Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in 'Heat 2,' shooting this November. Michael Mann’s returning to direct, with Bale in the Pacino detective role and DiCaprio in the Kilmer part. Mann’s also reuniting with producer Jerry Bruckheimer (first time in 45 years) on the roughly $170M Amazon MGM project.

🏆 The Emmys are hunting for a new TV home starting in 2027, since the rights run out after this year's ceremony. Broadcasters keep paying to host a show they rarely win, while streamers grab the trophies for free. One fix being floated: a simulcast, where networks and streamers air it at once and split the yearly cost.

🌍 Paramount is dropping United International Pictures, its distribution venture with Universal, to win EU approval for its WBD merger. European cinema operators had flagged antitrust worries, and giving up the venture seems to be smoothing things over. Regulators pushed their decision to July 22 (a sign approval could be close).

⚽ The 2026 World Cup is smashing US ratings records, and the numbers keep climbing as the tournament goes on. The USA-Bosnia win drew 24.4M on Fox, the biggest English-language soccer telecast ever. Today's Round of 16 clash with Belgium (a shot at the quarterfinals, first since 2002) could top even that.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Lola Tung is joining Halina Reijn's A24 film 'Please.' (more)

• Peter Dinklage is starring in 'The Reckoner,' with Kenji Tanigaki directing and Derek Kolstad writing for Lionsgate and AGBO. (more)

• Joe Wright is set to direct Working Title's adaptation of Tim Winton's sci-fi thriller 'Juice.' (more)

• Maya Da Costa is joining the cast of the next ‘Paranormal Activity,’ alongside Chase Yi and Sonia Mena. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Paula Reid is expected to leave CNN for MS NOW after declining to renew her contract. (more)

• 'The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey' is landing at Netflix after Paramount+ dropped the limited series. (more)

• ‘Godfather of Harlem’ will conclude with a two-hour series finale on MGM+ after four seasons. (more)

• ‘Toxic Moms,’ a comedy from Ashley Tisdale, Sabrina Jalees, and Ali Wong, is in development at Netflix. (more)

• Netflix is developing a TV adaptation of Lucy Clarke’s thriller, ‘The Surf House.’ (more)

Other News 🚨

• Film and sound recording are down a combined 3,600 jobs in June, per the latest U.S. labor report. (more)

• 18M pounds lost: Experts say this is the future of weight loss, and it doesn't require GLP-1, diets or calorie counting. (more)*

  _*sponsored

CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead…

• WEDNESDAY: Emmy nominations announced 🗣️

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

🍌 Good morning! Hollywood crowned its first Minionese Idol this past weekend (…and yes, that's a real thing now). At the ‘Minions & Monsters’ premiere at the Dolby Theatre, four contestants sang pop songs in Minionese, the Minions' signature all-gibberish language. Rynia Kando won the Golden Banana for 'I'll Be There,' beating out renditions of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'drop dead.' The crowd was reportedly moved to tears, which in Minionese is just "banana" said softly.

Welcome back to The Dailies. Quick heads up: this is our final issue before the country sets off $3B in fireworks to celebrate its 250th birthday. We're taking Friday off, back on our usual schedule Monday. Now, let’s get you caught up. 👇

CLOSEUP
💔 Comcast is breaking up with itself…

Comcast, one of the six legacy majors, is breaking into separate public companies: one keeps the cable-and-internet business (and the Comcast name), the other becomes a pure-play media company built around NBCUniversal. It's all a tax-free spin-off. Here's how the assets shake out:

• The new NBCUniversal gets the Universal film and TV studios (think Jurassic Park, Shrek, SNL, The Office), the theme parks, broadcast networks NBC and Telemundo, Peacock, Bravo, and European broadcaster Sky. Co-CEO Mike Cavanagh runs it.

• The new Comcast holds onto the pipes: cable, home internet, and a wireless arm that's actually adding customers. Former CFO Michael Angelakis returns as CEO.

• Brian Roberts, Comcast's longtime chairman and CEO, keeps voting control of both halves and stays "actively involved."

• This is the second time Comcast has carved itself up. It already split off its cable networks (CNBC, MS NOW, USA) into Versant, which wrapped back in January.

It’s the end of a 15-year experiment: since the early 2010s, the bet was that owning both the content and the cables that carry it would make the two unbeatable together. In practice it rarely worked. AT&T, Verizon, and Warner Bros. all tried it, then split the pieces back apart. Comcast was the one company everyone pointed to as proof it could work. Now it's walking away too.

Cut loose, NBCU stands on its own books. Universal's movies and Peacock's spending get judged on what they earn, not propped up by cable's cash flow, which makes the company leaner and easier to value. Pressed repeatedly on whether the real plan is to sell NBCU once it's on its own, Roberts said "absolutely not." Wall Street isn't convinced, though. A leaner, standalone NBCU is an easier company to buy, and analysts already have Netflix and Amazon pegged as likely suitors.

Looking ahead… The spin-off needs board and regulatory approval, with close targeted for roughly mid-2027.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 ‘Artificial,’ Paramount-WBD, and Wonka…

👀 Luca Guadagnino's OpenAI movie finally found a buyer. 'Artificial,' the biopic about Sam Altman's brief 2023 ouster from OpenAI, is closing in on a new home at Neon. Amazon MGM Studios dropped the nearly finished, $40M film just two weeks ago (notably, just months after Amazon committed $50B to OpenAI). Once it went up for grabs, a handful of other studios took a look and passed: A24, Netflix, Focus, and Warner Bros. each said no. Neon and Mubi were the last ones in. Neon’s already planning an awards push, adding it to its 2026 slate alongside Cannes winner 'Fjord.'

🇬🇧 The UK's gearing up to intervene in the Paramount deal. After the DOJ signed off, Paramount Skydance's $110B takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery seemed set to clear its remaining hurdles, the UK included. Britain now appears to have other ideas: Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she's "minded to intervene" (government-speak for "about to") over media plurality, given the combined company would control Channel 5, CNN International, Paramount+, and HBO Max. The companies have until Monday to respond. Nandy's threat could delay the close, force divestitures, or extract remedies.

🎩 Netflix is using AI to bring back Willy Wonka. The streamer just revealed 'Wonka's The Golden Ticket,' a competition series that leans on an AI-recreated version of Gene Wilder's voice (the actor passed away in 2016) as a core part of the game, built by AI voice company ElevenLabs with the blessing of Wilder's widow, who controls his estate. It's one of the more mainstream uses of posthumous voice cloning we've seen so far, taking the tech beyond things like one-off audiobook tributes and into a marquee unscripted show. The game show premieres in September.

STATISTIC
📈 The entertainment industry’s still growing…

The global entertainment and media industry as a whole is expected to grow 4.6% in 2026, according to PwC's annual industry outlook. By 2030, the industry is projected to reach $4.2T, up from about $3.5T last year. That's roughly $600B in new money over five years. But that growth isn't spread evenly. A few highlights from the report stood out:

• Advertising is the engine. It crossed $1T for the first time in 2025 and is projected to climb to $1.4T by 2030, overtaking consumer spending (subscriptions, tickets, and the rest). The report credits AI, which lets advertisers target you more precisely and charge more for it.

• Streaming is hitting a wall, as “subscription fatigue” sets in across mature markets. The workaround is ad tiers and bigger bundles. Netflix's ad revenue alone more than doubled last year.

• Live is quietly booming, with concerts, cinema, and even sports betting (now bigger than the box office) pulling people off the couch and into rooms.

• Cinema is leaning on ticket prices. Box office is projected to reach about $39.5B by 2030, but that's mostly pricier tickets, not more butts in seats. Attendance is expected to grow just 1% a year.

The takeaway: The industry's still growing, but the way it makes money is quietly shifting underneath. Worth a grain of salt, too, since these five-year forecasts get revised every year.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Amazon MGM is adapting Ali Hazelwood’s ‘Love, Theoretically,’ with Colleen Hoover producing and Sofia Alvarez directing. (more)

• Paul Dano is starring opposite Callum Turner and Margaret Qualley in Paramount's remake of 'Possession.' (more)

• Colin Farrell, Steve Coogan and Domhnall Gleeson are joining Emilia Jones in 'Bad Bridgets,' Netflix's new period drama. (more)

• Chase Yi is headlining Blumhouse and Paramount's next 'Paranormal Activity' movie, with Ian Tuason directing. (more)

• Monica Barbaro is in advanced talks to join Warner Bros.' 'Ocean's Eleven' prequel, with Bradley Cooper and Margot Robbie. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Alicia Vikander is joining Aaron Taylor-Johnson in 'Enigma Variations,' Netflix's upcoming limited series. (more)

• Benjamin Cavell, the creator behind 'SEAL Team,' is taking over as showrunner on 'Dutton Ranch' for S2. (more)

• Netflix is developing a live-action TV adaptation of ‘Persona,’ with Christopher Monfette attached as writer and showrunner. (more)

• Disney has ordered a live-action pilot based on ‘The Last Kids on Earth,’ adapting the bestselling book series for Disney+ and Disney Channel. (more)

• Tom Hardy is coming back for S3 of 'MobLand,' with the behind-the-scenes issues sorted and a Paramount+ renewal expected to follow. (more)

• Simu Liu is joining Allison Williams and Michelle Randolph in 'Homewrecker,' a sci-fi thriller that starts shooting in France next month. (more)

• Dylan O'Brien is starring in and executive producing 'Lex,' Hulu's comedy pilot, his first time leading a series since 'Teen Wolf.' (more)

• Krysten Ritter is returning for S2 of 'Dexter: Resurrection,' even though her character seemingly died back in S1. (more)

Business 🤝

• Henry Schuster, a longtime '60 Minutes' producer, is exiting the show, saying his departure got buried under the recent leadership shakeup. (more)

• BoxCar Studios is going up for sale or lease in Los Angeles, as the city's soundstage market keeps cooling off after the streaming boom. (more)

• Netflix is pushing France to cap its required investment in local productions, arguing the country's current funding rules just aren't sustainable. (more)

Other News 🚨

• 'Backrooms' is heading back to theaters this weekend in an extended cut, with 15 minutes of bonus footage tacked on. (more)

• Carl Rinsch is getting 30 months in prison for defrauding Netflix out of $11M intended for his unfinished sci-fi series ‘White Horse.’ (more)

• 18M pounds lost: Experts say this is the future of weight loss, and it doesn't require GLP-1, diets or calorie counting. (more)*

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RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Minions & Monsters: 7th 'Despicable Me' film, with Trey Parker, Allison Janney, and Jeff Bridges voicing.

• Young Washington: George Washington biopic timed to America's 250th, starring William Franklyn-Miller, Ben Kingsley, and Andy Serkis.

📺 STREAMING

• Enola Holmes 3: (Netflix) Third mystery film with Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill, based on Nancy Springer's novels.

• Elle: (Prime Video) 'Legally Blonde' prequel set in 1995, starring Lexi Minetree as a young Elle Woods, produced by Reese Witherspoon.

• Silo: (Apple TV+) S3 of the sci-fi drama based on Hugh Howey's novels.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: The Minions are cruising to a holiday win. 'Minions & Monsters' is tracking around $80M over the five-day frame, which would be the rare 'Minions' opening under $100M but still good for a big global weekend. 'Toy Story 5' should hold strong in its third week, while the real wild card is 'Young Washington,' eyeing around $15M. Meanwhile, 'Supergirl' is projected to drop as much as 70% in its second weekend.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! Nothing sells tickets like a heatwave and working air conditioning. As brutal temperatures baked Europe last week, France (where most homes lack AC) hit a record-breaking 44.3°C (111.7°F), sending audiences hunting for somewhere cool. With schools shuttered and landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre forced to cut back hours, the local multiplex kept its doors wide open. That added up to 3M cinema admissions in a week, up 52% from the week before (and 54% over the same week last year). If you're still on the ground in Europe after Cannes Lions, godspeed and stay cool.

Happy Monday from The Dailies. We've rounded up the fresh box office numbers and the latest from around the industry. Let’s get into it. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ Even Supergirl couldn’t outrun Pixar…

Milly Alcock in ‘Supergirl.’ (Courtesy of Warner Bros.)

The Big Picture: 'Toy Story 5' carried the weekend, taking $70M of the $152.5M total on its own. 'Supergirl,' meanwhile, opened soft and set off the usual "superhero movies are dead" chatter. More realistically, the genre's ok and this one just didn't connect. 'Spider-Man' is up next in July and should do big numbers. Zoom out and 2026's in good shape, ahead of last year for the weekend and the year so far.

Up next: 'Minions & Monsters' drops Wednesday ahead of the holiday weekend, looking at a $100M+ five-day haul. Live action 'Moana' lands the weekend after.

WIDESHOT
🎬 A24’s AI deal, MS NOW, and copyright lawsuits…

🗣️ A24 is standing by its Google AI deal. Last week, the indie darling took a ~$75M investment from Google's DeepMind to co-develop AI filmmaking tools, and the reaction was… not warm. Now the studio’s making its case. A24 spokesperson Sophia Shin calls it a research partnership, not a content pipeline: "We'd rather have a seat at the table than on the sidelines." Shin even distanced A24 from generative AI itself, saying the studio doesn't love the AI output currently onscreen in Hollywood and that the work is about fixing behind-the-scenes workflow headaches. A24 reiterated the guardrails too: Google can't train on its films or data, and no filmmaker is required to touch the tools. Critics so far seem unconvinced, with several reading "seat at the table" as proof of the sellout fears rather than a reassurance.

🎙️ MS NOW is replacing live weekend shows with taped podcasts. MS NOW (formerly known as MSNBC) is pulling its live weekend evening shows and handing the slots over to taped video podcasts and outside partnerships. Among them is a deal with Crooked Media, the podcast company behind 'Pod Save America.' Crooked's shows scored the network's strongest taped-series launch in years, and half of those viewers were new to MS NOW on Saturday nights. Casualties include veteran anchor Alex Witt, exiting after nearly three decades, and 'The Weekend: Primetime,' signing off for good. MS NOW isn't alone here. Podcasts are cheaper to license than original shows are to produce, and they pull the younger viewers networks want, which is why Fox News, CBS, NBC, and even Netflix have all leaned into similar strategies.

⚖️ Hundreds of local papers are ganging up on Big AI. A coalition representing nearly 400 local and regional newspapers is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the companies quietly scraped their articles (paywalls and all) to train ChatGPT and Copilot without permission or payment. The suit says they didn't just copy the work, they stripped out the bylines and copyright notices first, the digital fingerprints that mark who owns a piece and where it came from. Former New Jersey AG Matthew Platkin, who's spearheading the suit, argues local reporters cover the council meetings and obituaries no chatbot ever will, so their work shouldn't be hoovered up for free. The AI companies will lean on the usual "it's fair use" defense, but nothing's settled, and the New York Times' similar case against the same companies is still in play.

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STATISTIC
🍿 The $50 popcorn bucket is now big business…

A $49.99 popcorn bucket shaped like an IMAX camera, tied to Nolan's 'The Odyssey,' sold out in about an hour this month. Then it restocked and sold out again. It's now on its third wave of demand. Welcome to the strange, lucrative world of the collectible popcorn bucket.

$54M. That's how much AMC pulled in selling these things in 2023, up from a grand total of $0 just five years earlier. What used to be a goofy concession-stand add-on is now real money, and a rare bright spot for theaters still recovering from the pandemic.

You've probably seen a few of them: The 'Dune' sandworm that resold for up to $800 on eBay. The 'Alien: Romulus' xenomorph head. And, most recently, the Trojan Horse for 'The Odyssey.' Mock it all you want. The bucket money clears.

The numbers followed the hype. AMC sold two-thirds of its 500,000-unit Super Mario Galaxy Movie order in three days, pulling in an estimated $15M to $21M off a single film. The chain now plans collectibles for 40+ releases this year, up from nine in 2023.

It can be a real gamble, though. Lead times run six to nine months, so chains are placing bets long before they know what'll hit. The 'Minecraft' bucket flew off shelves. The Red Hulk one sat there. Welcome to the popcorn wars.

LAST LOOKS
Development 🗒️

• Gary Dauberman is writing the script for 'Five Nights at Freddy's 3.' (more)

• 'Dark Shadows,' the cult '60s gothic soap, is getting a second life as an adult animated series over at Warner Bros. Animation. (more)

• Hulu has ordered ‘Young Americans,’ a high school drama from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ creator Bruce Miller. (more)

• Tim Robbins and Sissy Spacek are joining Emma Stone and Chris Pine in Universal’s baseball rom-com, ‘The Catch.’ (more)

• Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour are reuniting for 'A Spy in the Blood,' a new Netflix spy series from 'Adolescence' co-creator Jack Thorne. (more)

• ‘Every Year After’ has been renewed for S2 at Prime Video. (more)

Business 🤝

• Shadowcast Pictures is closing its doors after 18 years, citing Hollywood’s prolonged production slowdown, consolidation, and AI disruption. (more)

• Warner Bros. denied reports that Jonah Hill’s ‘Cut Off,’ is “unreleasable,” saying the film was simply delayed because it’s still in post-production. (more)

Other News 🚨

• The 2026 BET Awards were last night. Winners here.

• 'Michael' is now the highest-grossing biopic ever, passing 'Oppenheimer' with $977M worldwide. (more)

• The DGA has sued MGM, alleging the studio underpaid pension contributions through a below-market licensing deal with MGM+. (more)

• ‘Migration,’ from Universal and Illumination, is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit alleging it copied a 2007 screenplay. (more)

• The Annecy Animation Festival handed out its 2026 awards. Winners here.

• This ancient movement practice is going viral for a reason — it's the ultimate calm-burn combo. (more)*

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VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! Good news for anyone who's ever lunged for the remote when an ad detonates at twice the volume of their show: starting July 1, a California law forces streaming platforms to stop airing commercials louder than the programming around them. Broadcast and cable have lived under this rule for years, but streamers were free to blast away until one senator's aide had his baby startled awake mid wind-down show. Sleeping babies of California, rejoice.

It's Friday. The weekend's almost here, so top off that coffee and let's run through what you need to know before you sign off. 👇

TOP STREAMED
📊 This week’s top-streamed originals…

FILM	TV
Netflix Voicemails for Isabelle	Netflix I Will Find You
HBO Max Earth, Wind & Fire	HBO Max The Pitt
Disney+ Turning Red	Disney+ The Mandalorian
Prime Video Your Fault: London	Prime Video Clarkson's Farm
Paramount+ Clifford the Big Red Dog	Paramount+ Dutton Ranch
Hulu Never Change	Hulu Shrill
Apple TV Echo Valley	Apple TV Widow's Bay
Peacock The Killer	Peacock M.I.A.

LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES
	Voicemails for Isabelle NetflixFILM The romantic drama drew 3.5M domestic views, according to Luminate, and 17.5M globally by Netflix's count, landing as the #1 movie across streaming platforms. A solid launch.
	I Will Find You NetflixSERIES The latest Harlan Coben drop opened big: 5.8M domestic season views and 31M hours watched in its first three days per Luminate. Netflix's own numbers put it at 24M views and 131M hours worldwide over the same window. 'His & Hers' held the year's biggest premiere for Netflix until now, but this one just edged past it.
	House of the Dragon HBO MaxSERIES S3 premiered to 21.5M global viewers across HBO and HBO Max in its first three days, according to WBD. That's down about 8% from S2's 23.4M debut, but still one of the year's strongest launches.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Jun. 17 to Jun. 24. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
🐷 Peppa Pig is at the center of an AI voice fight…

'Peppa Pig' may be for toddlers, but her contract is strictly grown-up business. Hasbro, which picked up the franchise back in 2019, is asking the kids who voice the show to sign away their voices to AI:

• The new terms could potentially let Hasbro clone a child's voice and reuse the AI audio across the franchise, reportedly with no time limit.

• When agents and families push back, the answer is basically "take it or leave it," so saying no can mean losing the job.

• Hasbro wants those voices on file because of a deal with ElevenLabs that licenses its characters as AI voice products, and an AI Peppa is already up and running.

The industry caught on fast. Nearly 1,000 agents, actors, and parents signed an open letter calling the practice out. It argues that kids can't meaningfully consent to this, and that a parent or guardian's signature shouldn't hand over something this sweeping on their behalf. The letter politely never names 'Peppa Pig' to protect the kids involved, though sources have confirmed it's the target.

Ironically, Peppa's voice has already been recast four or five times (Harriette Cox took over last year), so the show clearly survives a voice change. Critics point out that makes the AI clause look less about the show and more about saving money down the line.

The bigger picture: there's no settled answer yet for what AI voice consent should look like when the performer is a child. How 'Peppa Pig' shakes out could set the precedent.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Sony and Cosm, ‘La Bola Negra,’ and Warnamount…

A screening of a UFC event inside Cosm's wraparound LED dome. (Courtesy of Cosm)

🔮 Sony just put $100M into Cosm. Cosm is the company behind those giant wraparound LED domes that drop you into the middle of a sports match or a movie, with tiered seating priced like a real venue. Sony led the funding round, picked up a minority stake and a board seat, and plans to start piping its own movies into the domes (think 'Spider-Man,' 'Ghostbusters,' and anime). Notably, it's the one major studio without its own streamer, so rather than chase subscribers, Sony's betting on the big-screen experience. And it comes amid a wider boom in premium formats, a rare bright spot in a soft box office. IMAX is posting record numbers and reportedly fielding buyout interest, and Disney just rolled out its own large-format program, Infinity Vision, to keep pace.

📅 Netflix is giving its Cannes winner four weeks in theaters. 'La Bola Negra,' a Spanish queer epic from directing duo Los Javis starring Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close, opens in U.S. theaters Nov. 6 before hitting the platform Dec. 4. It's an awards-corridor play built into the deal. Four weeks is wide for Netflix, which usually keeps theatrical runs short, and it feeds a will-they-won't-they question about the streamer's big-screen plans. On one hand, Netflix has been dabbling more, with a two-week Imax run for David Fincher's 'The Adventures of Cliff Booth' and a full wide release (its first ever) for Greta Gerwig's 'Narnia: The Magician's Nephew.' On the other, film chief Dan Lin recently framed those as one-offs, insisting Netflix won't work with talent who hold out for theatrical.

🇪🇺 Paramount's mega-merger is one step away from clearing Europe. The studio sat down with the European Commission this week to hammer out the final terms for approving its $110B takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The likely price of admission is that Paramount will probably have to ditch a film-distribution joint venture it shares with Universal that handles theatrical releases across several international markets. Regulators worried the combined giant would control too much of the foreign box office. A formal decision could come as soon as July 7, and the deal is expected to clear once that remedy is locked in. The U.S. Justice Department already signed off earlier this month, so the only real hurdle left is U.S. state attorneys general, who could still sue to block it this month.

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

🗳️ The DGA ratified their new contract. Members passed it "overwhelmingly," according to guild leaders. The four-year deal locks in job protections, bigger health contributions, and director control over AI-generated footage. It's the last of Hollywood's three big unions to settle this cycle.

🏆 The Oscars are getting 529 new voters. The Film Academy's 2026 invite class includes familiar faces like Jacob Elordi, Teyana Taylor, Jenna Ortega, Jon Bernthal, and Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro. Over half this year's invitees come from outside the US, nudging the Academy's overall membership to 22% international.

📊 YouTube's still the king of the TV set. It pulled 13.4% of everything Americans watched on their televisions in April (per Nielsen) and keeping its lead over Disney (10.3%) and NBCUniversal/Versant (8.2%). Also, streaming's now nearly half of all screen time (47.6%), with cable at 21.6% and broadcast at 19.9%.

📽️ Chris Nolan's 'The Odyssey' is skipping its influencer screenings. Universal will preview the epic for professional critics rather than the usual social-media "word-of-mouth" screenings that tend to produce gushing early posts. It makes sense–fans seem to be souring on the suspiciously glowing reviews influencers tend to post.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• The Daniels are adding to the cast of their untitled Universal film, bringing on Silvia Dionicio, Jackson Kelly, Kerrice Brooks and Thalia Dudek. (more)

• 'Nightborn,' Rupert Grint's horror film, has been acquired by Shudder and is slated for a July 31 streaming debut. (more)

• 'Paper Tiger,' starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, is opening in theaters Nov. 20 via Neon. (more)

TV Development 📺

• 'Krypto,' an animated series built around Superman's dog, is in development at Warner Bros. Animation and DC studios. (more)

• 'The Wolf King' is in development at Starz, with 'Vida' creator Tanya Saracho attached as showrunner. (more)

• Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley are reuniting for Hulu's 'You Deserve to Know,' based on the novel by Aggie Blum Thompson. (more)

• 'Aquamarine' is getting a Disney+ and Disney Channel pilot, with Emma Roberts returning as a guest star and executive producer. (more)

• Scott Moore, writer of ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Bad Moms,’ has sold his debut novel ‘The Mad Widows’ to MGM Television for series development. (more)

• 'Dutton Ranch' is getting a second season after becoming Paramount+'s biggest original series launch ever. (more)

Business 🤝

• Megan Gallagher, creator of 'All Her Fault,' is signing an overall deal with Universal Global Television plus a first-look pact with Carnival Films. (more)

• Katie Robbins, creator of 'Good American Family,' is signing an overall television deal with 20th Television. (more)

• This ancient movement practice is going viral for a reason — it's the ultimate calm-burn combo. (more)*

  _*sponsored

RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Supergirl: DC tentpole starring Milly Alcock, directed by Craig Gillespie, with Jason Momoa as Lobo.

• Jackass: Best and Last: Knoxville, Steve-O, and the crew return for one last round.

📺 STREAMING

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: (Netflix) S2 of the live-action fantasy.

• The Bear: (Hulu) Final season of the FX kitchen drama.

• Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: (HBO Max) Larry David sketch series riffing on American history, with Bill Hader, Jon Hamm, and Jerry Seinfeld.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: 'Toy Story 5' is still the one to beat, so really the newcomers are just fighting for second. 'Supergirl' is looking at a $40-48M opening, which is less than half of what 'Superman' did last year. Still, Warner insiders say anything north of $300M worldwide counts as a win, so nobody's hitting the panic button yet. And 'Jackass: Best and Last' is eyeing $10-14M. That'd be the lowest opening the franchise has ever had, but on a $10M budget, Paramount probably isn't losing much sleep over it.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning. This summer's breakout stars keep coming: Curry Barker, Kane Parsons, and now, ranch dressing. World Cup visitors came from around the world for the soccer and discovered ranch dressing, and now they want to take it home. That got dire enough for the TSA to issue an actual advisory telling fans to pack the dip in checked bags and "avoid chugging ranch outside of security." Kraft, never one to let a craze go uncommercialized, answered with a limited "TSA-Compliant Ranch" trimmed to clear a carry-on. Somewhere over the Atlantic, a man is weeping over a confiscated bottle of ranch.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to The Dailies. With the condiment news safely behind us, top off your coffee and let us catch you up on everything happening in Hollywood. 👇

CLOSEUP
🤝 A24 cut an AI deal with Google…

Somebody go check on the Letterboxd crowd. A24, the studio that turned good taste into a brand, is getting into the AI business with Google. Some details:

• Google DeepMind is investing about $75M, Alphabet's first-ever equity stake in a film studio. The figure roughly matches Thrive Capital's 2024 round, which valued A24 at $3.5B (no new valuation was disclosed).

• It's a research partnership, not a production, IP, or data-training deal. A24 keeps creative control, and nobody's on the hook to actually make anything with it.

• A24 gets DeepMind's research, infrastructure, and brainpower. Google gets a read on how filmmakers actually work, plus a serious credibility halo.

• The work runs through A24 Labs, led by ex-Adobe exec Scott Belsky, which is already building an AI storyboarding app (the same thing Scorsese's tinkering with over at Black Forest Labs).

• Everyone involved is careful to frame this as the good kind of AI, tools built to keep the artist in control, not the prompt-it-and-pray generators people are wary of.

It's an interesting bet for a studio that made its name building a loyal following of film enthusiasts and taking risks on young, emerging talent, some of whom would rather eat glass than touch this stuff. Case in point: right as 'Backrooms' becomes A24's biggest film ever, its director Kane Parsons has been out there repeatedly calling generative AI harmful. Fans wasted no time either, with plenty canceling AAA24, the studio's paid membership that comes with a ticket to every A24 release.

The big picture: A24 jumping in means the prestige-holdout thing is basically over, with Netflix, Amazon, and Lionsgate all already in the AI water. What sets this deal apart is what A24 is keeping off the table. Where Lionsgate is letting Runway train custom models on its actual catalog, A24's partnership explicitly walls off its library, no films, no data for Google to train on.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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WIDESHOT
🎬 AI Michael Caine, ‘Hot Ones,’ and Instagram…

🎙️ An AI Michael Caine is narrating 'The Odyssey.' AI audio company ElevenLabs put out a 13-hour narration of Homer's epic this week, voiced by a clone of Caine, who didn't do much beyond lending the voice. Caine retired from acting in 2023, but last year he made headlines by licensing his voice to ElevenLabs alongside Matthew McConaughey, in a deal that pays the actors every time their voice gets used. The audiobook has nothing to do with Christopher Nolan's film version of 'The Odyssey,' but conveniently lands weeks before his July 17 release, and leans on a narrator who's been a Nolan regular for years. For an industry still hashing out digital replica terms, it's a preview of how name, image, and likeness licensing might play out.

🌶️ Netflix is bringing 'Hot Ones' to streaming. The streamer ordered 'Hot Ones: Extra Heat,' a spinoff of the wildly popular YouTube series where host Sean Evans interviews celebrities while they sweat through a lineup of increasingly hot wings. This version moves the show out of the studio and onto location for splashy 30-minute specials tied to big Netflix moments, kicking off July 13. It's the latest move in Netflix's campaign to chip away at YouTube, which has topped Nielsen's TV-viewing chart for nearly a year (the streamer's also been licensing popular podcasts, like 'The Bill Simmons Podcast' and 'The Breakfast Club'). This won't pull Evans off YouTube, it just gives 'Hot Ones' a spot on the streamer too.

📺 Instagram wants in on your living room. The Meta-owned platform is rolling Instagram for TV onto Samsung Smart TVs (it's already on Amazon Fire TV and Google TV) and testing horizontal video, a departure from the vertical format it built itself on. It's also testing longform creator content, episodic series, and live programming, leaning on its creators to fill them out (think serialized microdramas). The pull toward the couch makes sense, since VP of product Tessa Lyons calls TV the app's "next frontier" and the living room commands far richer ad rates than a phone feed ever could. If it lands, Instagram could put an entirely new competitor in front of the streamers, the same way YouTube became one.

STATISTIC
🎟️ Local indie theaters are filling seats again…

The Aero Theatre, one of LA's longtime art house staples, in Santa Monica

With the summer box office off to a promising start and a little optimism creeping back into theaters, the Art House Convergence 2026 National Audience Survey says the good vibes go deeper than the tentpoles. They polled more than 27,000 moviegoers about their local independent theaters and found that side of the business quietly doing just fine. Some numbers:

• Business for independent theater was up about 9% over last year, and grosses are a striking 38% above where they sat before the pandemic

• About a quarter of the moviegoers surveyed only started going to their local independent theater in the last three years. These newcomers average 40 years old, a solid 11 years younger than the average art house regular (51).

• And they're not just wandering in once. These are regulars catching 10-plus movies a year, with 43% paying into membership programs, which is more commitment than most people give their gym.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Keanu Reeves is in negotiations to star in a live-action/animated 'Lego' movie at Universal, with 'Toy Story 4' director Josh Cooley set to helm. (more)

• Meghann Fahy and Glenn Howerton (reuniting after 'Sirens') are starring in 'The Girlfriend,' a feature from director Natalie Morales. (more)

• ‘The Magic School Bus’ live-action movie has landed ‘Detective Pikachu’ director Rob Letterman, with Elizabeth Banks set to star as Ms. Frizzle. (more)

• Kevin Bacon is starring in horror thriller ‘Summoner,’ marking ‘Moon Knight’ creator Jeremy Slater’s feature directorial debut for Amazon MGM. (more)

• Timothée Chalamet and Selena Gomez are voicing Illumination's animated alien adventure 'Not Alone,' hitting theaters in April 2027. (more)

• Dan Trachtenberg is directing a Paramount Animation take on Yehudi Mercado's horror-comedy comic 'Freddy the 13th.' (more)

• Glen Powell is attached to star in Legendary's sci-fi thriller 'Homewreckers,' with Craig Gillespie in talks to direct. (more)

• Warner Bros. picked up erotic thriller 'Exposure,' with Erika Vázquez and Siena Butterfield adapting their own short story. (more)

• Ice Cube and Nia Long are reuniting for ‘Are They Gone Yet?’, a third ‘Are We There Yet?’ film centered on Nick’s grandkids. (more)

• Quentin Tarantino and Kylie Minogue are starring in Jamie Adams' new feature 'Tangled Up in Blue,' with Jason Isaacs and Allison Williams. (more)

TV Development 📺

• 'Pen15' co-creator Sam Zvibleman is adapting and directing a TV series based on Anika Jade Levy's novel 'Flat Earth.' (more)

• Disney+ and A24 UK are joining forces for the first time on 'Dad,' a straight-to-series comedy-drama. (more)

• Netflix is developing a series adaptation of Alix E. Harrow’s fantasy bestseller ‘The Everlasting,’ from ‘Maxton Hall’ writer Daphne Ferraro. (more)

• Alex Cooper is starring in ‘Moving On,’ a Google Pixel-backed microdrama spoofing TV tropes that debuted on YouTube this week. (more)

• Chase Stokes is joining Dennis Quaid in AMC's NASCAR drama 'Thunder Road,' playing a disgraced racer in the Whitlock family saga. (more)

• Ron Perlman is hopping into S3 of Prime Video's 'Cross,' teaming back up with showrunner Ben Watkins in a recurring role. (more)

• 'Ponies,' starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson, got the axe at Peacock after just one season, even with strong reviews. (more)

Business 🤝

• Below-the-line agencies DDA and Worldwide Production Agency are merging into one of Hollywood's biggest independent craft reps. (more)

• Netflix promoted Hannah Minghella to lead its animation studios, overseeing a global slate of animated films and series. (more)

• AMC shares tanked nearly 27% after the theater chain announced a $200M stock sale to help chip away at its debt. (more)

Other News 🚨

• The Venice Film Festival set its 2026 jury, led by Maggie Gyllenhaal and rounded out by Kaouther Ben Hania, Johnnie To and Xavier Giannoli. (more)

• ABC is asking viewers to push back on FCC investigations into 'The View' and its broadcast licenses. (more)

• California's Postproduction Tax Credit picked up Editors Guild support, helping the push to keep editing, VFX, sound and other post jobs in CA. (more)

• Netflix is rolling out its first original horror game, 'Unhinged,' on June 30 as it tries to get more people into its interactive gaming slate. (more)

• This ancient movement practice is going viral for a reason — it's the ultimate calm-burn combo. (more)*

*sponsored

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👋 Good morning! Twenty-three years after 'The Room' taught us all how not to throw a football, it's getting a remake. Sort of. 'The Room Returns' has Bob Odenkirk stepping into Tommy Wiseau's shoes as Johnny, performing the original script against a green screen of the 2003 sets. The whole thing was shot in just 12 hours, and it’ll premiere this Friday at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, the perfect resting place for cinema's favorite disaster. Proceeds go to charity, so you can feel good about laughing this time.

Happy Monday. Whether you're rubbing elbows on the Croisette at Cannes Lions or easing into the week from your couch, we've got box office numbers and all the latest news. Let’s get into it. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ To infinity, and the year’s biggest opening…

‘Toy Story 5’ (Disney/Pixar)

The big picture: 'Toy Story 5' posted the biggest debut of 2026 so far and accounted for more than two-thirds of the weekend's domestic haul on its own. Summer 2026 is now running just 1.8% behind pre-pandemic 2019, and it looks like we're on track to top $4B for the season for only the second time post-COVID. And for once the growth is coming from people, not prices: tickets sold are up 7% this year while the average ticket has only ticked up 3%, a turnaround from the last couple of years when higher prices did most of the lifting.

Up next: DC's 'Supergirl' and Paramount's 'Jackass: Best and Last' both open next weekend, followed by 'Minions & Monsters' over the July 4th holiday and the live-action 'Moana' remake the weekend after.

CLOSEUP
🦁 Cannes Lions kicks off today…

(Image courtesy of Cannes Lions)

The International Festival of Creativity (which absolutely no one calls it), also known as Cannes Lions, kicks off today on the French Riviera. The 73-year-old fest, sometimes called the "Oscars of advertising," has grown from an insider ad-industry gathering into a sprawling cultural phenomenon, drawing CMOs, tech leaders, celebrities, athletes, and creators. It's long been a crystal ball for where Hollywood's ad dollars are headed, since what wins here tends to shape how brands spend all year. Expect five days of beachfront panels and a heroic amount of expensed rosé.

This year there's some drama, though. Lions are often won on the strength of case studies showing an ad's real-world impact, and last year several high-profile entries got caught using manipulated or misleading evidence. So Cannes brought in strict new integrity rules, including tougher fact-checking and sign-off from senior execs, and entries fell more than 25%.

Creators, in particular, have become a centerpiece of the festival. They come to land brand deals, score paid speaking slots, and rub shoulders with the marketers who write the checks. There was some worry creators would thin out this time, since the brands that usually pay their way were cutting costs and conflict overseas had pushed travel prices higher, but that didn't happen. More than 250 creators are expected to attend, and about 75% are coming on a company's dime.

Beyond the creators…

• AI is growing up: After a few years as the big buzzword, AI is shifting from experimentation to implementation, with brands focused on how it can actually improve personalization, production, and analytics. One example getting buzz is "agentic" AI, software that doesn't just advise but takes action on its own, like automating media buys. With Google DeepMind and Meta on the programming, expect a week of panels, demos, and sales pitches.

• Sports is getting its own stage. A new two-day program called LIONS Sport launches this year, built around a global sports business Cannes pegs at $417B. Live sports is one of the last things that still gets millions watching at the same moment, which makes it prime ad real estate. The timing lines up nicely, since the FIFA World Cup is running across the pond, with more than two dozen matches during festival week and watch parties all along the Croisette.

Looking ahead… The festival runs through Friday, with awards handed out at ceremonies each evening along the way.

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CLOSEUP
🤖 Amazon dumped its Sam Altman movie…

Amazon MGM just walked away from 'Artificial,' Luca Guadagnino's nearly finished, $40M biopic of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, with Andrew Garfield in the lead. The film covers a 2023 boardroom coup that briefly toppled Altman as OpenAI's CEO before he was reinstated days later.

Officially, Amazon says the movie would simply be "better served" at another studio, and that it's helping the team find a new home. The subject matter had nothing to do with it, the studio insists. Scout's honor.

The timing has people talking, though. Amazon dropped the film just months after committing $50B to OpenAI as part of a cloud partnership. Reports also say Prime Video and Amazon MGM chief Mike Hopkins made the call after screening the film, which reportedly took a darker turn in post, with the portrayals of Altman and Musk (played by Ike Barinholtz) landing somewhere south of flattering.

So far the buyers' line isn't exactly forming. Netflix, A24, Focus Features and Warner Bros.' Clockwork have all taken a pass after screening the film. Some of them have their own AI ties to weigh, too. A24, for one, is backed by Thrive Capital, which holds a seat on OpenAI's board. That leaves Mubi as the front-runner, with Neon possibly circling. Mubi is the same indie distributor that picked up 'The Substance' after Universal bailed.

CLOSEUP
🇫🇷 Animation’s biggest week is back in Annecy…

The French really do love a festival. The Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the world's largest and most prestigious gathering for the animation industry, kicked off yesterday in the lakeside French Alpine town it calls home. It's the field's standard-bearer, equal parts showcase for the biggest studio and streaming projects and launchpad for the next wave of talent.

This year's edition (its 50th) is a milestone in more ways than the number. Annecy is now a "Class A" festival, a designation from the international federation of film producers' associations that seats it at the grown-ups' table alongside Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. It's the only animation festival ever invited. A few things to watch this week…

• Studios are showing up. All spring, the worry was that U.S. studios had gone quiet on the festival circuit. They've turned out in force here. Netflix, Pixar, Disney, and DreamWorks are all bringing first looks, kicked off by the world premiere of Illumination's 'Minions & Monsters.'

• China's on the board. Two Chinese films cracked the 11-title main competition, riding the wake of 'Ne Zha 2''s staggering $2.26B haul.

• AI's still the awkward guest. Last year's on-site protests have mellowed into a wary shrug, the tech now too embedded to ignore. The festival is hosting its first AI think tank, a closed-door session (no press allowed) meant to hammer out best practices over the next three years.

Looking ahead… The festival runs through June 27 and caps off with the top Cristal awards on Saturday. The town is also cutting the ribbon this week on the Cité internationale du cinéma d'animation, a permanent year-round campus (museum, cinema, the works) that keeps Annecy an animation hub long after the festival crowds leave.

LAST LOOKS
Development 🗒️

• Netflix came out on top of a bidding war for the movie rights to 'Sesame Street,' with Rideback on board to produce. (more)

• 'Pippi Longstocking' is getting a fresh animated reboot, this time from StudioCanal, Heyday Films and Mediawan's Submarine. (more)

• Prime Video has pulled the plug on 'Kevin,' the animated talking-cat show from Aubrey Plaza and Joe Wengert, after one season. (more)

• 'Nightsleeper' is renewed for S2 on BBC One. (more)

Business 🤝

• The Paramount-Warner merger could put around 2,500 L.A. jobs and 6,000 roles globally on the line, per a new county report. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Three U.S. Senators are pushing the FCC to hold off on letting the Paramount-Warner merger close until a foreign ownership review wraps up. (more)

• This ancient movement practice is going viral for a reason — it's the ultimate calm-burn combo. (more)*

  _*sponsored

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MARTINI SHOT
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👋 Good morning! Microdramas have breached the sacred halls of cinema. Right before the trailers roll, moviegoers will now start seeing previews for the phone-sized vertical series, thanks to a new deal between National CineMedia and aTwist. What's next, Subway Surfers playing along the bottom of the screen during the trailers?

Happy Friday, and happy Juneteenth. We've got streaming numbers, the latest industry news, and a fresh batch of releases to get through before we all clock out for the weekend. Let’s get into it. 👇

TOP STREAMED
📊 This week’s top-streamed originals…

FILM	TV
Netflix Maternal Instinct	Netflix Sweet Magnolias
HBO Max Earth, Wind & Fire	HBO Max The Pitt
Disney+ Luca	Disney+ The Mandalorian
Prime Video Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War	Prime Video Every Year After
Paramount+ Clifford the Big Red Dog	Paramount+ Dutton Ranch
Hulu Prey	Hulu Shrill
Apple TV F1: The Movie	Apple TV Cape Fear
Peacock The Killer	Peacock M.I.A.

LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES
	Maternal Instinct Netflix Opened strong with 4.9M domestic views per Luminate and 15M global views per Netflix in its debut weekend, one of Netflix's better true crime doc launches in recent memory. It's also beating recent true crime hit 'The Crash,' which managed 11.7M global views (and 6.7M domestic) over the same window.
	Every Year After Prime Video Debuted with 1.2M average domestic season views and 8M hours watched in week one. It comes in under recent Prime YA breakout 'Off Campus' (1.9M season views, 13M hours), but it's a respectable showing and another sign of Prime's ongoing bet on the young adult space.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Jun. 10 to Jun. 17. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
🧸 Two animation giants are about to stress-test IP…

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen at the 'Toy Story 5' premiere. (Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)

While Hollywood's feel-good story lately has been surprise original hits like 'Backrooms' and 'Obsession,' 'Toy Story 5' hits theaters today tracking for the biggest opening of 2026, and a franchise best to boot. It won't have the spotlight for long, though. Two weeks out, Illumination's 'Minions & Monsters' shows up to see whether the summer's big enough for two animated heavyweights. Here's how things are tracking:

• 'Toy Story 5': analysts have it opening anywhere from $140M to $175M. That's a franchise best, and a near-certain trip past $1B globally, with a double-holiday weekend (Juneteenth, Father's Day) doing some of the lifting.

• 'Minions & Monsters': tracking for roughly $100M over its five-day July 4 opening frame. The Minions usually flirt with $1B worldwide, so the soft number’s probably more about a crowded July ('Supergirl,' live-action 'Moana') than the brand.

So you've got two legacy IP giants going head to head in a year that's been pretty rough on legacy IP. 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' is on track for a reported $100M-plus loss, 'Masters of the Universe' and 'Mortal Kombat II' both underwhelmed.

There's data under the slump, too: Gen Z is now the most active moviegoing demo (Fandango has them at the highest attendance of any generation, roughly seven trips a year), and they told NRG they'd take original content over remakes and sequels 75% of the time. So today is really a test of whether the right animated IP can still get people off the couch. Early tracking says it can.

As for whether these two fight or feed each other, history leans hard toward feed. 'Toy Story 3' and the original 'Despicable Me' opened weeks apart in 2010 and both cleaned up ('Toy Story 3' cleared $1B; 'Despicable Me' launched a franchise). Same in 2013, when 'Monsters University' and 'Despicable Me 2'shared a summer and both flourished. When one of these stumbles, it's almost always the movie, not the neighbor.

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CLOSEUP
👀 Hollywood’s frantically scouring Reddit for hits…

In the wake of 'Backrooms' (the horror sleeper that grew out of an online scary story and became A24's biggest movie ever), YouTube's gotten most of the attention, since that's where director Kane Parsons (and 'Obsession's’ Curry Barker) built their followings. But Hollywood's also turned to Reddit, where the scouring for source material has kicked into overdrive.

The 'Backrooms' lore was actually built in the r/backrooms subreddit years before Parsons ran with it on YouTube. And studios were already poking around (an r/nosleep horror story became the upcoming feature 'I Pretended to Be a Missing Girl,' produced by and starring Sydney Sweeney), but the film's success has pushed the hunt into a higher gear. Now agents and execs are treating the platform as a real-time IP incubator, which is a polite way of saying they're lurking in subreddits at 2am:

• They're mining subreddits for both source material and homegrown talent

• One agency vet says assistants have already flagged several subreddits and short stories worth adapting

• The pitch to studios: it's a live focus group (albeit the most argumentative one ever assembled), where fandoms form before anyone options a thing

Not everyone thinks Hollywood's learning the right lesson, though. Peter Chernin, whose Chernin Entertainment co-financed 'Backrooms', says Hollywood's pattern-matching to the wrong thing. The bet was never a platform or a creator, he argues, but a specific piece of content and a specific talent that took years of script and production work to land.

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

Ryan Coogler (Getty Images)

📺 Ryan Coogler's Proximity Media has signed an overall TV deal with Netflix. The move lands the 'Sinners' director's company, cofounded with wife Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian, at the streamer after its five-year Disney pact ended. Coogler's still finishing two Disney projects, an 'X-Files' reboot and 'Southern Bastards.'

👻 Curry Barker's next film landed at Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster in an eight-figure deal, with the 'Obsession' filmmaker writing, directing, and producing an original horror feature. It’ll be his third with Blumhouse Atomic Monster, which also produced his already-shot second feature, 'Anything But Ghosts.'

🚫 Netflix canceled the Duffer Brothers' series 'The Boroughs' after one season, even though it was working: a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score and 1.2B Nielsen minutes in its debut week. Sources blame its $10M-plus per-episode budget, though some suspect ties soured after the Duffers' jump to a four-year Paramount deal.

🤝 It's official: Netflix is under contract to buy LA's historic Radford Studio Center for around $400M, way down from its $1.85B 2021 price after lenders led by Goldman Sachs repossessed it. The buy lets Netflix consolidate its footprint and ditch the Hollywood buildings it currently leases from Hudson Pacific through 2031.

🤖 The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously cleared the NO FAKES Act, which targets unauthorized AI deepfakes. It'd let people authorize use of their voice and likeness, demand takedowns, and pass that right to heirs for up to 70 years. Next up: a full Senate floor vote, though it's unclear when that'll be scheduled.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Jim Carrey is in talks to slip back into the green fur for a 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' sequel, with Ron Howard back in the director's chair. (more)

• Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have sold a secretive high-concept sci-fi spec to Amblin and Universal, with Steven Spielberg producing. (more)

• Wagner Moura is circling the villain role opposite Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper in the untitled 'Ocean's Eleven' prequel. (more)

• Kate Hudson and Ana de Armas are set to star in the erotic thriller ‘Palm Grove,’ from director Kornél Mundruczó. (more)

• ‘Survivor’ is heading to the big screen as an animated Paramount comedy featuring animal contestants, with Jeff Probst executive producing. (more)

• Lewis Pullman is headlining ‘Ragamuffin,’ a coming-of-age motocross drama marking filmmaker Kaitlyn Mikayla’s feature directorial debut. (more)

• Daniel Kaluuya is back with his ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ director Shaka King for Amazon MGM’s action-crime film ‘The Parlay.’ (more)

TV Development 📺

• Ben Stiller is teaming with HBO, A24 and the NBA on a documentary series about the New York Knicks’ history and championship-winning season. (more)

• ABC is developing a TV adaptation of Andrew Mayne’s ‘The Naturalist,’ from veteran ‘CSI’ producers. (more)

• Peacock has given Seth MacFarlane’s adaptation of bestselling fantasy series ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ a straight-to-series order. (more)

Business 🤝

• Netflix and TF1 have launched a first-of-its-kind partnership in France, bringing TF1’s live channels and streaming content to Netflix. (more)

• Quinta Brunson has signed a five-year overall deal with Disney's 20th Television, leaving Warner Bros. but staying on with 'Abbott Elementary.’ (more)

RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Toy Story 5: Pixar sequel directed by Andrew Stanton.

• Leviticus: Queer supernatural horror from director Adrian Chiarella.

• The Death of Robin Hood: Dark thriller take on the legend from director Michael Sarnoski, starring Hugh Jackman.

📺 STREAMING

• The Season: (Hulu) Drama-thriller set among Hong Kong's boating elite.

• I Will Find You: (Netflix) Thriller limited series based on Harlan Coben's novel, starring Sam Worthington, Britt Lower, and Milo Ventimiglia.

• The Capture: (Peacock) S3 of the British surveillance-conspiracy thriller.

• Sugar: (Apple TV) S2 of the neo-noir detective drama, starring Colin Farrell.

• The Agency: (Paramount+) S2 of the spy thriller, starring Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, and Richard Gere.

• House of the Dragon: (HBO Max) S3 of the 'Game of Thrones' fantasy prequel.

VIDEO VILLAGE
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MARTINI SHOT
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👋 Good morning! Two guys are getting paid $50,000 each to watch every single World Cup game. The only catch is that Fox is making them do it from a glass cube in the middle of Times Square, basically a zoo exhibit for the species “man who really likes soccer.” The box is staged like a living room (couch, armchairs, a couple of TVs), so for the next six weeks they'll sit through all 104 games while tourists stop to watch them watch. It’s giving 'Truman Show,' but voluntary.

Happy Wednesday, and welcome back to The Dailies. We’ll make this quick—you’ve got coffee to drink and an industry to conquer. Here’s what you need to know… 👇

CLOSEUP
🤑 Fox just bought Roku…

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch

Add another to the M&A pile: Fox Corp. is paying $22B for Roku, the company whose streaming sticks and smart TV software act as the menu screen for 100M+ households worldwide. The combined company will become the third-largest player in U.S. TV by share of viewing. CEO Lachlan Murdoch called it a "defining moment." Some details:

• Fox is paying $160 per Roku share in a mix of cash and stock, with the deal expected to close in the first half of 2027.

• To fund the purchase, Fox is taking on $8.3B in new debt backed by a $12B bridge loan from Morgan Stanley.

• Together, the two companies will bring in roughly $9B in ad revenue, around 14% of all U.S. TV ad spending.

• For now, Tubi and The Roku Channel will keep operating as separate brands (though that probably won't last).

A bit of a 180: Fox spent years insisting it didn't need a big streaming bet. After Rupert sold most of 21st Century Fox to Disney in 2019, Lachlan focused what was left on live sports and Fox News, dismissing the streaming arms race as a money pit. The Roku deal is his first big move since cementing control of the family empire last year. Investors weren't sold, sending Fox stock down roughly 15%.

The bigger picture: Owning the menu screen is a quietly powerful place to sit. Fox now controls the first thing 100M households see when they turn on the TV, meaning it can promote Fox One, Tubi, and Fox News in prime real estate while still collecting fees from Netflix and Disney to advertise there. It also gets viewing data on what those households actually watch, which means sharper ad targeting and more leverage in negotiations with studios and leagues.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
FYC: THE MADISON | “A Love Story of Discovery”…

From Paramount+ and Executive Producer Taylor Sheridan comes the record-breaking drama series THE MADISON. Michelle Pfeiffer shines in this epic drama about resilience, transformation and the family ties that bind. Variety proclaims, “Michelle Pfeiffer gives a powerhouse performance” in a show RogerEbert.com calls “rock-solid, gripping television.” For your consideration all categories including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress Michelle Pfeiffer, Outstanding Supporting Actor Kurt Russell, Outstanding Guest Actor Will Arnett and Outstanding Director Christina Alexandra Voros.

WIDESHOT
🎬 The Sphere, NO FAKES, and social media bans…

(Sphere Experiences)

🔮 'Rocky Horror' is heading to the Sphere. The Las Vegas venue just announced that 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' will take over its giant wraparound screen in 2027. It's the Sphere's second swing at a classic movie after 'The Wizard of Oz,' which leaned heavily on Google's generative AI to rebuild the 1939 original. Purists weren't thrilled, between the AI work and the roughly 30 minutes that got trimmed, which many felt was disrespectful to the original filmmakers' vision. The bet paid off commercially, though: 'Oz' has raked in more than $400M and over 3M tickets since last summer, or about $133 a seat. Suddenly, those decades-old library films are looking like untapped gold for studios willing to hand them to the Sphere.

🎭 The long-stalled NO FAKES Act is getting another shot in the Senate. To jog your memory, the bill would let people control AI-generated copies of their own voice and likeness, so they could block an unauthorized deepfake (and their heirs could do the same once they're gone). Lawmakers first floated it in 2023, but it kept stalling in Congress. Now it's back, reintroduced in May with bipartisan support and a coalition broad enough to unite SAG-AFTRA, the major studios, and even the AI giants like OpenAI and Google whose tools make the deepfakes possible. An open letter urging passage has already topped 16,000 signatures. Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on whether to push it forward.

📵 The UK just banned social media for kids. Prime Minister Keir Starmer rolled out landmark legislation this week barring under-16s from Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. If it clears Parliament, the rules would kick in early 2027. It also throws in blocks to livestreaming, AI chatbot restrictions, and possible curfews on infinite scrolling. The tech giants aren't thrilled, to say the least, arguing that blanket bans just shove kids toward the internet's sketchier dark corners. But there could be real ripple effects for Hollywood, especially if other countries pile on. Social media platforms are not only major rivals to the streamers for attention now, but also core infrastructure for trailers, content discovery, and talent promotion.

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

🛒 Rumors are swirling that Netflix wants to buy Lionsgate. A Semafor report yesterday floated the streamer as a suitor, though no offer is filed and Netflix insists it isn't interested. Shares jumped 14% regardless. With M&A heating up, Lionsgate's 20,000-plus title library ('John Wick,’ ‘Hunger Games') is an attractive target.

🏀 The 2026 NBA Finals were the most-watched since 1998. The Knicks-Spurs series averaged 20.6M viewers a game, double last year's audience and ABC's best Finals ever. Game 5 drew 24.5M and peaked at 33M as the Knicks won their first title in 53 years.

🏛️ DOJ staffers reportedly wanted to block the Paramount-Warner deal. Career lawyers reviewing it said they were leaning toward challenging the merger as anticompetitive, but leadership closed the probe before they could formally object. The deal was cleared late last week. California's AG may still challenge it.

⚽ Neymar is letting an AI company use his face. Chinese-owned FlareFlow is rolling out 16 World Cup-timed microdramas built around the Brazilian soccer star's likeness. It’ll be the first time a globally recognized star of this notoriety has licensed his face to AI.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• The Duffer Brothers have set a mysterious Paramount event movie for Nov. 2028, their first major theatrical project since ‘Stranger Things.’ (more)

• Sean Penn is set to direct a Warner Bros. drama about a police officer caught up in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, with Bradley Cooper in talks to star. (more)

• Mike Myers says that ‘Austin Powers 4’ is in the works. (more)

• Amazon MGM picked up Ariana Greenblatt’s rom-com ‘Egg Baby.’ (more)

• Anya Taylor-Joy has joined ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,’ Andy Serkis’ upcoming Middle-earth film set for 2027. (more)

• Jason Momoa is in talks to star in Amazon MGM’s action-comedy ‘Shots! Shots! Shots!,’ after the project moved over from Universal. (more)

• Sarah Michelle Gellar and Rudy Pankow will play the Grim Reaper and the Devil in supernatural romance ‘Thud,’ from director Mali Elfman. (more)

• John Lee Hancock's Monsanto drama added LaKeith Stanfield, David Duchovny, Greg Kinnear and others to its cast. (more)

TV Development 📺

• ‘Only Murders in the Building’ added David Tennant, Nicola Coughlan, Jodie Whittaker, Jim Broadbent and more to its London-set S6 cast. (more)

• Ron Perlman has joined S8 of ‘Game Changer,’ appearing in a surprise guest role on the Dropout comedy series. (more)

• ‘Love Island USA’ is bringing its Casa Amor drama to 28 movie theaters nationwide, marking the franchise’s first big-screen event. (more)

• Netflix has greenlit a series adaptation of Hannah Grace’s bestselling romance novel ‘Icebreaker,’ with Amanda Lasher set as showrunner. (more)

• Samantha Morton will star opposite Phoebe Dynevor in Amazon crime thriller ‘Dirty.’ (more)

• ’Harry Potter’ has cast Peter Serafinowicz as fan-favorite poltergeist Peeves, who was famously omitted from the original films. (more)

Renewed & Canceled ✅ ❌

• 'The Four Seasons' has been renewed for S3 at Netflix. (more)

• 'Bloodaxe,' Michael Hirst's new Viking epic for Prime Video, has been renewed for S2 before S1 even premieres. (more)

• 'The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy' has been renewed for S4 at Apple TV+. (more)

• 'Rivals' has been renewed for S3 at Disney+ following strong ratings for S2. (more)

Business 🤝

• NBCUniversal is merging UCP and Universal International Studios into a new unit called Universal Global Television, led by Beatrice Springborn. (more)

• Netflix tapped Sony Pictures to handle the international theatrical release of Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.’ (more)

Other News 🚨

• World Cup opening matches drew record U.S. and Mexico audiences across Fox, Telemundo and their streaming platforms. (more)

• Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ shattered BFI IMAX records, selling 28,000 tickets and grossing £750,000 in its first 24 hours on sale. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! It was a big weekend for grown adults watching other adults run, jump, and punch each other in front of enormous crowds. The Knicks won their first NBA championship in 53 years on Saturday, the World Cup kicked off its opening weekend across the US, Canada, and Mexico, and last night the UFC staged a full title fight on the White House South Lawn (yes, an actual Octagon) beneath a structure named “The Claw.” Hope you enjoyed your weekend, whether you tuned in for any of that, headed to the theater for Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day,' or skipped the spectacle altogether.

Welcome back to The Dailies. We've got box office numbers and the latest from around the industry. Coffee up and let's get into it. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ Spielberg lands in the no. 1 spot…

Steven Spielberg directs Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russell on the set of 'Disclosure Day.' (Universal/Amblin)

Up next: Disney/Pixar's 'Toy Story 5' lands next weekend and is tracking for a monster opening, the kind of four-quadrant juggernaut that could single-handedly reset the summer.

CLOSEUP
⚖️ The DOJ just gave its blessing to Warnamount…

(David Becker/Getty Images)

The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger just cleared one of its bigger gatekeepers. On Friday, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division greenlit the $111B deal with zero strings attached (no divestitures, no concessions, not even a stern look).

After an eight-month dig through 2M-plus documents from 80-plus parties, the DOJ decided the deal is "not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers" across streaming, linear TV, and theatrical film. A few highlights from its reasoning:

• It treated streaming as its own market (meaning YouTube and TikTok don't count as rivals, antitrust-wise), but said that even in that narrower market, a combined Paramount-WBD wouldn't kill competition. It would create a beefier challenger to Netflix and the other giants, which the DOJ figures is good for everyone.

• It waved off comparisons to the 2019 Disney/Fox deal (which spooked people because Disney slashed Fox's output afterward, gutting the mid-budget slate). The DOJ's logic: Disney's diversified empire (parks, toys) lets it cut films and still profit, while Paramount is a "pure-play" media company that lives or dies on making and distributing content, so it has every reason to keep output up.

• On the jobs front, the DOJ said labor worries "do not raise actionable antitrust concerns," its reasoning being that demand for creative workers tracks output (so if output holds, hiring should too).

The combined company would become the largest US theatrical distributor and a top-five streamer.

Looking ahead… It's far from a done deal. The deal still has to get past a coalition of state AGs (led by California's Rob Bonta) who are loading up a lawsuit expected within the month. Overseas, the EU is poking at the ~$24B in Gulf sovereign-wealth money behind the deal, and the UK's competition regulator, the CMA, has its own review going. If everything breaks Paramount's way, they're aiming to close by the end of Q3.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
FYC: THE MADISON | “A Love Story of Discovery”…

From Paramount+ and Executive Producer Taylor Sheridan comes the record-breaking drama series THE MADISON. Michelle Pfeiffer shines in this epic drama about resilience, transformation and the family ties that bind. Variety proclaims, “Michelle Pfeiffer gives a powerhouse performance” in a show RogerEbert.com calls “rock-solid, gripping television.” For your consideration all categories including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress Michelle Pfeiffer, Outstanding Supporting Actor Kurt Russell, Outstanding Guest Actor Will Arnett and Outstanding Director Christina Alexandra Voros.

CLOSEUP
🔍 The DGA’s deal details are out…

The DGA's national board gave the tentative AMPTP deal a unanimous thumbs-up this week, and the guild put out a detailed summary of the terms for members. Here's the shape of it:

• Affiliated hires: The marquee provision, the one casting directors and showrunners will feel first. It caps how many episodes can be directed by people who already work on a scripted series in another capacity (like a lead actor) and have no real directing track record. The goal is preserving slots for career directors. The DGA didn't say how many episodes, or what counts as a “track record,” and called it the hardest thing to land in the whole negotiation. Situations like Noah Wyle directing on 'The Pitt' are the example people keep pointing to.

• Health plan: A 24.4% bump in employer contributions, the largest in the plan's history. In exchange, members face new monthly premiums plus higher deductibles and eligibility thresholds (the gold-plated, no-premium days are over). The actual member costs land later, set by the plan's trustees, so members are voting before they know the number.

• AI: Footage generated by AI stays under the director's control, studios must disclose AI use during employment talks, and training-notice provisions mirror what the WGA and SAG-AFTRA won. There's also a new employer-funded program to train directors on integrating AI into their workflows.

• Pilot credit: A new permanent “Pilot Directed by” card on every episode of a series, so the person who actually launched the hit gets their name on it all season.

• Streaming residuals: A small win that closes a loophole. Studios pay a smaller residual when a film moves from one streamer to another, but now they have to keep paying the original, higher rate. In practice, that would stop a merged Paramount-WBD from potentially shuffling titles between HBO Max and Paramount+ to lower what it owes.

• Federal tax incentive: Studios agreed to send their top executives (not just the MPA) to Washington to lobby for a federal production incentive to pull runaway production back stateside.

• International jurisdiction: As more U.S. productions shoot abroad, studios and agents had increasingly been leaving DGA members off the list for those directing jobs. The AMPTP agreed to a bulletin barring the practice.

• Minimums: Up 2.5% in year one, then 3% a year after that.

Looking ahead… The union's 19,500 members vote on ratification through 5 p.m. PT on June 25, with the board's unanimous backing behind it.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• ‘Monopoly’ is back in development, with Lionsgate, LuckyChap and Hasbro exploring multiple new takes on a movie based on the board game. (more)

• JoJo Levesque and Mike Colter will star in ‘The Very Thought of You,’ a jazz-infused romance about two Angelenos finding a second chance at love. (more)

• ‘Lilo & Stitch 2’ will be directed by franchise co-creator and Stitch voice actor Chris Sanders following the live-action film’s $1B box office run. (more)

• Blumhouse has tapped Thordur Palsson to direct its adaptation of hit horror game ‘Dead by Daylight.’ (more)

TV Development 📺

• Kathryn Newton will star opposite Cooper Hoffman in Hulu’s ‘Durango,’ a drama pilot about two young fugitives falling in love on the run. (more)

• Jimmi Simpson is joining Elisabeth Moss in Hulu’s ‘Conviction,’ a thriller series based on Jack Jordan’s bestselling novel. (more)

Business 🤝

• Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted to reject David Zaslav’s $165M 2025 pay package in a non-binding vote. (more)

• Roku is reportedly shopping itself around, with at least one media company in talks about a possible merger or tie-up. (more)

• CBS News brought on veteran journalist Trevor Phillips as Senior Global Affairs Correspondent, the latest shakeup under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. (more)

CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead…

• SUNDAY: Annecy International Animation Festival kicks off 📽️

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

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👋 Good morning! A PSA for our LA readers: stay away from Inglewood today, unless you're headed to the World Cup. The US Men's National Team opens its tournament against Paraguay at SoFi tonight, the first home-soil Cup match for the Americans since 1994. Fans are flying in from every corner of the planet, and parking is already hitting $300. The tournament runs across the US, Canada, and Mexico through the July 19 final.

It's Friday, which means two things: the weekend is close, and we've got a fresh batch of streaming numbers and industry news to send you into it. Grab your coffee, we'll handle the rest. 👇

TOP STREAMED
📊 This week’s top-streamed originals…

FILM	TV
Netflix Office Romance	Netflix The Four Seasons
HBO Max Miss You, Love You	HBO Max The Pitt
Disney+ Luca	Disney+ The Mandalorian
Prime Video Jack Ryan: Ghost War	Prime Video Spider-Noir
Paramount+ Clifford the Big Red Dog	Paramount+ Dutton Ranch
Hulu Prey	Hulu The Handmaid's Tale
Apple TV Propeller One-Way Night Coach	Apple TV Your Friends & Neighbors
Peacock The Killer	Peacock M.I.A.

LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES
	Office Romance NetflixFILM Opened to 3.5M domestic views and a strong 20M globally over its debut weekend, so the spark's catching abroad faster than at home. For comparison, 'People We Meet on Vacation' debuted to 4.7M domestic and 17.2M global before climbing to Netflix's #5 most-watched film of the year domestically, which puts 'Office Romance' in good company out of the gate.
	The Murder of Rachel Nickell NetflixFILM Opened to 1.4M domestic and 6.1M global views in its opening weekend, further proof that true crime quietly does the job for Netflix every time.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) June 3 to June 10. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
💰 CAA’s putting money where the creators are…

Hollywood's biggest agency just put $250M behind a simple idea: today's YouTubers are tomorrow's media moguls, so buy in early. CAA teamed up with private equity giant TPG to launch Compound Creative Holdings, a new outfit built to buy and grow the businesses creators build around themselves.

The vision: take a creator already pulling tens of millions in sales and build them into the next Oprah or Reese Witherspoon. The goal is to own businesses with staying power, so the value sticks around even if the creator's views dip. Here's the early shape of it:

• Compound takes a minority stake or buys control, then builds the parts a YouTube check can't touch: merch, production arms, and IP.

• Managing partner Tucker Brown has helped raise money for creator outfits like the trick-shot crew Dude Perfect and political news network MeidasTouch, and thinks hundreds of creators have already scaled enough to invest in.

• Compound's backers expect the creator economy to balloon from around $250B now to $1.25T by 2035.

• It helps that creators are suddenly opening actual movies ('Backrooms,' 'Obsession'), giving all that money a thesis to point at.

This is the kind of move the guilds would never allow in scripted Hollywood. The 2021 packaging fight forced WME to offload Endeavor Content precisely because the guilds objected to agencies repping talent and owning the businesses that profit off them. Creator culture has no such guild, so CAA gets to play both agent and owner with nobody to stop it.

The bigger picture: Everyone in town is wrestling the YouTube gorilla differently. Netflix licenses the podcasts (Charlamagne, Jay Shetty), Amazon pays a reported $100M a season for 'Beast Games,' and Fox's Creator Studios (launched earlier this year) funds creators while letting them stay on whatever platform their audience already uses. CAA and TPG's answer is the most aggressive of the bunch: own the businesses outright.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
For Your Consideration, HBO Max Presents HALF MAN…

From creator Richard Gadd, this explosive drama series chronicles the fraught relationship between two "brothers" over four decades. Don’t miss the series The Guardian called “A MASTERPIECE.” HALF MAN now streaming on HBO Max.

CLOSEUP
🤖 Lionsgate’s betting on AI, take two…

Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Lawrence in 'John Wick' and 'The Hunger Games' (Courtesy of Lionsgate)

Lionsgate has taken an equity stake in the generative AI company Runway. The two first partnered back in 2024, and now the studio is deepening things into an actual ownership stake. Here's what they want to do with it:

• Dig into the studio's 20,000-plus title library (think 'John Wick' and 'The Hunger Games') to spin up AI-generated short series, though nobody's saying which IP goes first.

• Start a joint development program for original AI-made IP, alongside a run of "filmmaker-focused events."

• Both sides are pitching it as a creative tool to expand what filmmakers can do rather than a replacement for them.

When Lionsgate and Runway first got together in 2024, Lionsgate became one of the first major studios to make a big AI bet, and the pitch was enormous. Vice chairman Michael Burns famously bragged the studio could take 'John Wick,' tell the AI to "do it in anime, make it PG-13," and have a brand-new, resellable movie three hours later. The whole library would become an endless source of cheap remixes. But most of that never happened.

The plan ran into a wall that turned out to be pretty fundamental, which is that a single studio's library just isn't enough material to train a good model on. These things need an astronomical amount of data (the kind of bottomless library YouTube is sitting on, which is what trains a model like Google's Veo). Four 'John Wick' movies doesn't get you there.

The legal side was reportedly tricky too. Owning a film library doesn't mean you own everything inside it (ancillary rights for actors, writers, and directors are still unsettled). So this is less an expansion than a second swing. We'll see whether it pays off this time.

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

'Cotton Fever' cast and director Daniel Blake Schwartz at the film's Tribeca premiere, June 5. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

🗽 Tribeca handed out its competition awards at the festival's 25th edition, with 'Cotton Fever,' 'Labrador,' and 'Jail Time Records' taking the top narrative, international, and documentary prizes respectively. Still pending: the Audience Award, the fan-voted prize decided by festivalgoers rather than a jury, which lands Sunday. Full list here.

🤝 Warner Bros. is reuniting with Maggie Gyllenhaal, optioning Rachel Kushner's novel 'Creation Lake' for her to write, direct, and produce. That's a real show of faith, considering her ambitious Frankenstein retelling 'The Bride!' grossed a wince-worthy $24M on a $90M budget back in March. Short memories, or genuine belief.

📉 Emmy submissions fell for the third straight year, with 84 fewer shows and nearly 150 fewer actors on the ballot than 2025. The numbers dropped yesterday as nomination voting opened, basically solidifying the early-2020s slowdown as the new baseline. Drama shed 16 shows; comedy added a whopping two.

🎮 Paramount's new games studio has the 'Sheridanverse' in its sights, with 'Yellowstone,' 'Landman,' and 'Tulsa King' named as priorities for future video game adaptations. Creative head Shawn Kittelsen insists they're cultural stewards, not IP value extractors. Nothing's official—keep your Dutton Ranch simulator hopes in check.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Jennifer Lawrence is pulling double duty as star and producer on Apple's romantic comedy 'One Month Mark.' (more)

• Paul Anthony Kelly is making his feature debut in ‘The Housemaid’s Secret,’ joining Sydney Sweeney and Kirsten Dunst in Lionsgate’s thriller sequel. (more)

TV Development 📺

• ‘Widow’s Bay’ is coming back for S2 at Apple TV+, and creator Katie Dippold signed a new overall deal with the streamer. (more)

• 'Things We Never Got Over,' the bestselling Lucy Score romance novel, has officially been greenlit as a series at Amazon Prime Video. (more)

• Isla Fisher and Jane Krakowski have joined Larry David’s HBO sketch series 'Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,' in guest roles. (more)

• Hulu is developing ‘Music Theories,’ a comedy series exploring the story behind Fountains of Wayne’s hit song ‘Stacy’s Mom.’ (more)

• 'Hit Man' is getting the Netflix series treatment, with Glen Powell and Richard Linklater executive producing. (more)

• Peter Sarsgaard has joined S3 of ‘The Last of Us,’ playing a new Seraphite leader created for the HBO series. (more)

• Amazon MGM Studios is developing ‘The Boyfriend,’ a standalone follow-up to Prime Video hit ‘The Girlfriend,’ centered on themes of masculinity. (more)

• Peacock is developing ‘Such a Nice Girl,’ reuniting the creative team behind ‘All Her Fault’ for another thriller adaptation of an Andrea Mara novel. (more)

Business 🤝

• Harbor Lights Entertainment sold the Redstone family’s 13 Showcase Cinemas theaters to Kinepolis Group in a $30M deal. (more)

• Nicholas Weinstock has signed a first-look TV deal with Prologue Entertainment to develop scripted series. (more)

• AMC Theatres raised $150M to strengthen its balance sheet as the box office rebound continues. (more)

• Jeff Shell settled with the whistleblower whose allegations helped push him out of Paramount. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! Sorry, Paris, the screens are taken. AMC is postponing its summer slate of concert simulcasts (the bill included Bebe Rexha, Maren Morris, and Paris Hilton, who is, yes, a DJ these days) because the actual movies are doing too well to give up the auditoriums. In AMC's own words, "Week after week in 2026, the domestic box office performance has exceeded or met expectations," a sentence nobody in this industry has gotten to say with a straight face in a while. Somewhere an AMC exec just uncrossed his arms for the first time since 2019.

An extra Thursday edition this week, since Emmys season is officially underway. We've got more awards coverage to keep you oriented, plus the usual Last Looks and Release Radar. 👇

CLOSEUP
🗳️ Emmy nominations-round voting starts today…

Emmy nomination ballots open today and close June 22, which means it's officially prediction season. Nothing's decided until nominations land July 8, but here's the lay of the land, and the shows generating the most heat among the trades and awards pundits. This is us reading the room, not making endorsements.

The Drama race…

The one to beat: 'The Pitt' is last year's winner and everyone's default pick again, with Variety, THR's Feinberg and Gold Derby all putting it on top. A repeat would make it just the fifth show ever to take Drama in both its first two seasons, though not everyone's sold: a quieter, less crowd-pleasing season two has some wondering whether a repeat would just mean voters on autopilot.

The likeliest thing to crash the party is 'Pluribus,' Vince Gilligan's new one and already Apple's most-watched original ever. It's pushing Rhea Seehorn for lead actress, and a win there would be sweet vindication: she was twice nominated for 'Better Call Saul,' the most snubbed show in Emmy history, which went 0-for-53, never winning a thing.

The rest of the field: beyond those two, the shows most likely to round out the nominees are 'The Diplomat,' 'Slow Horses,' 'Task' and 'Paradise,' with a divisive final 'Euphoria' and a last-ever 'Stranger Things' fighting for the last spots.

Then there’s comedy…

The one to beat: 'Hacks' is riding its final season toward what looks like a farewell coronation. It's the clear favorite, even if not everyone loved the softer final season, and Jean Smart is the comparable lock in lead actress, where an eighth career Emmy would tie the all-time acting record.

The rest of the field: behind 'Hacks', the likeliest nominees are 'Shrinking' (riding a big Harrison Ford push), 'Abbott Elementary' and 'Only Murders in the Building,' while former favorite 'The Bear' has cooled off.

And a few more things worth watching…

• The acting locks: Noah Wyle ('The Pitt') and Jean Smart ('Hacks') are the names almost everyone agrees on. Wyle could be the first drama lead to repeat since Bryan Cranston's Walter White run.

• Nobody can call the limited series race: it's the one major category without a clear frontrunner. 'Love Story' has emerged as a slight favorite, but 'Beef' season two and 'Half Man' are close enough that the order changes depending on who you ask. The likeliest read is that four nominees are close to locked, 'Love Story,' 'Beef,' 'Half Man' and 'DTF St. Louis,' leaving one open slot everyone's chasing.

• The network scoreboard: HBO Max (last year's leader), Netflix and Apple are running neck and neck for the most total nominations. It's the closest thing the Emmys have to a league standing, and the number studios quietly obsess over.

Looking ahead… this is still the shortlist of a shortlist, the names making the most noise out of hundreds of submissions. We'll save the full breakdown for when there's an actual ballot, nominations land July 8 (with craft categories July 15), final voting runs Aug. 17-26, and the ceremony's Sept. 14.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
FYC | FALLOUT | Outstanding Drama series…

A champion of made in Hollywood: ‘Fallout’ season two delivers character-driven storytelling and ambitious cinematic techniques. Go behind the scenes with EP Jonathan Nolan and EP/ showrunner / writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet as they discuss their commitment to immersive detail and why they chose to bring the production back to California. WATCH HERE

For your Emmy® consideration in all categories including Outstanding Drama Series.

CLOSEUP
📺 YouTube really wants an Emmy this year…

Creators Julian Shapiro-Barnum, Cleo Abram, Brittany Broski, and Kareem Rahma at YouTube's FYC event in North Hollywood. (Nick Lie/Getty Images)

YouTube wants an Emmy, and after last year’s shut-out, it's putting real weight behind the push. The platform scaled up its FYC push from three creators last year to seven this year, with 14 submissions spread across variety, nonfiction, and short-form.

This isn't a first attempt. YouTubers have been knocking on the Emmy door for the better part of a decade, and no show made and distributed on YouTube has ever landed a Primetime Emmy nomination in a major category. The TV Academy has mostly answered by giving the short-form awards to spinoff content from established shows: late-night web extras and behind-the-scenes “making of” clips, not the standalone creator series. YouTube's first FYC event last year produced zero nominations.

What's different in 2026: A rule change finally clears a path. Starting this year, the short-form categories are split in two, with separate slots for standalone shows and for spinoff content, and each side guaranteed at least one nomination. So an original YouTube series no longer has to beat out a late-night web clip to get in.

YouTube is helping, carefully. Because it's a platform and not a studio, the creators still have to self-submit their own shows (YouTube would rather not be seen picking favorites), but the company backs them up with FYC events and ads, and brings creators to festivals like SXSW and Sundance to put them shoulder to shoulder with the Hollywood crowd.

But the bigger shift is in perception. Voters who long assumed YouTube meant unboxing clips and kids' content are leaving these events impressed by the real production behind the shows. Slowly, the industry is starting to see creator series as legitimate TV, made by full crews with budgets, writers, and production values to match.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Druski is rounding out the cast of Universal's baseball rom-com 'The Catch' alongside Emma Stone and Chris Pine, playing Stone's security guard. (more)

• Miles Teller will star in ‘Copperhead,’ a new West Texas crime thriller from ‘King Ivory’ director John Swab. (more)

• '21 Jump Street' is getting a threequel, with Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum and Ice Cube all in talks to come back for '24 Jump Street.' (more)

• Geena Davis is joining the cast of Amazon MGM's action pic 'The Kellys,' joining Arnold Schwarzenegger and Liam Hemsworth. (more)

• Michael Douglas, Willem Dafoe, Ellen Barkin and Homer Gere have joined Oliver Stone’s family drama ‘White Lies,’ as filming gets underway. (more)

TV Development 📺

• ‘Doctor Who’ is scrapping its 2026 Christmas special as showrunner Russell T Davies and producer Bad Wolf exit the series. (more)

• Edgar Ramirez has joined S2 of ‘Task,’ starring opposite Mark Ruffalo and Mahershala Ali in HBO’s crime drama. (more)

• Matt Shakman is set to direct the first four episodes of 'Discretion,' the A24 drama starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning. (more)

• 'Legacy of Spies' has tapped Hugh Laurie to play Control and brought Joe Alwyn, Anjana Vasan and Charlotte Ritchie into the spy series. (more)

Business 🤝

• The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal got the green light from regulators in Australia and New Zealand. (more)

• Jeff Gaspin is stepping down as Netflix's unscripted chief after two years, eyeing a move into producing. (more)

• Fubo ended its six-month NBCUniversal blackout with a new carriage deal restoring major NBCU channels. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Glenn Close, Ridley Scott and Floyd Norman will receive honorary Oscars, while Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler earn the Thalberg Award. (more)

RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor in 'Disclosure Day' (Universal Pictures)

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Disclosure Day: Sci-fi thriller from Steven Spielberg starring Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor, with a John Williams score.

• The Furious: Martial arts revenge thriller directed by Kenji Tanigaki.

• Stop! That! Train!: Action-comedy disaster film directed by Adam Shankman and set in the 'Drag Race' universe, starring RuPaul Charles.

📺 STREAMING

• Alice and Steve: (Hulu) British comedy with Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement.

• Every Year After: (Prime Video) Romantic drama from Carley Fortune's novel.

• All the Queen's Men: (Paramount+) S5 of the Tyler Perry crime drama.

• Sweet Magnolias: (Netflix) S5 of the romantic drama.

• Power Book III: Raising Kanan: (Starz) Final season of the 'Power' prequel.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: 'Disclosure Day' should top the charts with a $40-50M debut domestically, though some tracking has it closer to $35M, a shaky number for a $115M original. There’s some real competition from outside the multiplex: the NBA Finals are potentially peaking and the World Cup is kicking off, both gunning for the exact 35+ crowd Universal is counting on. Everyone's on borrowed time anyway, 'Toy Story 5' lands next Friday tracking north of $150M.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

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👋 Happy Wednesday. Behold the Trojan Horse popcorn tub, the latest entry in the popcorn bucket arms race. AMC, Cinemark, and Regal are selling 'The Odyssey' popcorn out of a sculpted, rearing wooden horse, which feels like a strange pick for the one object in history famous for not holding what it claims to. So we have to wonder what's really in there. Trail mix with the M&Ms already picked out? A crudité platter? A dozen armed Greeks? A smaller horse? We’ll see.

Welcome back for your midweek edition of The Dailies. Rest assured, this email delivers exactly what's on the label. Pour the coffee and let's get into it. 👇

CLOSEUP
🤑 The AI giants are going public…

Elon Musk (SpaceX/xAI), Sam Altman (OpenAI), and Dario Amodei (Anthropic)

The three biggest names in AI are all going public at the same time, and the filings make one thing clear: they are setting money on fire to get there. Here’s the lineup:

• SpaceX (with Elon Musk's AI outfit xAI folded inside) lists on the Nasdaq this Friday under “SPCX” at around $1.75T, raising up to $75B in the largest IPO ever. xAI owns the Grok chatbot and the X platform.

• Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI assistant, filed confidentially on June 1 at a valuation near $1T. The company has said it'll break even in 2028, which in AI-startup terms is practically fiscal sainthood.

• OpenAI, the ChatGPT company, is targeting a September debut somewhere between $730B and $850B. Minor footnote: it currently loses about $1.22 for every dollar it brings in.

Why they suddenly need your money: These tools don't run on magic, they run on enormous data centers full of chips, and the electricity bills are gigantic. Anthropic alone has committed over $100B to cloud computing and locked in power equal to about five nuclear reactors, all so it can render a hand with the correct number of fingers, give or take. SpaceX is renting AI computing to Anthropic for more than $1B a month. Going public is how they cover the tab and convince investors there's a payday at the end of all this.

Need a sense of how brutal the compute bills get? At Cannes, the AI-generated film 'Hell Grind' cost $500K to make and $400K of that went straight to compute. Now picture that bill, but for a company serving millions of people at once.

To be clear, these firms aren't gunning for Hollywood specifically. They're building general-purpose AI, and entertainment is just one corner of it. The one direct swing was OpenAI's video app Sora, which folded in April after users wandered off and the costs got ugly, dragging a planned $1B Disney character-licensing deal down with it. Mickey dodged that one.

The takeaway: Hollywood spent years bracing for these firms to make content infinitely cheap. The filings suggest the opposite. The real cost is tens of billions in servers and power. The vendors pitching studios on cheaper production are themselves bleeding cash at a staggering clip, which means their prices, terms, and priorities can turn on a dime the second Wall Street's patience runs dry.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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WIDESHOT
🎬 DGA, CA runoff, and Paramount-WBD…

Christopher Nolan, DGA president (Getty Images)

🤝 The DGA reached a deal. The Directors Guild of America has signed onto a tentative four-year contract with the studios and streamers, closing out a 2026 bargaining cycle that, against all odds, wrapped with zero drama. DGA boss Christopher Nolan wasn't interested in a five-year term when the idea got floated earlier this year (kind of funny for a director who never met a long runtime he didn't like). But once the WGA and SAG-AFTRA both settled at four, the directors fell in line. As with the other two, the fine print stays sealed until the guild's national board signs off. The current contract runs through June 30. With the writers, actors, and directors all signed, Hollywood gets a clean run of labor peace through 2030.

🗳️ California's runoff lineup is locked. The Associated Press has called it: Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton, the British former Fox News commentator, will square off for governor in November. IATSE-backed Tom Steyer couldn't crack the top two. The count technically isn't done (California takes its time, and certification isn't due until July 10), but the race-callers have seen enough. Over in the LA mayor's race, incumbent Karen Bass and councilmember Nithya Raman advanced to their own November runoff, with reality star Spencer Pratt narrowly missing second. Each has a different fix in mind for runaway production, so we'll cover where they stand ahead of the November 3 runoff.

⚖️ Paramount is suddenly in a deal-making mood. After months of waving off the lawsuits against its $110B Warner Bros. deal as "misguided" and "clumsy," Paramount has quietly slipped California AG Rob Bonta a list of concessions to settle his antitrust probe. (It's reportedly ready to give up some of its kids' TV networks in Europe to keep regulators there happy, too.) It won't say what's on the list, but going from swatting away challenges to cutting deals is quite the pivot, especially with a state-led lawsuit expected within a month. California's also reportedly lining up Robert Van Nest, a heavyweight tech lawyer who usually reps the likes of Google and Netflix. Paramount has every reason to keep things moving smoothly, since a "ticking fee" to WBD shareholders kicks in if the deal doesn't close by Q3.

STATISTIC
📈 YouTube just passed Netflix in another metric…

Add daily watch time to the pile. New numbers from measurement firm Digital i clock the average YouTube account at 99.1 minutes a day, pulling ahead of Netflix's 93.4. A year ago Netflix led at 100.5, so it’s more of a lead change than a runaway. (And no, this isn't the Nielsen Gauge number you've seen. That's share of time on the TV set. This is minutes per person, every device.) Some numbers:

• TV is the new turf. YouTube on actual television sets climbed from 28% to nearly 34% of viewing in two years while phones slipped to 31%. It's not the thing you watch in line at the DMV anymore. It's the thing you watch on the big screen with snacks.

• Gen Z logs the most (111 minutes a day), but the fastest-growing fans are men aged 55-64, up 15%.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Jason Momoa has dropped out of Sony’s ‘Helldivers’ adaptation, so the studio is back on the hunt for a lead. (more)

• Phil Lord and Chris Miller are producing ‘I Promise We’re Cool,’ a sci-fi high school comedy at Universal from up-and-comer Max Tzannes. (more)

• ‘A Talent for Murder,’ with Helen Mirren, Alden Ehrenreich and Olivia Cooke, hits U.S. theaters this fall via Bleecker Street and LD Entertainment. (more)

• Paul Walter Hauser, Boyd Holbrook and Michael Peña have joined Melissa McCarthy in Craig Zobel’s thriller ‘Turpentine.’ (more)

• ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ brought in ‘Challengers’ writer Justin Kuritzkes for rewrites, earning him a screenplay credit. (more)

• Naomi Ackie is in final talks to join Maika Monroe in 'They Follow,' the long-awaited sequel to 'It Follows.' (more)

• Nicholas Galitzine will play former supermodel Hoyt Richards in a new film, with Gus Van Sant in talks to direct. (more)

• ‘Clean Hands’ starring Zach Braff and Esther McGregor has landed a North American distribution deal following its Tribeca premiere. (more)

• Elisabeth Moss is turning Emma Straub’s bestseller ‘American Fantasy’ into a film. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Amazon is developing a live-action ‘Jem and the Holograms’ series with Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s Kilter Films. (more)

• Justin Hartley is developing an ABC series out of Isabella Maldonado’s novel ‘A Forgotten Kill,’ with Diana Son on script. (more)

• Netflix has cast Park Hae-soo, Claudia Kim and Cho Jung-seok in Korean crime thriller ‘Paper Man,’ which is now in production. (more)

• Edward Bluemel will play a young Hercule Poirot in ‘Hercule,’ a new Agatha Christie series from the BBC and BritBox. (more)

Business 🤝

• Jason Blum's Blumhouse Atomic is making $17M in box office bonuses on 'Obsession,' with Focus Features clearing $125M. (more)

• Paramount has brought on former Biden White House official Shuwanza Goff to run U.S. government affairs as VP. (more)

Other News 🚨

• The Art Directors Guild has come out against Martin Scorsese after he backed AI tools for film pre-viz and storyboarding. (more)

• Paramount says it plans to produce 40 TV shows by 2030, with that output rising to 170 if its Warner Bros. merger closes. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

Instagram post

👋 Good morning! AMC added 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. opening-weekend showings of 'The Odyssey' at CityWalk, the kind of times usually reserved for airport departures and bad decisions, and they're nearly sold out. The 2h52m runtime means the 3 a.m. faithful greet actual sunrise on the way out, where the real odyssey begins: waiting for the Cinnabon to open.

Monday again. Hope the weekend treated you well. We've got the weekend box office numbers and the latest from around the industry. Top off that coffee and let’s get into it.

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ 2026 was ready for a 2000’s sense of humor…

‘Scary Movie’ (Paramount Pictures)

The bigger picture: For once, the weekend didn’t ride on one giant hit. The top two movies made up just 45% of domestic grosses, compared to 70% in 2004 and over 90% in 2022, when one or two tentpoles did almost all the work. This time six movies cleared $10M, led by a horror trifecta of 'Scary Movie,' 'Backrooms,' and 'Obsession.' It's a healthier kind of box office, where people spread out across a lot of different movies.

It's been a strong stretch, too. May crossed $1B domestically with high attendance, and a lot of that probably comes down to volume. Studios put out a steady stream of wide releases last month, a pace we haven't seen in recent years. More movies, more variety, more reasons to show up. Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day' is up next.

CLOSEUP
📱 An ‘Obsession’ pay stub is going viral…

Inde Navarette in ‘Obsession’ (Focus Features)

'Obsession,' the Focus Features horror breakout made for $750K, passed $220M worldwide this past weekend. Last week its art director, Sally Choi, went public on Instagram with what she was paid: $300 a day, or $6,741.36 after taxes. She says she knew the indie rate going in and signed on anyway, reportedly with only one prior credit, a short film. She adds that some of the crew were essentially paid in gas money.

She also says she regrets not "flipping" the production, indie shorthand for converting a non-union shoot to a union one, which would have meant scale wages and benefits for the crew. She said she was encouraged not to, and listened.

The post took off, and reactions came in hot…

Some were sympathetic, saying it's absurd that crew never see a dime of the upside when a micro-budget film hits the jackpot. They point to people trying to change that, like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Artists Equity. The company negotiated a deal with Netflix to bonus everyone on their streaming release 'The Rip' if it performed well enough, and when it did, the checks went out.

Others pushed back, saying that as one of her first credits, a film this big is a major résumé boost she can leverage into more work, and that publicly wishing she'd flipped a production over a rate she agreed to risks burning bridges she'd be better off keeping.

And some point out the filmmakers front the risk and so earn the reward, since for every 'Obsession' there's a graveyard of micro-budget indies nobody ever heard of, ones the crew still got paid on without sharing in the losses.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
For Your Consideration, HBO MAX presents Hacks…

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Dan Lin, Paramount merger, and video games…

Dan Lin, Chairman of Netflix Film (Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage)

🚪 Netflix's film chief says theatrical is off the table. Just as Hollywood was warming to a more theater-friendly Netflix, Dan Lin told the NYT: "There is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical. Those are filmmakers that we've accepted we just won't work with." That’s a splash of cold water on some recent optimism. Netflix had pledged "industry-standard windows" while bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery (a promise that faded once it lost to Paramount), and a couple of recent moves looked like a pattern: 'Cliff Booth' gets an exclusive IMAX run this November, with AMC (once Netflix's sworn enemy) facilitating, and Greta Gerwig's 'Narnia' was bumped to a wide release with a proper 49-day window in February. Lin says those are just exceptions for the marquee names (Fincher, Tarantino, Gerwig). Netflix declined to clarify, so we'll see.

⚖️ State AGs are gearing up to block the Paramount-WB deal. A California-led coalition of up to 10 state attorneys general is reportedly drafting a lawsuit to stop the $110B merger, with a filing possible before the end of June. So even if federal regulators wave the deal through, the states could still throw a wrench in it. Ironically, Paramount's lead lawyer is antitrust heavyweight Jeffrey Kessler, who normally spends his days fighting mergers like this. He just won a case against Live Nation/Ticketmaster on behalf of 36 state AGs. Now he's switched jerseys to argue the merger is actually pro-competitive: Paramount and WBD aren't dominant players, they're far behind Netflix, Amazon, and Disney in streaming. If the AGs do sue, Kessler will be in court facing down some of the same people he just went to bat for.

🎮 Paramount is getting serious about games. Paramount Skydance launched Paramount Games Studio, rolling its two existing game shops into one in-house operation pointed at the company's IP vault (Star Trek, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and friends). For years Paramount mostly licensed those franchises out to other developers. Now it's building the games itself, and calling gaming a core pillar of its content strategy, right alongside film, TV, and streaming. Former Epic Games exec Tony Driscoll runs the new studio, and with the Warner Bros. Discovery merger closing soon, Paramount is set to inherit a deep vault of legendary IP (Harry Potter, DC, Game of Thrones, and more) that will almost certainly get fed into the games.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• David Goyer is building a cross-platform South Town universe, starting with adaptations of 'Fatal Fury' and 'Art of Fighting.' (more)

• Henry Cavill is joining Kevin Hart in a Netflix spy action-comedy directed by McG. (more)

• Shudder has picked up 'Breeder,' a horror film about a deranged poodle breeder, ahead of its Tribeca premiere. (more)

• Margaret Cho and Lilly Wachowski are executive producing 'Dreams,' trans comedian Nina Nguyen's debut comedy special. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. are reuniting for a Hulu pilot inspired by 'The Cable Guy,' updating the cult comedy for streaming. (more)

• Paramount+ has won a competitive bidding war for James Mangold's 'Cop Land' TV adaptation. (more)

Business 🤝

• Paramount may offload some kids channels (Nickelodeon among them) to win EU approval for its $110B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. (more)

• Wall Street is bullish on Cinemark as a box office rebound and a strong 2026 slate keep driving theater attendance and profits. (more)

• Reed Hastings has officially stepped off Netflix's board, with longtime director Jay Hoag taking over as chairman. (more)

Other News 🚨

• The 79th Tony Awards aired live from Radio City last night. Winners here.

• ‘60 Minutes’ stars Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim are staying amid the show’s ongoing turmoil. (more)

• Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ posted AMC’s biggest first-day advance ticket sales for a major studio release since 2022. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

Instagram post

👋 Good morning. The list of people who can crash AMC's website just by selling tickets: Taylor Swift, and now Christopher Nolan. IMAX presales for 'The Odyssey' went live yesterday and AMC's site immediately threw users into a queue with wait times over an hour (just to load the homepage, not even to buy anything). Fandango was dragging too. For anyone who didn't get through, the good news is tickets are available on eBay. The bad news is they're listed at up to $1,000.

Friday. You know the drill. Streaming numbers, industry news, and everything worth knowing before you disappear for the weekend. 👇

TOP STREAMED
📊 This week’s top-streamed originals…

FILM	TV
Netflix The Crash	Netflix The Four Seasons
HBO Max Miss You, Love You	HBO Max The Pitt
Disney+ Luca	Disney+ The Mandalorian
Prime Video Jack Ryan: Ghost War	Prime Video Spider-Noir
Paramount+ Clifford the Big Red Dog	Paramount+ Dutton Ranch
Hulu Prey	Hulu The Testaments
Apple TV Propeller One-Way Night Coach	Apple TV Your Friends & Neighbors
Peacock The Killer	Peacock M.I.A.

LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES
	The Four Seasons NetflixSERIES The most-watched show across all platforms in its debut weekend, pulling 3M season views and 12.3M hours watched domestically according to Luminate. That's down 46% from S1's domestic viewership. Globally, Netflix reports 4.4M views and 18.3M hours watched.
	Spider-Noir Prime VideoSERIES Launched with 1.8M season views and 10.9M hours streamed in its first week domestically, hitting #1 on Prime Video in the U.S. and #2 worldwide behind 'Off Campus.' A small opening overall, especially for a Spider-Man property. At this pace, it's unlikely to crack Prime Video's top 10 new releases of the year.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) May 27 to Jun. 3. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
📱 TikTok wants its creators to start writing…

'Screen Time,' the TikTok microdrama from Issa Rae's Hoorae

As the conversation about YouTuber-made box-office hits 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' rolls on, one of the many takeaways being kicked around is that platforms like YouTube and TikTok have basically become the new training ground for talent. And TikTok just made a move that fits the moment, aiming to turn its own creators into writers.

The scoop: TikTok is teaming up with the Sundance Institute on a new micro-series writing program, head of entertainment partnerships Dawn Yang shared this week:

• It's a free, four-week live online course, run through Sundance's learning platform, Collab.

• A selected cohort gets walked through scriptwriting for the format, with the tools, frameworks, and industry guidance to build serialized, story-driven content.

• The idea is that TikTok's creators already get pacing and audience better than just about anyone, so writing for the format is a pretty natural next step.

It's a play for homegrown talent, and the Sundance partnership is telling. Building on an earlier initiative that brought TikTok creators to the festival, it signals that Hollywood is taking creators and microdramas more seriously as the format matures into a legitimate medium of its own.

The momentum’s building: Everyone from legacy TV execs to major studios is piling into microdramas now, and TikTok's gone so far as to build a whole app for them, PineDrama. The platform also financed Issa Rae's production company, Hoorae, to make 'Screen Time,' a tense little thriller about a stranger who crashes a couples' movie night. It nearly hit 75M views in week one, the best seven-day run of any series on the platform.

The big picture: Hollywood spent years underestimating YouTube as a real entertainment player, and it paid for that: the platform now commands the single biggest share of all TV viewing per Nielsen (ahead of Disney and everyone else), is widely seen as Netflix's toughest rival, and its creators are minting box-office hits. It's trying not to make the same mistake with microdramas, and TikTok's getting a head start by training its own.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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WIDESHOT
🎬 SAG deal, microdramas, and upfronts…

🗳️ SAG-AFTRA members approved their new four-year AMPTP contract. The agreement passed with 91.42% voting in favor, though only 19.25% of eligible members actually turned out to vote. At four years instead of the usual three, this deal runs longer than past contracts, a sticking point for some members who felt that was too long to lock in AI provisions while the technology keeps shifting fast. A lot can change by 2030. (For more on what's actually in the deal, see our earlier breakdown here.) The contract takes effect July 1 and runs through June 30, 2030. Next up is the DGA, which has been at the table with the AMPTP since mid-May and has its own deadline coming at the end of the month.

📱 Fox thinks its back catalog might have a future in microdramas. The company took the full third season of 'Farmer Wants a Wife' (11 primetime reality episodes) and re-edited it into 101 vertical micro-episodes, each under two minutes, for Holywater's My Drama app (a vertical video platform popular for short-form romance content). It launches next week, timed to the show's S4 finale, with a QR code during the broadcast pushing viewers to the app. The whole thing is basically a test to see if there's a real pipeline here, one where studios can dust off existing libraries and give them a second life on microdrama platforms. And Fox has an equity stake in Holywater, so the company has a direct interest in whether this model actually scales.

💸 Sports are the only thing keeping the TV ad market afloat. TV networks are in the thick of this year's upfront negotiations, and budgets are leaner than usual. Some advertisers have cut spending by as much as 30-40%, and ad buyers are pushing back on rates across the board. Rates for scripted and unscripted programming are mostly flat or declining, and live sports (NFL in particular) is the only category still commanding top dollar. Disney initially floated $10M for a 30-second Super Bowl spot, though it's already had to come down to $8M. On the streaming side, there's a ton of inventory now that Amazon and Netflix are selling ads, but per-unit value is soft because on-demand viewers watch on their own time, making it harder to deliver the big, same-moment audiences advertisers pay a premium for.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Netflix has paused pre-production on Antoine Fuqua's Hannibal epic starring Denzel Washington over budget issues. (more)

• Amazon MGM is eyeing a sequel to 'The Last Sunrise,' its upcoming Anna Todd romance adaptation, as Todd expands it into a trilogy. (more)

• FilmNation has snapped up 'I'd Like to Speak to Your Manager,' an absurdist action-thriller spec from Gabe Delahaye. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Peacock has ordered 'The Break-In,' a mystery limited series from the 'All Her Fault' team, adapted from Katherine Faulkner's novel. (more)

• Sadie Sink will star in 'The Marriage Plot,' an FX limited series based on Jeffrey Eugenides' novel, from Will Arbery and Hiro Murai. (more)

• Gabrielle Union will executive produce and is in talks to star in 'Debbie,' an HBO Max legal drama from 'The Fosters' co-creator Bradley Bredeweg. (more)

• 'The Boys' co-stars Chace Crawford and P.J. Byrne will play brothers in 'We Were Once Men,' a satirical black comedy in development at Amazon. (more)

• 'Meatballs,' the 1979 comedy, is being revived as a Crave series starring 'Heated Rivalry's Robbie G.K. (more)

• Ellen Pompeo will star in 'Chicks,' a Hulu dramedy pilot from her 'Good American Family' collaborator Katie Robbins. (more)

Business 🤝

• Sony has invested in Midnight Labs, an AI firm that fights piracy and deepfakes for entertainment companies, through its Innovation Fund. (more)

• The MPA (representing Netflix, Disney, and others) is fighting UK proposals that would make streamers help the BBC collect its license fee. (more)

• Canada is backing off a rule that would have forced Netflix, Disney, and other streamers to spend 15% of Canadian revenue on local content. (more)

• Comedian Kevin "KevOnStage" Fredericks has signed Tubi's biggest creator deal yet, a multi-year slate of series, a stand-up special, and films. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Netflix is launching beginner-friendly soccer game 'FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition' on June 11, with daily updates tied to real tournament results. (more)

• Paramount has asked a judge to toss the consumer antitrust lawsuit trying to block its Warner Bros. Discovery merger. (more)

• Hasbro has launched AI studio Sixth Wall to license authorized character voices (Optimus Prime, Megatron) via ElevenLabs. (more)

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! Good news for any LA natives who've mourned the dark marquee at Westwood's Village Theatre: it's coming back to life July 17. Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' will play there in 70mm for three weeks as a fundraiser before the 95-year-old palace shuts down this fall for restoration. Tickets on sale today at 9 a.m. PT.

Yes, we're in your inbox on a Thursday, and no, you didn't lose track of the week. We’re officially in Emmys season, so this one's to help you get your bearings, plus an early Release Radar and the usual Last Looks. 👇

EMMYS SEASON
📅 The road to September starts now…

The 2026 Emmy eligibility window closed May 31, which means the pool of eligible shows is locked. To make the cut, a show had to air sometime between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026. Nothing's been decided yet, voting doesn't start until June 11, so before the FYC campaign noise hits full volume, here's the road ahead:

• June 11–22 — First-round voting, where members choose the nominees (ballots close 10 p.m. PT on the 22nd)

• July 8 — Nominations announced

• July 15 — A second batch of nominations for ~13 technical craft categories (cinematography, editing, etc.), split off from the main announcement for the first time this year

• Aug. 17–26 — Final-round voting

• Sept. 5–6 — Creative Arts Emmys, the two-night ceremony that hands out most of the technical and craft awards ahead of the main show

• Sept. 14 — The 78th Primetime Emmys, live on NBC and Peacock

The show's on a Monday this year instead of the usual Sunday, because NBC isn't about to bump Sunday Night Football for some trophies. It's also the final year of the current rotation deal, the arrangement where ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC take turns hosting the telecast year to year. The Academy still hasn't named who's hosting.

One bit of context that frames the whole season: the pool is shrinking. Original series peaked at nearly 1,700 in 2022 and fell to barely 1,100 last year, a drop of roughly a third. Voters are working with a thinner field than they were a few cycles ago, and you can feel it in the contenders, fewer breakout newcomers, more returning favorites and franchise plays. Add the usual industry anxieties (contraction, consolidation, the AI question now creeping into awards rules, see below) and this year's race doubles as a check-up on the business.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
FYC | THE BOYS | Outstanding Drama Series

Homelander controls America through fascist terror, imprisoning dissenters in Freedom Camps. Butcher, Hughie, Annie and The Boys mount a desperate resistance against insurmountable odds to stop his tyrannical rule.

EMMYS SEASON
🏆 New year, new rulebook…

(Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

The Television Academy has quietly reworked a few of its rules for the 78th Emmys. A couple are the usual fine-print housekeeping. A couple are not.

The big one: Talk and Scripted Variety are back to being a single category. The Academy merged them into one Outstanding Variety Series, mostly because there just aren't enough shows to go around anymore (and 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' signing off this spring didn't exactly help the talk side). For what it's worth, the merger could reverse: if each format rebounds to 20 submissions, they'll be separated back out.

The interesting part is how it'll be judged. It's now an "area award," which means voters don't crown one winner, they go down the list giving each nominee a thumbs up or down on whether it deserves an Emmy. Clear 90% and you win. So the category could produce several winners, or, if voters are feeling generous, everyone clears the bar and goes home with a trophy, like a youth soccer league.

Some other changes…

• Television Movie is now just Outstanding Movie. Basically the Academy admitting that nobody can really tell a TV movie from a streaming film anymore, so why keep pretending.

• There's AI language on the books now, but it’s vague. The Academy added a single sentence saying it can ask whether you used AI in a submission, and that the awards stay "centered on human storytelling, regardless of the tools used to bring it to life." That's the whole rule, no disclosure required, nothing defined, no penalties. More a flag in the ground than an actual policy.

• There's a new trophy, the Legacy Award. It's the first big addition in almost 20 years, meant for long-running shows (think 60+ episodes over at least five seasons) that have stuck in the culture. It goes to the creators, the lead EPs, and the studio or network behind it. No word yet on who gets the first one, or even whether it shows up this year.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Arnold Schwarzenegger and Liam Hemsworth will star in 'The Kellys,' a Brad Peyton actioner headed to Amazon's Prime Video. (more)

• Sony Pictures is developing a Shania Twain biopic titled 'Shania,' with Leah McKendrick writing and directing from her own script. (more)

• Mason Thames has joined Donnie Yen's 'John Wick' spinoff 'Caine,' now in production at Lionsgate. (more)

• Jonathan Groff is joining Daniel Radcliffe in Will Graham's Vietnam War thriller 'Trust The Man.' (more)

TV Development 📺

• Lionsgate Television and 3 Arts have picked up Kimberly McCreight's upcoming novel 'Someone Else's Husband' for series development. (more)

• Netflix has ordered 'Dealies,' an adult animated comedy set in a big box store, from 'Scavengers Reign' creator Joe Bennett and Ted Travelstead. (more)

• 'Tulsa King' has opened a S5 writers' room and is eyeing a move from Atlanta to New York (for both tax incentive and story reasons). (more)

• Hulu is developing 'Suspect,' a PI drama based on Scott Turow's novel, from the 'Handmaid's Tale' team. (more)

Business 🤝

• Disney is closing Super Bowl LXI ad deals at around $8M per spot, after advertisers pushed back on the initial $10M ask. (more)

Other News 🚨

• 'Backrooms' has crossed $100M in just six days, making Kane Parsons' horror hit A24's biggest domestic earner ever. (more)

RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

‘Masters of the Universe’ (Sony Pictures)

🍿 THEATRICAL

• Masters of the Universe: Live-action reboot of the '80s Mattel franchise, directed by Travis Knight, starring Nicholas Galitzine and Jared Leto.

• Scary Movie 6: The Wayans-led horror spoof returns 26 years later.

• Power Ballad: Comedy-drama musical starring Paul Rudd, and Nick Jonas.

📺 STREAMING

• Cape Fear: (Apple TV) Series reimagining of the thriller, with Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson.

• Not Suitable for Work: (Hulu) Mindy Kaling’s new workplace comedy series.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: Paramount's 'Scary Movie 6' is the one to beat, and its projections have climbed for weeks (from a shaky $25-35M in early May to a much healthier $45-55M now). The Wayans reunion is leaning hard on nostalgia, and the spoof is tracking as one of the best live-action comedies in years. Behind it, 'Masters of the Universe' is looking at $30-40M, though Amazon/MGM reportedly spent over $200M on it, so that one might sting. 'Backrooms' is the wildcard. After a huge $81M debut, it's looking at $30-35M in week two and a tight race with Masters for second. All told, the top five could pull in around $140M, way up from this weekend last year.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

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👋 Good morning! After a century of handing trophies to the people who make movies, the Academy is finally toasting the places that show them. AMPAS announced the Academy Marquee Theater List on Monday, a new annual nod to the 50 best cinemas on Earth (25 U.S., 25 international). Think a Michelin guide for movie houses, graded on programming, design, and concessions. One assumes the Academy is already training a fleet of undercover inspectors to slip into Tuesday matinees (Anton Ego-style) and quietly grade the recliners and the structural integrity of the nachos.

Welcome back to The Dailies, your midweek dispatch from the industry trenches. Top off the coffee, we've got ground to cover. 👇

CLOSEUP
🗳️ California hit the polls yesterday…

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Californians voted yesterday, and while affordability and homelessness drew most of the attention, film and TV production became a marquee issue in its own right. Up and down the ballot, candidates have pitched themselves as the one who'll bring the cameras home.

The backdrop: California's $750M tax credit seems to be moving the needle. On-location shoot days in LA jumped 10% in Q1, and projects like Fox's 'Baywatch' reboot are rolling again. Whoever wins these races will shape where LA production goes from here. The LA mayor’s race has three frontrunners:

• Incumbent Karen Bass points to steps she's already taken, like cutting the fee to film at Griffith Observatory from $100K to $30K and hiring a point person to help productions cut through city bureaucracy.

• Progressive councilmember Nithya Raman wants to expand that liaison into a full city office and loosen permitting caps so bigger productions qualify for fast-track approvals.

• Reality star Spencer Pratt (of 'The Hills') is pitching seven-day FilmLA approvals and waived fees for productions under $2M.

Then there’s the governor’s race…

• Xavier Becerra has said he would keep the state's $750M tax credit cap, but steer the money toward the crews and departments losing the most work.

• Tom Steyer (backed by IATSE) and Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton both want to uncap it, with Hilton pushing the most aggressive expansion.

How it works: These are nonpartisan primaries, not the final vote. A candidate could win outright by clearing 50%, but nobody's expected to. So the top two in each race, regardless of party, will advance to a November 3 runoff, and that's when the winner is decided.

As of this morning, the votes are still being counted. In the mayor's race, Bass has locked up one of the two runoff spots, while Pratt and Raman fight for second. The governor's race is still too early to call. California counts slowly, so final results may not land for a bit. Follow the live count here. 👈📊

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
Meet Television’s Next Generation: Hot Ones & Subway Takes…

Sean Evans’ Hot Ones and Kareem Rahma’s SubwayTakes represent a new generation of television, transforming simple conversations into distinctive, culturally influential formats.

For Your Emmy^® Consideration, Hot Ones reimagines the talk show through its signature menu of increasingly spicy wings, turning celebrity interviews into candid, revealing conversations driven by Evans’ meticulous preparation and incisive questioning. Meanwhile, SubwayTakes transforms quick encounters aboard New York City subways into sharply constructed comedic exchanges, proving that short-form storytelling can be both structurally disciplined and culturally immediate.

Original, conversation-driven, and built for today’s audiences, both series are now streaming on YouTube. Television has a new home.

WIDE SHOT
🎬 Scorsese, movie theaters, and more ‘60 Minutes’…

(Valerie Terranova/WireImage)

🤖 Even Martin Scorsese is dabbling in AI now. The 83-year-old who once dismissed Marvel movies as "not cinema" just revealed he used start-up Black Forest Labs (where he's also an advisor and backer) to build storyboards during preproduction, possibly on his next film, 'What Happens at Night.' After 70 years of hand-drawing them, he says the AI tools help him share his vision faster. The move drew quick backlash online, with fans calling it disappointing and hypocritical given his legacy, and storyboard artists arguing the tech threatens their jobs. Still, many have noted a softening stance on AI within the industry lately, and one clear sign is the old guard starting to embrace the tech: the likes of Paul Schrader, James Cameron, and Darren Aronofsky have all warmed to the tech too.

🗽 The Tribeca Festival kicks off today in New York City. The 25th-anniversary edition opens with a Questlove-directed Earth, Wind & Fire doc and is packing its biggest slate ever (118 features, 103 of them world premieres), including a Katie Holmes-Joshua Jackson reunion. And in yet another example of softening AI sentiment, one of the most talked-about screenings wasn't shot with a camera at all. 'Dreams of Violets,' a 75-minute docudrama about Iran's January protests, was generated entirely by AI for around $2,000, with no actors, sets, or crew, making Tribeca the first major festival to embrace a fully AI-generated feature. Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal defended the pick despite waves of backlash over the trailer online, praising its emotional urgency. The festival runs through June 14th.

⏱️ Another big name just walked out the door at '60 Minutes.' CBS News fired veteran correspondent Scott Pelley yesterday effective immediately, a day after he reportedly accused editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of "murdering" the show in a heated staff meeting and challenged the credentials of new executive producer Nick Bilton. Pelley anchored the 'CBS Evening News' for years, and is among the most recognizable faces in American broadcast journalism. Bilton handled the firing himself, saying Pelley's "antipathy to the future of the show" had come through loud and clear. Pelley's the fourth correspondent gone since February, after Cecilia Vega, Sharyn Alfonsi, and Anderson Cooper. That leaves just three correspondents heading into the 59th season this fall, and with newsroom tensions high, there's chatter more could follow him out.

STATISTIC
🍿 May was a very good month at the box office…

After years of soft numbers and hand-wringing over whether audiences would come back, theaters just had a genuinely great May. A couple milestones:

• The domestic box office pulled in more than $1B in a single May, something that's only happened nine times ever and not once since the pandemic (Box Office Mojo puts the US and Canada total around $1.06B).

• AMC, the world's biggest theater chain, had its best May for attendance since 2019, drawing 25.5M moviegoers worldwide. Pretty big deal, considering its attendance was down 10% just last year.

Every other $1B May had a Marvel movie doing the heavy lifting. This time, no cape in sight. With 'Avengers: Doomsday' bumped to December, many expected the month to be a pre-summer slump. Instead, a wonderfully random lineup picked up the slack, from Lionsgate's Michael Jackson biopic 'Michael' to the 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' legacyquel to A24's YouTube-born horror hit 'Backrooms.'

Looking ahead… Analysts are projecting a domestic summer haul of $4.1B–4.3B, which would be the strongest since 2019.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• 'Backrooms' is already lining up sequels, and creator Kane Parsons is reportedly hunting for a writing partner on 'Backrooms 2.' (more)

• ‘Escape From New York’ is getting a Zack Snyder-directed reimagining from Studiocanal and The Picture Company. (more)

• Sydney Sweeney will star in and produce 'Hollow,' a Sleepy Hollow reimagining that Lindsey Anderson Beer is writing and directing from her own novel. (more)

• Gene Wilder is getting an authorized biopic, with Dito Montiel set to direct after securing the late actor’s life rights. (more)

• 'Hope,' Na Hong-jin's Cannes sci-fi hit, hits North American theaters Sept. 9 via Neon. (more)

• Anna Kendrick is directing Netflix's take on Taylor Jenkins Reid's bestseller 'The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.' (more)

• Zoë Kravitz is set to star in an untitled Apple mystery from 'My Old Ass' writer-director Megan Park. (more)

• David Harbour and Gaby Hoffmann are starring in the dark comedy ‘Little One,’ produced by the team behind ‘Weapons.’ (more)

• Natasha Lyonne is producing survival thriller ‘Red Sea,’ with Saudi filmmaker Lina Malaika attached to direct. (more)

• Christian Wallace will adapt the bestselling book ‘George Washington’s Secret Six,’ as a feature film about the Revolutionary War spy ring. (more)

• 'War Machine' is getting a sequel at Netflix after breaking out on the streamer. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Will Arnett has joined 'The Challenger' at Prime Video, the series starring Kristen Stewart as astronaut Sally Ride. (more)

• 'And Justice for All,' Al Pacino's 1979 legal drama, is being reworked into a TV series at Netflix. (more)

• 'Stargate' has been scrapped at Amazon (Martin Gero's version, anyway), though the company still wants to grow the franchise. (more)

• Michael Sarnoski is directing and executive producing HBO's series 'The Chain,' with Jodie Comer starring, based on Adrian McKinty's novel. (more)

• ‘The Fine Art of Lying,’ Reese’s Book Club’s latest pick, is being developed as a TV series at UCP with Scarlett Johansson’s These Pictures producing. (more)

Business 🤝

• Emily Feingold, Netflix's communications chief, is leaving the streamer after eight years. (more)

• Sydney Sweeney launched production company Honey Trap and signed a first-look film and TV deal with Sony Pictures. (more)

• Zach Cregger has split from longtime manager Peter Principato and is going solo for now, no new rep. (more)

• Peacock is on track to post its first quarterly profit in Q2, a big milestone for NBCUniversal's streaming push. (more)

• The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger cleared a key EU hurdle, with regulators now set to decide on the deal by July 7. (more)

Other News 🚨

• The 2026 Gotham TV Awards handed out their top series and performance honors Monday night in New York. (more)

• 'Stop! That! Train!' director Adam Shankman pushed back on fan claims of generative AI, saying every shot was made by human artists. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
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👋 Good morning! If your kitchen remodel has dragged on a little, take heart: George Lucas just spent eight years and a billion dollars on his passion project, and it's only now wrapping up. Stunning new images of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art are making the rounds this week (courtesy of a Vogue profile shot by Annie Leibovitz), and the verdict is in: the thing looks like a spaceship parked in Exposition Park. It opens Sept. 22.

Welcome to The Dailies, your three-mornings-a-week briefing on an industry that can't decide if it's dying or having a renaissance. (This week: renaissance.) Now, let’s get into those box office numbers. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ The internet just won the weekend…

Chiwetel Ejiofor in 'Backrooms'. (A24)

CLOSEUP
🎥 Are the tides turning in Hollywood?

Kane Parsons directing Chiwetel Ejiofor on set. (A24)

There's a feeling in town this week that the ground just moved. Two horror movies made by YouTube directors for almost no money took the top two spots and shoved a $165M 'Star Wars' tentpole into third. The takeaways, for a lot of folks: original ideas beat legacy IP, directors are the new movie stars, and the franchise era is finally ending.

The analogy making the rounds is the 1970s, when young film-school directors upended the old studio system with personal, original films. Jason Blum went there himself, pegging Parsons and Barker as the new version of those upstarts, schooled on YouTube instead of in a film program. It's not a hard case to make:

• It's three-for-three now: 'Backrooms,' 'Obsession,' and January's self-funded 'Iron Lung' (Markiplier's $3M sci-fi horror that grossed ~$50M) are all YouTuber-made hits this year.

• 'Backrooms,' adapted from a horror meme born on the 4chan message boards, out-opened major franchise titles like 'Scream' and 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' and posted the biggest opening in A24's history.

• Gen Z, long written off as the lost theatrical generation, showed up and sold out theaters, with 86% of 'Backrooms' buyers under 35.

Looking ahead… There are no more major YouTuber titles on the 2026 docket, so the trend pauses here for now, and the summer slate goes back to bristling with tentpoles. 'Toy Story 5,' 'Supergirl,' Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey,' and 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' are all loaded in the chamber.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
Meet Television's Next Generation: Challenge Accepted & HUGE* If True

Michelle Khare’s Challenge Accepted and Cleo Abram’s HUGE* If True are redefining nonfiction storytelling for a new generation of audiences.

For Your Emmy^® Consideration, Challenge Accepted transforms immersive, high-stakes challenges into cinematic stories of resilience, vulnerability, and personal transformation through Michelle Khare’s fearless authorship and emotional honesty. Meanwhile, HUGE* If True combines rigorous reporting, premium production, and unprecedented access to explore the technologies shaping our future, from AI and robotics to aerospace and clean energy, through Cleo Abram’s distinctly optimistic journalistic lens.

Bold, ambitious, and future-facing, both series are now streaming exclusively on YouTube. Television has a new home.

CLOSEUP
⏱️ ‘60 Minutes’ has a new boss…

Nick Bilton (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

The dust is settling on CBS News naming Nick Bilton the new executive producer of ‘60 Minutes,’ the most-watched news show in America with north of 6M viewers a week. He’s only the fifth person to hold the job in the show’s 58-year history.

Who is he? A former New York Times tech columnist and Vanity Fair correspondent, Bilton has spent recent years in L.A. as a screenwriter and producer (including a stint on The Weeknd’s HBO flop ‘The Idol’) and made documentaries on the Ashley Madison and Theranos scandals. Critics are quick to note he’s never worked in TV news, making him the first ‘60 Minutes’ EP without linear broadcast experience. He’s also still mid-Hollywood, writing a Scorsese-directed mob film for Disney’s 20th Century that his CBS deal reportedly leaves room for.

Bilton's arrival is one piece of a larger shakeup: Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss installed Bilton as part of a post-Memorial Day overhaul under Paramount’s David Ellison-led ownership. The move replaced 25-year CBS veteran Tanya Simon and exited correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, plus several senior producers. People are reading it two ways:

• Critics see a politically motivated purge. Alfonsi had clashed with Weiss over a held segment on President Trump’s El Salvador deportations, alleging political interference, and Vega went further on her way out, alleging “censorship.” Some frame the overhaul as making CBS News friendlier to Trump.

• Defenders say the lack of TV-news experience is the point. Paramount’s David Ellison personally backed the hire, betting an outsider can reinvent a “melting iceberg” medium. Bilton notes ‘60 Minutes’ began as short documentaries, exactly what he’s made for HBO and Netflix, and insists the move isn’t political.

What he’s envisioning: Bilton calls the franchise “largely underutilized” and wants it to live beyond its Sunday hour, going to find audiences “in a multitude of different mediums” rather than waiting for the under-50s who don’t tune in to broadcast. He also wants to fold in “gonzo journalism,” the participatory, stunt-driven style of his documentary work. He’s been coy on specifics, planning to meet with staff and reconvene this summer to lay out the full vision.

Looking ahead… Many are asking: why mess with a hit? The show grew 9% last season, is still #1, and has survived cable, the internet, and streaming intact. The brass’s view is that it’s better to move before the decline than after. S59 returns this fall.

ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…

'Terrifier' director Damien Leone (Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)

🔪 'Terrifier' director Damien Leone is going studio, signing with Lionsgate for an original horror movie called 'Tortures of the Damned,' with Sam Raimi producing. He'll write and direct after wrapping 'Terrifier 4.' His 'Terrifier' franchise has quietly become an indie powerhouse (the third film grossed $90M worldwide on a $2M budget).

😬 Amazon MGM's AI-generated series orders drew so much backlash that one director just bailed. Jorge R. Gutierrez ('The Book of Life') pulled out of 'Punky Duck' last week, having joined Amazon's AI pilot program despite previously opposing AI. "Actions speak louder than words," he wrote on X while apologizing.

💰 Hollywood's top 18 execs got a 51% pay bump from 2024 to 2025, per TheWrap's analysis, pulling in $746M combined. Almost a fifth of that ($165M) went to WBD's David Zaslav, who also posted the widest CEO-to-worker gap at 1,378 to 1. Not a great look, critics say, in a year the industry shed 17,000 jobs.

🛡️ A community-minded startup is trying to save Letterboxd from private equity. The owner of the beloved indie platform is shopping it around, so social entrepreneur Elizabeth Joyce launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund a bid and keep its 30M-user community out of corporate hands.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Paramount won the Florence Pugh-led adaptation of ‘The Midnight Library,’ in a $36M Cannes deal. (more)

• Fred Hechinger is boarding Jason Bateman's Netflix film 'The Cackling of the Dodos,' joining Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson. (more)

• Chernin Entertainment has picked up 'One Month Mark,' a buzzy rom-com spec that set off a sizable bidding war. (more)

• 'Everytime,' the Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes, has found a North American home with indie distributor 1-2 Special. (more)

• Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are teaming up once more for a Disney+ docuseries following the SailGP team the two of them co-own. (more)

TV Development 📺

• 'The Birds' is getting a fresh take as a limited series led by Sarah Snook, this time relocated to Alaska. (more)

• FX has 'That Texas Blood' in development, a neo-noir Western drawn from the well-regarded Image Comics series by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips. (more)

• ‘The Roman,’ Netflix’s Las Vegas casino drama starring Oscar Isaac, has added Shalom Brune-Franklin and Jimmy O. Yang to its cast. (more)

• 'Baywatch' is bringing back original stars Michael Bergin and Kelly Packard for Fox's revival, with the two reprising their famous lifeguard roles. (more)

Other News 🚨

• South Korea may legally mandate a six-month theatrical window before films can hit streaming. (more)

CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead…

• WEDNESDAY: Tribeca Festival kicks off in NYC. 🗽 

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

👋 Good morning! The internet has cooked up a wild conspiracy theory about A24’s 'Backrooms,' which opens today: the theory goes that 20-year-old Kane Parsons didn't actually direct it, and that some seasoned ghost-director secretly ran the set in his place. Instead of denying it, Parsons leaned all the way in. He "confirmed" the theory, joking that 96% of all movies are actually directed by one shadowy figure known as "The Older Gentleman," who collects everyone's IP and life rights on the way in. Mystery solved.

You made it to Friday, so consider this your industry debrief before the weekend kicks in. First up, let’s take a look at what people were streaming this week. 👇

TOP STREAMED
📊 This week’s top-streamed originals…

FILM	TV
Netflix The Crash	Netflix Nemesis
HBO Max The Fallout	HBO Max The Pitt
Disney+ Luca	Disney+ The Mandalorian
Prime Video Jack Ryan: Ghost War	Prime Video The Boys
Paramount+ Clifford the Big Red Dog	Paramount+ Dutton Ranch
Hulu Prey	Hulu The Testaments
Apple TV F1: The Movie	Apple TV Your Friends & Neighbors
Peacock The Killer	Peacock M.I.A.

LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES
	Jack Ryan: Ghost War Prime VideoFILM The most watched movie of the week across all platforms. It opened to 11.4M domestic views and 20M hours watched, making it Prime Video's second biggest release of the year. Only 'The Wrecking Crew' opened bigger (13.5M domestic views in Week 1), so 'Ghost War' isn't too far behind that mark.
	The Boroughs NetflixSERIES Brought in 2.2M average domestic season views alongside 13.8M hours watched. Globally, Netflix reported 5.6M views and 35M hours watched. Still doesn't look like a true breakout yet.
	Ladies First NetflixFILM By Luminate's count, it brought in 2.3M views in its opening weekend domestically, and globally Netflix logged 11.9M views. Overall, it's a fairly small opening, especially domestically.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) May 20 to May 27. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
🤖 Amazon just took a big step into AI…

Amazon COO Albert Cheng at this week’s “AI on the Lot” event in Culver City

While most studios are keeping quiet about their AI experimentation, Amazon decided to put it on the menu. At their “AI on the Lot” event in Culver City this week, Amazon MGM Studios and AWS (Amazon’s cloud computing division) took the biggest public step into AI of any major studio yet. Here’s what they announced:

• The GenAI Creators’ Fund: A new program giving filmmakers, digital creators, and tech startups funding and access to Amazon’s AI tools to develop TV shows and movies. Creators pitch a project, get paid to make a proof-of-concept pilot or short, and Amazon decides which ones move to series.

• The first three greenlights, all AI-assisted animated series heading to Prime Video: ‘Punky Duck’ from ‘The Book of Life’ director Jorge Gutierrez, ‘Love, Diana Music Hunters’ from former Nickelodeon chief Albie Hecht, and ‘Cupcake & Friends’ from BuzzFeed Studios.

• Project Nara: The AI production platform itself, built on AWS. It layers AI agents on top of industry-standard tools like Maya, Blender, and Unreal Engine, so artists can keep working in the software they already know. For now, access is limited to creators in the fund.

Amazon is, of course, framing all this as “human-centric.” COO Albert Cheng was quick to say the AI tools are meant to back up creators, not stand in for them. He also floated AI-assisted shoots as a route to busier LA sound stages. The logic: smaller, faster AI-aided crews could turn out 10 shows in the place of one big-budget production, which (he argues) would create more steady work on the lot.

The bigger picture: Studios have been quietly using AI for a while now, mostly in post and VFX where nobody has to put it on a poster. This is one of the first times a major US studio has built a whole development slate around it and said so on the record. Amazon won’t be alone for long either. Netflix has been stitching together its own AI animation unit, and other studios almost certainly won’t stay quiet for much longer.

Also in AI this week…

• The 2026 Tribeca Festival will premiere ‘Dreams of Violets,’ a 75-minute Tehran-set docudrama made for about $2,000 that its producers are calling the first fully AI-generated live-action feature to play a major festival.

• ElevenLabs struck a deal with Stan Lee's estate to recreate the late Marvel creator's voice and likeness, starting with AI narration of his favorite books.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
Meet Television’s Next Generation: Royal Court & Celebrity Substitute…

Brittany Broski’s Royal Court and Julian Shapiro-Barnum’s Celebrity Substitute represent a bold new generation of creator-driven television redefining audience connection and modern variety storytelling.

For Your Emmy^® Consideration, Royal Court transforms the celebrity interview into a fully immersive comedic world where theatricality, sharp hosting, and genuine intimacy collide. Meanwhile, Celebrity Substitute turns surprise celebrity classroom visits into emotionally resonant stories of joy, generosity, and real human connection, blending playful format innovation with unforgettable real-world impact.

Original, culturally resonant, and built for today’s audiences, both series are now streaming on YouTube. Television has a new home.

WIDESHOT
🎬 Curry Barker, Jay Shetty, and MoviePass…

Curry Barker at the L.A. screening of 'Obsession.' (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

💸 An unnamed studio bid eight figures on Curry Barker's next movie. The reported $10M offer for the 'Obsession' director and YouTuber landed before Barker had pitched anything. Insiders think a bidding war could push the number toward $20M. Catch is, the 'Obsession' deal gave Blumhouse-Atomic Monster (which has a first-look deal with Universal) first dibs on Barker's next, so rival studios have to wait. 'Obsession' jumped 39% in its second weekend at the box office, may top opening again in week three (almost unheard of), and is on pace to cross $100M. Hot on his heels, fellow YouTube alum Kane Parsons opens 'Backrooms' this weekend, tracking as A24's biggest debut ever. The YouTube-to-Hollywood pipeline has graduated to producing real hits, and studios want in.

🎙️ Netflix and Spotify joined forces to poach a podcast star. Top self-help podcaster Jay Shetty just signed a multi-year deal reportedly worth up to $100M to bring the video version of his show, 'On Purpose,' exclusively to Spotify and Netflix starting July 13. Industry watchers have increasingly framed YouTube as Netflix's real competition. Netflix could easily be competing with Spotify, but the two are pooling resources to pull a marquee creator off a shared rival. Video podcasts have basically become the new daytime TV, and when a single host is pulling in $100M (a number that used to be reserved for big scripted talent), it's a clear sign of how much weight the streamers are putting behind the format.

🎟️ MoviePass is teaming up with America's independent theaters. The much-resurrected subscription service struck a deal with the Independent Cinema Alliance, a coalition of about 180 theater companies and nearly 5,000 screens across the US and Canada. Banding together makes them the third-largest exhibition group behind AMC and Regal, good for over $1B in annual box office. Subscription tech like AMC's A-List takes capital and engineering muscle no single indie can justify alone. The deal closes that gap, and gives indies the kind of loyalty engine that's helped the bigger chains capture the box office rebound, plus a pipeline to MoviePass's young, frequent moviegoers just as Gen Z attendance climbs.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• ‘Paddington 4’ will be written by Armando Iannucci, with ‘Paddington in Peru,’ director Dougal Wilson in talks to come back. (more)

• Chris Hemsworth is developing multiple projects around Australia’s Tatts Finke Desert Race, including a feature he'd star in. (more)

• Andie MacDowell and Kevin Bacon signed on to 20th Century's take on Emily Henry's bestselling romance 'Beach Read.' (more)

• Janus Films picked up North American rights to Cannes Jury Prize winner 'The Dreamed Adventure.' (more)

TV Development 📺

• Cooper Hoffman is set to lead Hulu’s drama pilot ‘Durango,’ from ‘Y: The Last Man’ writer Eliza Clark. (more)

• David E. Kelley is turning Michael Connelly's 'Nightshade' into HBO Max police drama 'Welcome to Catalina.' (more)

• Zac Efron is starring in and executive producing HBO and A24's new 'Angel Heart' drama series. (more)

• Netflix is developing thriller series 'The Long Now,' from 'Mad Men' alum Semi Chellas and executive producer Jason Bateman. (more)

Business 🤝

• Alan Ritchson signed a three-year first-look TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios following the success of ‘Reacher.’ (more)

• Comscore is becoming Rentrak again after Advaya Capital bought it in a $70M deal backed by former Paramount distribution chief Chris Aronson. (more)

• CNN is suing AI startup Perplexity over copyright and trademark infringement, claiming it used CNN's content without permission. (more)

• Byron Allen officially closed his BuzzFeed acquisition and says the company is now “chasing YouTube” with a new free-streaming platform. (more)

• Two Tribeca and TikTok vets are launching Alza Festival, the first U.S. event dedicated to microdramas, in New York this fall. (more)

RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Backrooms: A24 sci-fi horror starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons.

• The Breadwinner: Stay-at-home-dad comedy starring Nate Bargatze (his film debut) and Mandy Moore, directed by Eric Appel.

• Pressure: D-Day war drama starring Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser.

📺 STREAMING

• Spider-Noir: (Prime Video) 1930s superhero noir series starring Nicolas Cage.

• Star City: (Apple TV) Soviet-set sci-fi spinoff of 'For All Mankind.'

• Propeller One-Way Night Coach: (Apple TV) John Travolta's directorial debut.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: This weekend belongs to 'Backrooms.' A24's liminal-horror chiller is tracking for a $45-55M open (maybe even $65M), which would smash the studio's all-time opening record. The other newcomers play for scraps: Nate Bargatze's 'The Breadwinner,' headed for around $8M, and Focus's D-Day drama 'Pressure,' projected at $6M from under 2,000 screens.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments