It came in the morning from Skydance CEO David Ellison confirming what they had read online the previous night in an anonymous report: that they would not be joining the new merged Warner-Paramount studio. That their upcoming slate of a half-dozen releases, including “Batman 2” and “Gremlins 3,” would be handled by someone else. And that their services were no longer needed. 

It was certainly an inelegant way to handle the exit of two studio chiefs who had ushered Warner Bros to glory at the Academy Awards earlier this year, with the triumph of “One Battle After Another” winning Best Picture and Michael B. Jordan taking Best Actor for critical darling “Sinners,” capped off by a standout 2025 at the box office. 

All day the internet was feeding on the unconfirmed (until now) report of their exit by Puck, with Paramount (now renamed Skydance) declining to comment. The executives were left dangling in the news cycle, increasingly angry at the slight. 

Ellison called each of the executives, separately, to inform them in a tense exchange. According to knowledgeable individuals, he told them that the merged companies have a ton of debt and needed to restructure in order to meet those obligations. That, of course, is no secret to anyone. The combined entity is expected to carry around $80 billion in total debt. 

They were not offered a production deal. Their film slates will be handled for the moment by their deputies, Jesse Ehrman and Mike Ireland, who are currently the Presidents of Production. Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg are co-chairs of Paramount Pictures and expected to lead the merged film studios. 

Both De Luca and Abdy were livid at the way their exit was handled, according to individuals with knowledge of their reaction. Abdy was particularly offended and told the mogul with some bitterness: “Good luck to you. I left you 39 movies.” 

Warner’s go-forward film slate is packed with likely blockbusters, including “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” “The Batman Part II,” “Gremlins 3” and “A Minecraft Movie Squared.”

Under De Luca and Abdy, Warner Bros. had a spectacular year in 2025, with two films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” ultimately winning the top prize, and multiple box office hits, including “A Minecraft Movie.” 

But 2026 has been much tougher with movies like “The Bride!” and “The End of Oak Street” failing to motivate audiences. The reported decision comes ahead of an expected underwhelming domestic opening weekend for the Tom Cruise-led film, “Digger,” which is predicted to bring in $12 million to $15 million. Update: the film opened on Friday to just $3.4 million and is now looking to hit just $7.5 million in its opening.

Abdy and De Luca had no comment for this story. Paramount/ Skydance declined to comment. 

The executives’ last day is expected to be when the two companies complete their merger on Tuesday. 

The post David Ellison Finally Calls Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy to Inform Them of Exit They Read About in the Press | Exclusive appeared first on TheWrap.

Three individuals close to the deal confirmed that Raine, led by co-founder Joe Ravitch and partner Erik Hodge, had accepted a purchase price. One individual said that the deal with a private equity-backed marketing firm was expected to close in the next two weeks. However, other M&A deals involving Imagine have been on the table in the past and not closed.

Raine has been “invested for a long time,” said one insider close to the deal. “It’s time to come out.”

The move to sell Raine’s stake to private equity comes as Imagine has struggled in recent years to produce the kind of film and TV hits that made it so formidable in the 2000s with titles like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “24” and “Arrested Development.”

Howard, 72, most recently directed the Sydney Sweeney indie thriller “Eden” and is in post-production on a true-story Afghanistan war drama called “Alone at Dawn” starring Adam Driver for Amazon MGM. Grazer, 75, is the producing force behind Howard’s films and others at Imagine, like the Netflix documentaries “Marty, Life Is Short” and “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing.”

The deal is complete in principle, one individual close to the transaction said, but the name of the buyer and price could not be learned immediately. TheWrap understands that Grazer has been negotiating the deal himself.

Raine has become frustrated with Imagine’s lackluster output in recent years, and the relationship between Raine and Grazer had become strained, according to a knowledgeable individual. Another individual close to the relationship said it was not strained.

It is also true that Raine does not usually stay partnered in investments for a decade.

A representative for Imagine called TheWrap’s report “factually inaccurate” while declining to give any further detail.

Imagine has been exploring a sale since at least 2024, when the company started working with an investment bank, but a planned sale to Centricus Asset Management Ltd. valued at $700 million fell apart as interest cooled in production companies, as TheWrap exclusively reported at the time.

Raine’s initial investment in 2016 marked a turning point for the company behind films like “The Da Vinci Code” franchise and TV series like “Parenthood” and “Friday Night Lights,” as the arrival of streaming opened up new distribution avenues. Later in 2016, China Media Capital came onboard as an investor with $100 million, while FountainVest Partners invested another $100 million in 2018.

By 2021, Imagine was valued in the $850 million range, but independent production companies have had a rough go over the last couple of years. LeBron James’ SpringHill Company, once valued at $750 million, merged with Fulwell 72 in 2024, just four years after it was founded by the NBA superstar; and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat, once valued at $650 million, has gone through several rounds of downsizing over the last two years. Even Hello Sunshine, valued at nearly $1 billion at one point, shuttered its kids and family unit in 2023.

Imagine has, of course, a much longer tail of content and a track record that includes lucrative library titles, although the company’s last global theatrical hit was 2016’s “Da Vinci” sequel “Inferno” starring Tom Hanks.

Imagine was behind Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt” in 2025, which grossed just $9 million worldwide despite a starry cast that included Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, and Howard’s “Eden” eked out only $2.8 million at the box office after Vertical picked it up for distribution.

The last Imagine film to crack $100 million at the box office was 2017’s Tom Cruise crime movie “American Made,” which still only grossed $135 million against a $50 million budget.

The TV side has also been light, although 2022’s “Under the Banner of Heaven” limited series received critical acclaim and the Keke Palmer-led “The ‘Burbs” was a hit on Peacock last year, scoring a renewal for a second season.

Imagine has been very busy in the documentary space with films and series for Netflix, Disney+ and Peacock like “Jim Henson Idea Man,” “Music by John Williams” and “Avedon.”

Next up, the studio is behind the 20th Century “guy gets trapped in a whale” thriller “Whalefall” that’s in theaters in October, and also produced David Leitch’s heist thriller “How to Rob a Bank” for Amazon MGM and Pete Berg’s sports drama “The Mosquito Bowl” for Netflix.

TV-wise, Imagine has the Andrew Garfield/Jude Law Siegfried & Roy Apple series “Wild Things.”

And perhaps most importantly, a sequel to “The Grinch” that would reunite Howard and Jim Carrey is in early development.

Raine Group, meanwhile, has been behind several big sports and gambling deals over the last few years, including investing in and advising DraftKings. Most recently, Raine teamed with Ares on a $750 million catalog acquisition fund for music and artist management company Firebird.

The post Raine Group Close to Sale of Majority Stake in Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment | Exclusive appeared first on TheWrap.

Of course, football is the biggest part of it: the NFL was the top signup-driving title on both Prime Video and Netflix from September through December 2025, according to insights from analytics firm Antenna. These and more findings from the company’s “The New, New Fall Season” study were presented Wednesday by president and co-founder Rameez Tase at TheGrill, TheWrap’s annual entertainment business conference.

Because of those growing signups, however — Antenna reports the 2025 football season contributed to a 60% rise in daily signups above the preceding offseason — streamers have embraced the third quarter as an optimal time to launch new shows, echoing network TV’s traditional fall season.

“Whereas the new fall season was all about driving viewership on linear TV, we think the new new fall season is all about subscriber growth in the world of streaming,” Tase said on Wednesday. “It may not be all about driving viewership, but the fall has become the time to drive new subscriber additions to each of these streaming services.”

In an increasingly fractured streaming ecosystem, where viewers can cobble together their own TV viewing package with whichever streamers they’re subscribed to, debuting a new series when subscribers are higher could make the difference in whether or not a show succeeds, simply because there’s a higher chance for audiences to discover it as they scroll in between games.

Just as the fall streaming surge mirrors the bustling fall season on broadcast — which notably, will see some high-profile new shows like Fox’s “Baywatch” and NBC’s “Rockford Files” reboot and returning favorites like CBS’ “Matlock” and ABC’s “High Potential” move to a midseason — the streamers positioning tentpole offerings anchored by football mimics the impact of an NFL lead-in on linear, and that trend will grow as more games migrate to those platforms.

It’s like nothing really ever changed.

But drafting off of a big sporting event is a year-round strategy. Take CBS’ “Tracker,” which easily launched as the season’s most-watched entertainment program following the 2024 Super Bowl. This winter, NBCUniversal directed its Super Bowl crowd to Peacock’s “The Burbs,” which reached nearly 1 billion viewing minutes in 11 days.

Beyond football, Antenna pointed to Apple TV’s “Pluribus,” Peacock’s “The Paper,” Netflix’s “The Beast in Me” and HBO Max’s “It: Welcome to Derry” as new shows debuting in fall 2025 that were top performers with new subscribers. Notably, all of the above series scored Season 2 renewals, even “The Beast in Me,” which was initially conceived as a limited series.

Another aspect of the fall viewing surge is summer blockbusters that make their way to their respective streamers just several months later, thanks to shorter theatrical windows. Last fall that meant hits like “Superman” and “Weapons” landed on HBO Max, and this fall has already seen the streaming successes for movies like “Toy Story 5,” which scored 20 million views within its first five days on Disney+.

“The programming teams are bringing that summer box office into the fall streaming window,” Tase said. “They’re driving new subscriptions with it, and the new subscriptions are watching those titles immediately upon subscribing.”

Overall, Antenna reported that seven of eight premium SVOD services — including Hulu, Disney+ and Peacock — recorded their heaviest acquisition during fall 2025. But, as Apple TV launches new and returning series like “Ted Lasso,” “Nocturne” and “Dark Matter,” there’s a chance it could flip from seven to eight.

So as much as streaming continues to take a bigger piece of the TV pie over linear, the fall TV season isn’t going anywhere.

Taylor Frankie Paul drama boosts “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”

Ever since the controversy surrounding “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star Taylor Frankie Paul resulted in her season of “The Bachelorette” getting pulled from ABC’s lineup, fans have been waiting to get the behind-the-scenes look at the drama from the new season of “Mormon Wives.”

That anticipation worked in the show’s favor, with Season 5 debuting on Sept. 10 on Hulu as the No. 7 most-watched original series of the week with 561 million viewing minutes, per Nielsen’s streaming charts. The unscripted series had the highest concentration of adults 18-34 among streaming originals, and ranked second to “Family Guy” across all 10 overall titles.

Kimmel viewership milestone

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” wrapped up its 2025-26 season with average viewership of 2 million, ranking as the late night show’s most-watched season in eight years. In the 18-49 demo, “Kimmel” averaged a 0.18 rating across the season, ranking as the No. 1 show across late night.

The show also kicked off the 2026-27 season as the No. 1 show across late night, bringing in 2.29 million total viewers and a 0.21 rating during the week of Sept. 21.

Spooky Season begins

As “Practical Magic 2” debuted in theaters on Sept. 10, the original “Practical Magic” movie made its Nielsen top 10 debut with 236 million minutes viewed, ranking as the No. 8 movie.

Likewise as spooky season fully kicks off, 2009 animated film “Coraline,” which debuted on Hulu on Sept. 1, made its first top 10 appearance with 208 million minutes, landing just behind “Practical Magic 2.”

ICYMI:

• “The Traitors: New Blood” notches NBC’s top unscripted premiere in six years
• The “South Park” Season 29 premiere soared over the Season 28 opener among both key categories in the 18-49 demo
• MTV’s Video Music Awards returned to Los Angeles with a bang, bringing in its biggest audience since 2015
• Viewership for Lizzie Borden’s “Monster” jumped 20% from premiere week

The post Why Is Streaming Viewership So High in the Fall? It’s Not Just Sports appeared first on TheWrap.

Change, as we know, happens slowly and then all at once. In the last year or two nearly all of Hollywood’s legacy studios have celebrated a century of existence and the many changes that have come through those decades, including the talkies, color television, cable, VHS then DVDs then OTT.

But this change is different. What looked like a secular shift a decade and a half ago – the move to streaming – has become something more transformative and profound. The disruption to Hollywood’s major studios are the symptoms and not the cause of this transformation. Paramount and Warner Bros. are the two most impacted in the past 18 months in their highly contested merger, but hardly the only institutions affected.

When you pull the lens back, the industry as a whole shows us something bigger: a shift in the balance of power between content and technology. Technology companies have either built alternatives to legacy studios like Netflix or bought them, like Apple and Amazon MGM. This is redefining what the entertainment economy looks like. And of course AI is changing everything inside those studios as well. 

Part of what we are doing this year at TheGrill is digging down deep to identify what is the core value of what Hollywood offers. Yes, we will explore the pace of mergers and acquisitions, and especially delve into the Paramount-Warner merger.

But regardless of the platform, it always comes back to authentic storytelling, whether in one-minute videos or eight-hour series. Whether it’s on TikTok or at the multiplex. It is what audiences are still hungry for, as “Obsession” and “Backrooms” and “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” have proved, to billions of dollars at the box office. 

Speaking of that, apparently theatrical moviegoing isn’t dead after all. The box office is headed to a $10.5 billion year, driven by five billion dollar global hits so far. 

Creators are a whole category that barely existed five years ago. The tools we have today means that a single individual can build their own business from scratch. They no longer need permission or even the infrastructure that a studio provides, and creators are building on their own to the tune of multi-million dollar deals. We have some of the key players in that space as well as a look at a new event that we launched just for Creators on Tuesday.

And as subscription models hit maturity, advertising has come back as an important part of the entertainment ecosystem. Whether in FAST channels or in the competitive dealmaking around sports, brands and their dollars are once again a growth engine. 

We’ve been convening TheGrill for 16 years and change has been the constant of this annual look at the state of the industry. But if you’re in this room today, your odds of surviving the overwhelming gale winds of change are pretty good. This community is consistently filled with the innovators and risk takers, both in the audience and on stage. It’s fun to look around and see new companies joining our stage – like aTwist from Jana Winograde and Susan Rovner, which just launched, and Mansa from Nate Parker and David Oyelowo – who are adapting to new formats like the microdrama.

This year we are able to show samples of AI generated entertainment using some of the newest tools that are making production cheaper, faster and more flexible. We feel lucky to have some of the brightest and most cutting edge minds in AI’s intersection with Hollywood.

And of course among business leaders we have some true heavy hitters coming today, from the founder and CEO of Draftkings Jason Robins, to the California attorney general Rob Bonta and Paramount chief legal counsel Makan Delrahim. We’ll have a busy morning session followed by a networking lunch where you can meet TheWrap’s top journalists and ask them anything. 

We’re excited to get today kicked off. We will continue to believe in the promise of disruption.

The post Hollywood Faces a Century-Defining Shift as Tech Tips the Power Structure appeared first on TheWrap.

In the last 10 years, only one Pitt-starring film failed to clear $100 million at the box office, 2022’s coarse (and divisive) Old Hollywood ode “Babylon.” Even “Allied,” the 2016 Robert Zemeckis romantic drama starring Pitt and Marion Cotillard, grossed $120 million worldwide.

And Pitt’s hits are big. Take a look at these global totals:

• “F1” (2025) – $634 million
• “World War Z” (2013) – $540 million
• “Troy” (2004) – $497 million
• “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” (2005) – $497 million
• “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (2019) – $394 million
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008) – $334 million
• “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) – $322 million
• “Bullet Train” (2022) – $239 million

That’s to say nothing of the supremely popular ensemble “Ocean’s” movies.

Pitt is not just a draw across different genres — from actioners to sports movies to romantic dramas — but he’s a proven bankable star across decades, hitting a high just last year with Apple’s “F1.” The 62-year-old performs exceptionally well internationally, and he uses his status to flit between blockbusters and more personal projects like Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor” or Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly.”

He arguably has a better track record of hits than Matt Damon or George Clooney, putting his box office performance closer to Leonardo DiCaprio’s or Tom Cruise’s when taken beat-for-beat. He’s top tier of the top tier.

All of this to say, “Heart of the Beast” getting off to a slower start is likely not cause for concern for Paramount. The film, which finds a stranded Pitt and his dog trying to make it out of the Alaskan wilderness alive, earned strong reviews from both critics and audiences, and it’s the kind of movie that feels poised to perform exceptionally well on PVOD. So even with an $82 million budget, its chances of recouping are solid.

It’s one of two big Pitt movies out this fall, with the next coming in November with “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” the David Fincher-directed, Quentin Tarantino-written continuation of Pitt’s Oscar-winning role from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Netflix is making “Cliff Booth” its first-ever IMAX release with a special two-week engagement.

Now, on to the rest of this week’s Reel to Real column as we tackle “Avengers: Endgame Encore” leading the box office, what happens to the creative community under Paramount-Warner Bros., Jeffrey Katzenberg’s AI animation ambitions and more.

And if you want this column as a newsletter in your inbox every Monday morning, go to “Newsletters” in your WrapPRO account settings.

Box Office: ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Adds $86 Million Worldwide From ‘Encore’ Reissue

On a weekend when all the films in the box office top 5 cleared $10 million, Marvel Studios was king with a 2019 title in re-release – “Avengers: Endgame Encore.” Remarkably, the film took in $26 million domestically and $86 million worldwide.

The domestic total is just a touch above the $25.5 million grossed last year by the 20th anniversary re-release of “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” and brings the lifetime total of “Endgame” to $884 million domestic and $2.88 billion worldwide.

Taking second is Sony’s “Resident Evil” with $23.3 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic total to $103.4 million. While the arrival of “Endgame Encore” may have led to a sharper 61% drop despite the strong reception for Zach Cregger’s horror film, it should still be a solid theatrical success as it moves past the $100 million mark.

Filling out the rest of the top 5 is a trio of new releases: A24’s “Primetime,” Paramount’s “Heart of the Beast” and Universal/DreamWorks’ “Forgotten Island.” Of the three, “Primetime” is in the best place to turn a theatrical profit with a reported $15 million budget before marketing, while the other two face a more uphill battle with production spends of $80 million.

But it is “Heart of the Beast” that narrowly leads the bunch with a $20 million domestic and $50 million global opening from 3,435 locations. Domestically, the film will have to leg out with its core audience of white moviegoers over 35, predominantly in rural states. Reception for the film is strong with an A- on CinemaScore and PostTrak scores of 74% “definite recommend” and 90% overall positive.

“Primetime” is just behind “Heart of the Beast” with a $19.1 million opening from 2,874 screens. It remains to be seen how word-of-mouth will affect the legs of “Primetime,” as the film’s critical eye towards “Predator,” host Chris Hansen and true crime TV in general may have put off some moviegoers who thought they were getting a more straightforward biopic about the show. The film had a B+ CinemaScore.

But what is clear is that despite the film’s subject matter and 2000s setting, “Primetime” is being driven by Gen Z, with an audience that is 69% under the age of 30, showing both the drawing power of lead star Robert Pattinson and A24’s success in building a core fanbase of young cinephiles.

Then there is “Forgotten Island,” which, despite excellent critical and audience reception, is sputtering out of the gate with an opening weekend of just $12.8 million from 3,548 locations.

Those who have seen “Forgotten Island” have raved about it, giving the film an A on CinemaScore and excellent PostTrak scores of 81% definite recommend and 96% overall positive. But with this start, any legs that come from such strong word-of-mouth would likely only get it close to the break-even point, making this title the latest example of Hollywood struggling to get audiences to buy into original theatrical animation even with rave reviews. – Jeremy Fuster

The Spotlight

As David Ellison aims to wrap up Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in the coming weeks, what does the merger mean for creatives in the industry? Lucas Manfredi and Jeremy Fuster spoke with insiders about the layoffs to come. Read the full story here.

New Releases 

Katzenberg Is All-in on AI: Jeffrey Katzenberg tells Sharon Waxman that he plans to launch an animation studio that will use generative AI to make films.

The Best Picture Race So Far: Steve Pond offers his initial predictions for what gets into the Best Picture Oscar lineup at this stage.

M. Night Shyamalan Looks Back: The filmmaker got candid with TheWrap’s Drew Taylor about his most underrated film, working with Bruce Willis on his last “real” movie and more.

Quiet on Set: “The Love Hypothesis” star Lili Reinhart says her decision to make TikToks on set initially got her in trouble — then it became a cornerstone of the Amazon film’s marketing.

Skywalker Lives: Jon Watts, the filmmaker who directed the first three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, will direct “Star Wars: Episode X.”

Concession Stand

Chris Hansen’s review of “Primetime” isn’t as vitriolic as you might think.

Exclusive: Ebon Moss-Bacharach is Kelso in “Heat 2.”

Sabrina Carpenter is Ginger Rogers and Margaret Qualley is Adele Astaire in Tom Holland’s Fred Astaire biopic.

The next “Saw” movie has a director.

The documentary “NAZA” will stream for free on The Guardian’s website after its international rollout.

Robert Eggers will next direct a “Romeo & Juliet” adaptation. Can Shakespeare’s classic get even darker? We’re going to find out.

Streaming Corner

• Filmmaker Brad Bird opened up to TheWrap about his unique world-building in his retro-futuristic noir animated film “Ray Gunn,” which Netflix will release in December. The director reveals his inspirations for the project, and how he feels about it not getting a wide theatrical release.

What I’m Watching

There’s a new documentary produced by Rachel Maddow on Peacock that offers a fascinating — and at times disheartening — look at a shocking war between a small family-run newspaper and local law enforcement in a rural Oklahoma county. Called “Kill. Bury. Print.,” you may recall the events at the center of the film, in which a commissioner and sheriff were caught on tape allegedly plotting to murder the reporter who’d been writing negative stories about the sheriff. Much has rightly been written about Trump’s actions against coverage he deems negative, but this shines a light on the trickle-down effect those actions have had on establishments elsewhere in the country.

The post What Is Brad Pitt’s Box Office Power? appeared first on TheWrap.

David Ellison had a seat at Donald Trump’s table Thursday night. The journalists at the news organization he is about to own were fighting for access to the same White House.

It was a striking split screen at the end of an extraordinary week for CNN.

Hours before Ellison arrived for a state dinner honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping, CNN was still battling the Trump administration over its ability to cover the president. A federal judge had ordered the White House to restore access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico after Trump barred the three outlets from the grounds. CNN reporters eventually made it back inside Thursday, only for the network to say later that two of its journalists were denied access to cover arrivals at the state dinner.

Ellison, meanwhile, was among Trump’s invited guests.

There is no evidence Ellison had anything to do with the White House’s treatment of CNN, and there is nothing inherently improper about a media executive attending a state dinner. Owners of news organizations have long maintained relationships with presidents and other powerful people their journalists cover.

But Thursday put that tension on unusually clear display.

Ellison is preparing to take control of CNN as Paramount completes its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing CNN and CBS News under the same corporate owner. For months, much of the discussion surrounding the deal has focused on what Ellison might do to CNN: whether its leadership will stay, whether its programming will change and whether its journalism will shift under new ownership.

Thursday raised a different question.

The real test of CNN’s independence under Ellison may not be whether he tries to change its coverage. It may come when CNN’s journalism creates a problem for the person who owns it.

That isn’t a problem unique to Ellison. Media companies have interests that extend far beyond their newsrooms. Their executives interact with governments, seek regulatory approvals and maintain relationships with many of the same powerful people their journalists cover.

The traditional answer has been to build a wall between those interests and editorial decision-making. Paramount is about to add another mechanism intended to reinforce it.

As part of its settlement with 12 state attorneys general, Paramount agreed to establish a five-person editorial independence board for CNN and CBS News. But questions have already been raised about how much power it will have. Paramount’s directors will appoint the members, its findings don’t have to be made public and the board won’t be in place immediately. The company has up to 180 days after the Warner Bros. Discovery deal closes to establish it.

That can sound like a fairly wonky corporate-governance debate. This week showed why it matters.

CNN went to federal court after Trump barred its journalists from White House grounds. Its television competitors refused to replace CNN in the White House television pool, turning the dispute into a broader test of whether competing news organizations would stand together when the government tried to decide who could cover the president.

CNN won an important round when a federal judge ordered its access restored. But the confrontation didn’t end there.

The White House removed CNN from its scheduled Saturday television pool assignment for Trump’s trip to Tennessee and put Real America’s Voice, a conservative network outside the five-network rotation, in its place. The other networks again declined to recognize a replacement for CNN, leaving the trip without the usual television pool coverage.

Trump also made clear Saturday that he still believed CNN should be kept out.

“Why should perpetrators of FAKE NEWS, like CNN and MSDNC, be allowed access to a very sacred place, the White House?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Less than two hours later, he added: “FAKE NEWS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!”

The latest escalation only underscored the kinds of decisions Ellison could soon face.

What happens the next time CNN publishes something the White House hates? What happens if the administration again retaliates against the network?

And what happens if defending CNN makes life more complicated for the person who owns it?

Ellison’s presence at Thursday’s dinner doesn’t answer those questions. It doesn’t tell us how he will respond when CNN and the White House clash after he takes control, and there is no evidence he has sought to influence CNN’s journalism during the current fight.

But that’s also why this week was worth paying attention to.

Editorial independence is easy to promise when the interests of a newsroom and its owner are aligned. It matters most when they aren’t.

Ellison has said he intends to protect the journalistic independence of the news organizations he is acquiring. Soon, he may get the chance to show what that promise means when protecting CNN carries a cost.

The answer probably won’t come from Ellison calling CNN and telling it what to cover. It could be more subtle: whether CNN’s leaders feel free to pursue journalism that creates friction, whether its journalists believe the company will stand behind them when the White House retaliates and whether the independence board works when corporate and editorial interests diverge.

Trump may have provided the first glimpse of that test before Ellison even owns the network.

CNN’s journalists spent Thursday fighting for their place inside Donald Trump’s White House.

By dinner, their future owner already had one.

Now, on to the rest of this week’s Media Front column which also covers Paramount-WBD’s latest hurdle; Peter Thiel and Axel Springer; “Dateline” at 35 and more

The Networks Drew a Line

The White House television pool returned Friday after a dayslong suspension sparked by the Trump administration’s decision to bar CNN from participating in the rotation.

ABC News, CBS News, Fox News and NBC News had declined to replace CNN, effectively turning the White House’s dispute with one network into a dispute with all five.

But the standoff isn’t entirely over. The White House removed CNN from its scheduled television pool assignment again Saturday, and the networks are set to resume pooled coverage Sunday despite CNN’s continued exclusion from the rotation.

My full piece: White House TV Pool Returns After Networks Stood With CNN

Paramount-WBD Isn’t Over the Line Yet

Paramount appeared to clear what was expected to be the final major hurdle to its $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition Monday, reaching a settlement with 12 state attorneys general that includes commitments on domestic film and TV production, theatrical releases, cable negotiations and newsroom independence.

But the deal isn’t quite over the line. A federal judge held off on approving the settlement Thursday, asking the parties to address additional concerns before she rules, while merger opponents are urging the court to reject the agreement.

For a transaction that would combine two of Hollywood’s biggest studios and reshape everything from streaming to cable news, even the final stretch is proving complicated.

Lucas Manfredi and Roger Cheng’s full piece: Breaking Down the Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Settlement | Analysis

Axel Springer’s Peter Thiel Problem

More than 120 journalists at Politico and Business Insider protested parent company Axel Springer’s decision to honor Peter Thiel with its annual Axel Springer Award this week, pointing in particular to his secret financing of Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker.

The dispute highlights an uncomfortable tension inside large media companies: Newsrooms can operate independently from their corporate owners, but the values expressed by those owners can still reverberate among the journalists who work for them.

My full piece: Business Insider, Politico Staffers Protest Over Peter Thiel Award

“Dateline” at 35

“Dateline” turns 35 this season, but NBC’s venerable newsmagazine increasingly looks like a case study in how a legacy television franchise can outgrow television.

Its “Dateline 24/7” channel was available on 12 U.S. FAST platforms during the second quarter, according to Ampere Analysis data provided exclusively to TheWrap. NBC says 189 hours of “Dateline” now air each week across licensed and syndicated broadcast and cable outlets, while its podcasts and showcast feed have surpassed 2 billion lifetime downloads.

At 35, “Dateline” is one of NBC News’ oldest shows. Its multiplatform strategy may also make it one of its most modern.

My full piece: ‘Dateline’ at 35: How the True Crime Sensation Became an Always-On Franchise

What’s Next: Next Week’s PRO — Is This the Future of Local News?

Local television has spent years cutting costs and asking journalists to do more with less. Now staffing cuts and new production technology could push that transformation even further, with anchors taking on production responsibilities once handled behind the scenes.

Is local TV turning back the clock — or is this a glimpse of its future?

I’ll dig into what’s driving the shift and what it means for local news next week on TheWrap.

Look for the full analysis next week on WrapPRO.

Also on TheWrap

• From Sharon Waxman: Why Rob Bonta Caved on the Paramount Settlement | Analysis
• From A.J. Katz: RedBird Capital Takes Majority Stake in Puck at $250 Million Valuation
• From Kayla Cobb: Creatorverse: YouTube Wants to Be Way More Than the Next Hollywood

The post David Ellison’s CNN Challenge Is Already Here appeared first on TheWrap.

Sports technology provider Nomadar is going so far as to bet on the next-generation of growth for soccer in America by buying Fox Soccer Academy, which trains young players hoping for college and professional careers.

The theory is that the growing popularity of soccer will get more youngsters to play the game. Better young players will make the American teams stronger and make the game even more popular potentially minting future stars.

But the big story in finance was Paramount settling the antitrust lawsuit that had stalled its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, with many in Hollywood shocked that California Attorney General Rob Bonta struck an agreement that didn’t include any significant divestitures. The deal is now set to clear in the next few weeks but the drama is unlikely to end as the company deals with debt and cuts staff.

Thanks for reading and please send tips to jon.lafayette@thewrap.com

P.S. Hollywood’s latest round of consolidation is still playing out, and there are plenty of questions about what comes after it. The people who price, finance and navigate these deals take the stage at TheGrill on Sept. 30. Subscribers get 30% off with code WRAPPROVIP

THE DEEP DIVE

Investing in Soccer by Betting on Youth Sports

The World Cup raised U.S. interest in soccer, and many investors looked for ways to cash in.

Nomadar last week made a bet on more youngsters playing the game, agreeing to acquire Fox Soccer Academy, which started its training business in New York 11 years ago, and now has facilities in North Carolina, the United Kingdom and Australia.

NASDAQ-traded Nomadar is now majority owned by the Cadiz soccer team, which plays in the second division of Spain’s professional La Liga. Nomadar has been billed as the team’s sports-technology business. To give you a sense of its imporance, Cadiz Club de Futbol shareholders will vote on Sept. 30 on a reverse spinoff that will make Nomadar the majority shareholder of the team.

• Nomadar is buying Fox Soccer Academy for an upfront payment of $2 million. Fox has facilities in the U.S., the U.K. and Austria that have 2,100 boys and girls enrolled.
• The Spanish soccer team Cadiz FC controls Nomadar, but the companies have approved a reverse-spin transaction that will make Nomadar the majority owner of the team. 
• Nomadar is building a multi-use facility in Cadiz that will host the team and other businesses. 

Nomadar’s CEO of Americas & Executive Vice Chairman Joaquin Martin told The Ledger that the company’s tech-oriented sports platform is built around the team, with businesses in training young players, real estate development and digital products. “We are building a very unique model,” Martin said. “It’s a global connected ecosystem. The center of the ecosystem is the professional soccer club.”

Since going public last year, Nomadar hasn’t posted a profitable quarter. In the second quarter, the company reported a net loss of $459,941, or 3 cents per share, as revenue doubled to $669,571.

Martin said its early days have been spent readying the company to set its operating units up and running while preparing for the reverse spin. 

“It has been an intense 10 months because we have been achieving different milestones,” Martin said.

Those milestones include acquiring land in Spain for the multi-purpose event center it is developing and preparing for the reverse spinoff. The next step is building its training division by acquiring Fox Soccer Academy.

“At the end of the day, we will have all the standards of a publicly traded company, access and possibilities to grow,” he said.

Nomadar is paying $2 million upfront for Fox plus a delayed payment of $2.6 million and up to a $1.5 million earnout. Fox was founded by Raluca Gold-Fuchs, a Goldman Sachs veteran, and her husband, Christian Fuchs, who played for Leicester City when it won the Premier League in 2016 and is now the assistant coach for Charlotte FC of the MLS. Nomadar has an option to buy the remaining interest in Fox for $4.4 million.

Fox has produced players that have been called for national teams. The Fuchs’ sons graduated from the program and have played in the professional in the MLS and in the U.K. Its revenue comes from tuition paid by their young players’ families.

Gold-Fuchs said they got to know Nomadar through a friend. Fuchs said the combination of the science-based techniques Fox uses at its academy, plus the high-performance training program Cardiz employees in Europe will help young players advance to college and professional teams. Being connected to an historic professional team will also give Fox a boost, particularly in international markets.

Gold-Fuchs said Fox has expanded carefully so far and now has 2,100 players in its multiple locations. “We want to continue what we’ve been doing well so far. Nomadar is adding this international aspect that we can provide to our players that other academies cannot,” she said. “We will grow the same careful way we’ve been growing until now. We definitely want to grow, but not in an aggressive way.”

Fox has seen interest in soccer grow in the U.S. with Lionel Messi joining the MLS and the World Cup showing America’s enthusiasm for the game, that growth is bound to continue, Gold-Fuchs said.

“The popularity will pick up, and the more money that goes into the sport, and the more good players you get into the sport, the more it’s going to grow,” she said. 

Sports investors are looking at modern multi-use facilities as an opportunity for teams to generate revenues beyond ticket sales and media rights. 

The complex Nomadar is building in Cadiz will include a 35,000-seat venue for sports, cultural and music events, plus a convention center, hotel and shopping. It is expected to be completed at the end of 2030.

At the same time, Nomadar is getting set to launch several products that combine the in-person experience it offers with digital experiences, Martin said. It has a subscription product for people who want to work for professional soccer teams, and it plans to launch a program for people who want to get some of the benefits of the Cadiz training regime without attending facilities in person.

Nomadar is also looking at additional facilities it can build and, in the future, could expand by buying other professional teams.

“Connectivity  inside the ecosystem is a natural trigger for growth. Martin said.

Nomadar, which traded at $21 after it went public in a direct offering last October,  closed Thursday at $1.53.

FINANCIAL ROUNDUP

The Paramount-WBD Saga (Concluded?) 

The billionaire Ellison family got its way and CEO David Ellison expects Paramount Skydance will close the $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in two weeks after reaching a settlement with a dozen state attorneys general, avoid a costly delays which were riddled with potential fees. The judge overseeing the case wants Paramout to address “certain outstanding questions” and concerns raised by Sen. Corey Booker by Mondoay. 

Before the close, Paramount was still looking for financing and considered asking one-time trillionaire Elon Musk to be an equity investor, according to Semafor. On Thursday, it launched a syndication to raise $7.5 billion in debt to help fund the deal.

The legal settlement came after Paramount was seemingly ready to make good on its threat to move out of California, applying tremendous pressure on Attorney General Rob Bonta. After the deal was reached, Ellison said the company’s headquarters would remain in Los Angeles.

What shocked many in Hollywood was not just the speed of the proceedings but how Paramount came out of this unscathed. The settlement did not require any significant “structural remedies,” such as the sale of cable channels, that Bonta contended were needed to address competitive concerns.

In the 32-page consent decree, Paramount agreed to produce 30 films a year for two years, and 32 films the following three years. The company agreed to spend $1.5 billion over three years on domestic production and keep its studio lots open, and treat its cable channels as different entities when negotiating with distributors.

To answer concerns that the Trump-friendly Ellisons would now control CBS News and CNN, Paramount agreed to form an independent oversight board for the news operations, although press advocate groups expressed doubt the entity would have any influence on operations. Connecticut AG William Tong had demanded that Paramount divest CNN and CBS and The Freedom of the Press Foundation already slammed the agreement as worthless. 

The settlement was also denounced by the Block the Merger coalition. It got a better review from theater owners, which had already thrown their support behind a settlement a few weeks ago. The Writers Guild of America also settled its suit against Paramount, largely because it lacked the financial footing to mount a long-term battle. 

Barclay’s analyst Kannan Venkateshwar called the terms of the settlement “relatively benign” for the company, although it limits its ability to make some near-term asset sales. The pledge not to sell studio lots “could be seen as an additional constraint limiting synergies but given the commitment to make 30 movies, the company will likely need this capacity in any case,” Venkateshwar said. “The focus will now turn to integration.”

Venkateshwar also pointed out that as part of the WBD deal, the company would issue warrants attached to Class B shares. The warrants will be separately traded.

“While the warrants don’t necessarily change the equity value today, they will result in incremental dilution when exercised but will also bring in cash when exercised of about $5.7 billion,” he said. “However, the warrants have a long duration and will trade independently which means that this part of the capital structure will be valued on factors beyond just the immediate stock price.”

Worth reading:

• Breaking Down the Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Settlement | Analysis
• Paramount-Warner Bros. Closes in Two Weeks: What Does That Mean for Creatives?
• Can Paramount’s CNN and CBS News Oversight Board Actually Work?

DEAL SHEET

• Barry Diller’s People Inc. withdrew its bid for MGM Resorts that valued the company at $18 billion. People Inc. owns 27% of MGM shares and offered to buy enough to give it a controlling interest. “We didn’t feel the mix was coming together in the way we had hoped and have decided not to pursue taking the company private at this time,” Diller said. On Thursday, reports surfaced that MGM was considering  a bid for People.
• A24 and The New York Times joined the list of companies reportedly interested in acquiring Letterboxd for more than $300 million. Sony, Netflix, Paramount and private-equity firms RedBird and TPG had previously been listed as potential bidders for the company, controlled by Tiny since 2023.
• Podium Entertainment, a publisher focused on independent authors and audiobooks, was acquired by private-equity firms Shamrock Capital and Flexpoint Ford. No price was disclosed, but sources familiar with the situation valued the deal at $400 million. Podium, which has been controlled by Presidio Investors since 2019, was advised by LionTree. Podium’s existing management will stay in place.
• Unit1 Studio, which produces avatar concerts, raised $20 million in a round of financing led by Balderton. An avatar concert is a production that features a digitally constructed replica of a music artist performing live on a stage inside a real venue. Unit1 plans to offer young fans a concert experience featuring bands from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. 
• Sister Group, the entertainment company run by Elisabeth Murdoch and Jane Featherstone, bought a minority stake in Common Interest, an advertising company founded by Anthony Freedman. The two companies are working together on projects backed by brands as part of a strategic partnership. 

WRAP 20 INDEX

Here’s how the companies in our Wrap 20 Index performed this week. 

FROM THEWRAP

Creatorverse: Youtube Wants to be Way More Than the Next Hollywood

How Zach Cregger Powered ‘Resident Evil’ to Box Office Records

Bob Chapek Blames Bob Iger for His Disney Downfall, Stands by Theme Park Price Hikes in Memoir

HEARD AROUND

Winamp Is Back and Wants a Piece of Spotify’s Busines

The Tech Elite Is Funding an Alternative to College

Fender Makes Enemies With a Messy Fight Over Its Iconic Strat

K-Pop Is Betting on AI and Robots. Will Fans Buy It?

The post Investing in the Next Generation of Soccer Stars appeared first on TheWrap.

Shouldn’t we?

In a way, yes, we should. But after a relatively underwhelming Cannes Film Festival back in May, the September trio of festivals was also underwhelming, and the New York lineup is light on much that could alter the race.

So let’s pick through what we’ve seen and what we expect to happen when the 10,000+ members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences get around to voting in the Best Picture category in early January. We’ll separate them into groups.  

Contenders that have already been released

The big one in this category, of course, is Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” an epic that became the de facto frontrunner when it was released on July 17 and hasn’t budged from that position since then. It did extremely well at the box office, reviews have been strong and it epitomizes a year in which lots of high-profile films tell stories about how we tell stories, with others in that camp including “The Debut,” “Elsinore,” “Digger,” “Primetime” and “Ink.”

Being a wire-to-wire favorite isn’t easy, but Nolan did it three years ago with his previous film, “Oppenheimer,” another third-week-of-July release. Lots of directors earn back-to-back Best Picture nominations – Paul Thomas Anderson did it last year, Edward Berger and Denis Villeneuve the year before – but winning the top prize with consecutive films hasn’t happened since David Lean turned the trick with “Bridge on the River Kwai” in 1957 and “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962. The only other director to do it: William Wyler with “Mrs. Miniver” in 1942 and “The Best Years of Our Lives” in 1946.

(Francis Ford Coppola directed Best Picture winners only two years apart with the first two “Godfather” movies, as did Frank Lloyd with “Cavalcade” and “Mutiny on the Bounty” in the 1930s, but Coppola made “The Conversation” in between his two winners, and Lloyd made three other movies between his.)

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s “Project Hail Mary” came out even earlier in the year, on March 20, only five days after the Oscar ceremony. But like “Sinners” last year and “Dune: Part Two” the year before, it’s a bold spring movie that seems to be hanging on in the minds of voters.

The jury’s still out on a trio of movies that came out in the first half of the year: in order of likelihood, Olivia Wilde’s sharp and entertaining talkfest “The Invite,” YouTube creator Curry Barker’s horror-movie sensation “Obsession” (not a genre that usually finds favor with Oscar voters) and the divisive but crowd-pleasing Michael Jackson biopic (or whitewash?) “Michael.”  

Festival movies that are likely to be nominated

The fall festivals usually bring the premieres of a few best-pic nominees: Last year, for instance, there was “Bugonia” and “Frankenstein” from Venice and “Hamnet” from Telluride, the year before “The Brutalist” from Venice and “Conclave” and “Nickel Boys” from Telluride. This year, though, I count exactly one sure-fire nominee: Martin McDonagh’s twisted comedy “Wild Horse Nine.” It may not be as strong as the Irish director’s 2022 black comedy “The Banshees of Inisherin,” which received nine nominations, but it’ll likely do well, buoyed by the affection for a cast headed by John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi.

Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” may not be quite as much of a sure thing, but his tale of the making of the 1976 Best Picture winner “Rocky” is a genuine crowd-pleaser and seems likely to become the first Toronto Film Festival world premiere to land a nomination since “American Fiction” in 2023.

Festival movies that might be nominated

This is a much bigger group than the likely nominees. It includes Jesse Eisenberg’s goofy musical “The Debut,” another crowd-pleaser; Mike Leigh’s wrenching but lovely “Tender Loving Care,” with “Widow’s Bay” Emmy winner Kate O’Flynn starring in what the iconic director says will likely be his last movie; and Australian film and theater director Simon Stone’s “Elsinore,” with a stunning performance by Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson, the “Chariots of Fire” star who played Hamlet in a London theatrical production while he was dying of AIDS in 1989. (It could follow “Hamnet” and become the second consecutive nominee to find parallels between Shakespeare’s classic tragedy and the lives of people putting it on.)

Other recent festival films in contention are Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime,” with Robert Pattinson as “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen; Sian Heder’s “CODA” follow-up, “Being Heumann,” which uses a predominantly disabled cast to tell the story of a 1977 sit-in that was pivotal in the disability-rights movement; and Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” in which Boyle’s typically propulsive filmmaking traces the rise of tabloid journalism in England in the 1980s.

Going back to the Cannes Film Festival in May, you can’t rule out James Gray’s “Paper Tiger,” in which Scarlett Johansson, Miles Teller and Adam Driver play roles based on Gray’s mother, father and uncle; and Jordan Firstman’s entertaining “Club Kid,” which takes “Three Men and a Baby,” drops two of the men and transplants the action to New York gay club scene.

Festival contenders not in English

This is an intriguing batch of films, because the increasingly international makeup of the Academy has led to four consecutive years of two non-English Best Picture nominees, and eight straight years of at least one. Two-thirds of those nominees have come from Cannes, which supplied at least six contenders this year.

The top three seem to be the Palme d’Or winner, Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord,” austere and provocative; the Spanish drama “La Bola Negra,” an expansive epic which spans decades in the lives of three gay men and is one of Netflix’s strongest contenders; and “Fatherland,” another mid-century black-and-white reverie from Pawel Pawlikowski, who worked this territory fruitfully with his last two movies, “Ida” and “Cold War.”

The Asian auteurs Lee Chang-dong and Ryusuke Hamaguchi can’t be discounted, either, with Lee’s “Possible Love” and Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden” telling deep and thoughtful stories from South Korea and Japan, respectively. Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, now living in exile in France, delivers a typically powerful look at Russian society in “Minotaur,” though Best Picture is more of a stretch for his dark drama.

Notable documentaries

No nonfiction film has ever been nominated for Best Picture, but two of them certainly stole the headlines during the festivals. One, we saw coming: Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s “Musk” was a look at the world’s richest man that felt monumental even as it drained viewers over its four-hour running time.

The other was a shock: Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder’s “You Can See Everything” premiered as a surprise film at Telluride and left audiences dumbfounded with its look at Elizabeth Holmes in the month before she began serving a prison term for defrauding investors in her company Theranos. If the Academy’s Documentary Branch doesn’t embrace the slippery doc/fiction hybrid beloved by Fielder fans, there’s always a chance it could hit the spot for general voters – unless those mind-boggled raves out of Telluride had something to do with the surprise unveiling and the altitude.

A post-festival possibility that some people have seen

One of the biggest contenders to skip the fall festivals was Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Digger,” with Tom Cruise as a billionaire mogul (there seem to be a lot of them on screens these days) in a rare comedy for the ambitious Mexican director. The film premiered in London and had a few Stateside screenings recently, with more coming in the next week. So far, it’s safe to say that the film has been wildly divisive: It’s completely excessive and over-the-top in a way that seems to be exhausting to some and thrilling to others, while a big twist recasts everything you’ve seen and forces you to reconsider those scenery-chewing performances by Cruise, John Goodman and others.

A lot of people seem to be predicting that it’ll flop with voters (think: Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon”), but it’s so seriously wacky that it might also get points for guts and nerve. It won’t hurt that it gives people a reason to vote for Tom Cruise, which has been hard to find during his years in the action-star arena.

Contenders that haven’t screened yet

This Oscar-watcher’s rule of thumb is that if you come out of the fall festivals and there are three or four or six big movies that have yet to screen, you should assume that 75% of them will not be serious contenders. The problem is that at this point, you don’t know which 25% might score.

That said, the end to Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” trilogy, “Dune: Part Three,” seems pretty close to a sure thing. You’d think the pedigree of “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” would make that a reliable bet as well: screenplay by Quentin Tarantino based on the character that won Brad Pitt an Oscar for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” directed by three-time Best Director nominee David Fincher. But only one of Fincher’s last four movies has earned a best-pic nomination, and his pulpier genre exercises – “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “Gone Girl,” “The Killer” – are the ones that tend to miss out. So who knows?

Also a David-Fincher-adjacent semi-sequel, Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” is a follow-up to the Sorkin-written, Fincher-directed “The Social Network,” with Jeremy Strong taking over the Mark Zuckerberg role from Jesse Eisenberg. We can expect smart, fast talking, but 2020’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is the only one of the three previous movies Sorkin has directed to be nominated for the top Oscar.

Other films still waiting in the wings are a trio of New York Film Festival premieres: Tony Gilroy’s “Behemoth!” with Pedro Pascal as a cellist and film composer; Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial,” with Andrew Garfield as the CEO of OpenAI; and Tom McCarthy’s “A Statement,” with Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti as part of an ensemble playing scientists and policymakers trying to craft a statement on climate change in 1980.  

Another film that hasn’t screened yet but holds real promise, at least to me, is “Werwulf” by Robert Eggers, who ought to have gotten more awards traction than he did for “The Lighthouse” and “Nosferatu.” No, I don’t really expect it to become a Best Picture nominee. But a werewolf movie with Willem Dafoe speaking dialogue that’s all in Middle English? Damn, sign me up.  

Best Picture predictions as of right now

Given all of this, where do we stand for now? If I had to come up with a list of what I think the Best Picture nominees would be, I’d start with these seven films, more or less in this order:

“The Odyssey”
“Wild Horse Nine”
“La Bola Negra”
“Dune: Part Three”
“I Play Rocky”
“Fjord”
“Project Hail Mary”

For the final three slots, I see at least eight films that seem to have a shot, barring any surprises surfacing between now and when voting begins in January. I’d currently go with this trio, the first two because they moved me so much and the third because it’s just so batty:
“Elsinore”
“Tender Loving Care”
“Digger”

But I wouldn’t rule out these:
“The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth”
“Primetime”
“The Debut”
“Being Heumann”

As always, all opinions are subject to change because this is awards season.

The post Where Does the Best Picture Oscar Race Stand After the Lackluster Festivals? appeared first on TheWrap.

Just after issuing a manifesto on Elon Musk’s X earlier this week urging Hollywood to embrace rather than fear AI, he spoke to WaxWord about his plans to launch a new animation studio focused on making quality film and television programming using the new technology.  

“For me, it is time for artists, creatives, storytellers, to actually seize the day,” he said. “These new AI tools are about innovation and opportunity. If barriers and cost come down, more films will get made, there will be more jobs, new forms of storytelling will emerge.”

Katzenberg, one of the most accomplished Hollywood executives of our time, has spent much of the last 10 years building relationships in Silicon Valley, and the last eight months closely following the evolution of generative AI. And what he has seen of AI output in the last few months convinced him that something revolutionary has arrived. 

“Up until recently it was slop,” he said. “It didn’t hold any interest for me. That has changed only in the last couple of months for me in ways I don’t think we can ignore anymore. Where they [the technologies] are today, where we are likely to be in coming months, in a year or two or three is a real transformative moment.” 

It is true that Katzenberg had already seen the future a couple of times, whether in evangelizing for 3D filmmaking in Hollywood, which never really materialized, or in launching the short-form video company Quibi in 2020 backed by $1.75 billion in capital, which fizzled in just six months. Seeing the future is no doubt hard. Last year Katzenberg partnered with Kimbal Musk to invest in drone technology that would create a new form of entertainment with the sky as the canvas. 

None of his past false starts have dampened Katzenberg’s enthusiasm for AI and what it can do for animation, his area of expertise and heartfelt passion since helping to revive Walt Disney Animation Studios and leading it to greatness in the 1980s and ’90s with “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King” and many other enduring titles. 

Katzenberg shared that he has decided to jump into the deep end, creating either a digital platform or an actual studio to create animated entertainment content using AI.  

“I am fired up, and going to go out and do something that actually shows what’s possible here,” he said. “Partner with talented filmmakers and AI to deliver the resources of the AI world and to marry that with best talent.”

I pointed out to Katzenberg that a lot of companies have already jumped in to create high quality AI-driven content, though no one of his experience has done so in the animation category. Disney, however, is making technology its concerted focus under new CEO Josh D’Amaro. 

Katzenberg was effusive there too. “I love what Josh is doing. He is making all the right ambitious moves.” But, he added: “Here’s a fact: Pixar could never have been created inside Disney animation. Just the opposite. They fought it. Roy Disney specifically asked me not to make [“Toy Story”]. To Michael Eisner’s credit, he overrode it and said: make ‘Toy Story.’”

Katzenberg intends to make animated features films and television “with the best talent and the most aspirational content,” he said. “I want to be able to show at the top of the waterfall what is aspirationally possible with the best tools in the hands of the best talent. That waterfall will go to pro-sumer, to consumer.”

What is his barrier to success, after being too early on short form video with Quibi? Easy, he said: talent. “That’s the hard part,” he said.  

“I believe we are on the cusp of what can be a true renaissance for Hollywood storytelling, and a complete transformation for all video forms as of today,” he said. 

Stay tuned for details. 

The post Forget Quibi; Jeffrey Katzenberg Is Launching a Next-Gen AI Animation Studio  appeared first on TheWrap.

Part of the appeal of these shows is the central rugged protagonist (almost always male), who ruthlessly and expertly navigates antagonists he comes across with a sliding scale of morals. So what happens when that hero is swapped in with a heroine, no less a woman of color? Will that male-dominated audience show up for a female lead in the same way?

Prime Video has shown confidence multiple times they will, most recently with “Reacher” spinoff “Neagley,” which sees Jack Reacher’s protégé Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) take the spotlight as the series’ titular character in an attempt to expand the franchise’s universe. It’s not the first time the streamer has gone this route, having made similar bets with female-led offshots for “Bosch” spinoff “Ballard” and “The Boys” extension series “Gen V.”

Prime Video made the smart move to launch “Neagley” as “Reacher” Season 4 closed out, making the spinoff the easy next watch, and its debut viewership indicates the audience for the show is indeed crossing over. But beyond giving the dad audience another action series, the streamer is giving its increasingly female audiences a way into the genre as well.

Early viewing data for “Neagley,” which dropped on Sept. 16, suggests Prime Video’s bet has paid off, with the spinoff landing as the No. 2 most-watched Prime original series worldwide for the week of Sept. 14, behind only flagship “Reacher.” Prime Video did not provide exact viewing figures, and streaming data from Nielsen is forthcoming.

It’s been several years now that Prime Video has sought to lock down the YA audience, but that effort ramped up earlier this year with sensation “Off Campus” kicking off a steady wave of series and films debuting on the streamer as it cements its spot as the “streaming destination for young women.” With YA fans already subscribed for the dozens of largely female-led romances, a female led might be just enough to lure them to press “play” on “Neagley.” And should they enjoy the first season, there’s already the four-season run of “Reacher” for them to dig into.

Likewise, a female lead might be just enough to lure in the wives or daughters of “Reacher’s” typical dad audience. It’s happened before.

Take “Bosch” spinoff “Ballard,” which sees Maggie Q reprise her role as Renée Ballard in the spy thriller. “Ballard” debuted last July to an impressive 1.03 billion minutes on Prime Video, landing as the No. 7 most-watched series of the week, where it remained into its second week with 886 million minutes viewed. After several more weeks in Nielsen’s top streaming charts, Prime Video renewed “Ballard” for a second season in October 2025.

Notably, “Ballard” dropped as a binge release, which Prime Video replicated for the “Neagley” launch, despite “Reacher” using a weekly release model.

However, “The Boys” spinoff “Gen V,” which centered on a queer, woman of color played by Jaz Sinclair, wasn’t so lucky. The offshoot series was canceled by Prime Video after two seasons despite showrunner Eric Kripke having key themes in mind for the third installment.

“Gen V” made it into Nielsen’s top 10 original streaming list for its Season 2 debut week in September 2025 with 424 million minutes viewed but wasn’t close to the juggernaut that is “The Boys,” which debuted its fifth and final season this April to 899 million minutes as the week’s No. 2 overall streamed show.

But unlike “The Boys,” “Reacher” has the backing of the dad contingent. Just look at what that support did for the modern prototypical dad franchise: “Yellowstone.” CBS’ “Marshals,” which centers on Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton, became the top broadcast show last season, and “Dutton Ranch,” which stars Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, lassoed a Season 2 renewal from Paramount+ as it became the streamer’s most-watched original debut ever.

So far, all signs are seeming positive for “Neagley.”

Hispanic audiences show their power

Nielsen released its 2026 Hispanic Diverse Intelligence Series, which found that Hispanic audiences watched over 2 trillion minutes of television in the first half of the year, with 1.2 trillion of the minutes accounting for streaming viewership. That means that the demographic group made up 19.1% of all U.S. streaming time. That’s right about on par with the U.S. population, with the Pew Research Center reporting that Hispanics made up 20% of people in the U.S. in 2024.

Interestingly, the report notes that reality TV drove appointment viewing for Hispanic audiences, with Telemundo’s “La Casa de los Famosos” scoring up to 1.6 million Hispanic viewers, while younger Hispanic audiences made up nearly 13% of the devoted audience of Peacock’s “Love Island.”

“Dancing With the Stars” premiere maintains momentum into Night 2

The two-night premiere of “Dancing With the Stars” Season 35 scored big for ABC, with both nights ranking as the day’s No. 1 show across both total and demo viewers across entertainment programing, including streaming originals. After Night 1 brought in 6.8 million viewers and a 1.44 rating among adults 18-49, Night 2 on Wednesday averaged 6.4 million total viewers and a 1.32 rating.

In fact, both nights rank as TV’s two biggest entertainment telecasts since ABC’s airing of “The Oscars” in the demo.

Chiefs-Colts score Sunday Night Football milestones

The Kansas City Chiefs’ overtime win over the Indianapolis Colts became the most-watched Week 2 Sunday Night Football game since 2015 as it scored 24.3 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, based on Nielsen figures and first party data.

The Colts-Chiefs matchup, which peaked at 27.4 million viewers during the second quarter, marks the fourth-most watched overtime game in 21 seasons of NBC’s Sunday Night Football.

ICYMI:

• Prime Video’s “Reacher” and Netflix’s “Outer Banks” and “Beauty in Black” dominated streaming during the final weeks of summer
• Those weeks were reported together due to Nielsen’s newest streaming reports that sped up the viewership reporting process
• “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” debuted atop Netflix’s TV list as it scored viewership on par with the previous installments of the crime anthology series
• “60 Minutes” drew 6.8 million viewers for its second episode of the season Sunday, down 15% from its season premiere

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