Spec market gets more 🔥 / CHARTER, DISNEY revise deal / Bond sets director / SONY gets more Zuck
Mornin!This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya likeor email me atseanmcnultynyc@gmail.com),and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know onThursday, June 26, 2025.
Where I’m sorry 14-year-old YOUTUBE livestreamer superstars — you’re gonna have wait 2 years to fulfill your parents’ dreams of having a hit influencer at the dinner table every night, as**you’ll need to be 16+ to livestream on YOUTUBE** as of July 22 (13 years old is the current age gate).
Which is something I’m totally sure a live-streaming teenager can’t work around.
Via Giphy
AND: Sandler is heading back on tour later this year, 30+ dates starting Sept. 5.
Early sales begin**today at 12 noon here** and general public sales begin tomorrow. He’s playing MSG, but Vegas is about as far as he’s getting to L.A. (as of now).
AH: Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom have called it a day after 9 years.
PLUS: Still-legalgambling predictions market business**KALSHI raised $185M in funding at a $2B valuation**, 2x the valuation that offshore competitor POLYMARKET is seeking.
OH: TIFF set 5 world premieres for September (theJohn Candy doc was already set as the fest opener), including:
Soderbergh’s The Christophers
Nia DaCosta’s Hedda(AMAZON/ORION)
Sung-hyun Byun’s Good News(NETFLIX)
ALSO: Another judge handed down**an AI copyright ruling favoring the side of “fair use”** — this was the case brought bySarah Silverman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Mike Huckabee and 11 other authors about using their work to train META’s AI without permission (or buying their books). The judge ruled that they didn’t prove that it caused market harm to their works.
ESSENTIALLY: If META’s Llama had then flooded the market with similar books . . . then the plaintiffs would have had a better case, according to the judge.
BUT: He said this case was a very narrow one, and alluded to this not being the case in the future:
“In many circumstances, it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission. Which means that the companies, to avoid liability for copyright infringement, will generally need to pay copyright holders for the right to use their materials.”
AND: The now 3-member FCC will hold its next open meeting today, PARAMOUNT / SKYDANCE is not on**the agenda**.
PLUS: The PARAMOUNT / Trump mediator reportedly suggested $20M as a settlement price tag according to theWSJ, and I think aBlue Bloods movie of the week instead of a whole new season. We shall see.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
Look at that! Another 2 big new studio movie entrants on the same weekend. Time to dial down the ketamine, Hollywood.
I will say I’ve definitely gotten an unusually high amount of box office prediction hot takes over the past week both in my inbox and in conversations at events around howF1 will do.
My hot take is that this movie has IMAX for a couple of weeks, and a holiday week ahead — so come back to me in about 10 days as to its overall prognosis vs. making a final judgement based on this weekend.
But if it hits a $45M to $50M opening — IMO that’s pretty solid for an original movie centered on a sport that gets an audience of around 1.3M folks in the U.S., and has yet to find a new TV deal for next season despite being halfway through this season.
So, the haters are peggingF1 more around $35M to $40M . . . with the bulls thinking $50M+. A wide swath gets a 5 choices:
Loading...
M3GAN 2.0 is tracking quite a bit below the opening of the original ($30M) at about $20M, although obviously the first one had a far less crowded marketplace in January 2023.
Loading...
THANKS!: To the folks at IMAX for the first-personF1 IMAX driving experience in NYC last night.
Had to break out the .5 lens function to get this one . . . Via my phone
Kinda hard to imagine watching this one in another format — just a different experience entirely (and uh, I’d recommend this one).
🎥THE SILVER SCREEN
Clearly Zuck needs to up his trades game. Via Giphy