Welcome back to a newsy edition of What I’m Hearing, where I’m gearing up for a big month of travel and events.

No, I’m not going to Cannes. (If he’s still there, please send my regards to Jacques, the concierge at the Majestic, who once tied my bow tie in record time). But I’ll be at the equally glamorous Milken Institute Conference on Tuesday in Beverly Hills for a panel on creativity with Justin Baldoni, Brian Grazer, Lisa Joy, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ynon Kreiz, and Janine Sherman Barrois. (Interested? Click here.) Then I’m in NYC for the TV upfronts and an event with Charlie Collier at Roku. (Click here.) Then I’ll be at the BofA Securities media event in Montauk from June 3-5, moderating a “Future of Streaming” panel with Jim Burtson, Matt Strauss, Paul Cheesbrough, and JB Perrette. Then I’ll be resting with my feet up.

As always, if you were forwarded this email or are new to the WIH community, click here to become a Puck member.

• Paramount on the precipice: A good source told me tonight that the Paramount Global special committee evaluating sale options has decided not to extend the exclusive negotiation window with Skydance, which ends tomorrow night, because it wants to explore Sony Pictures and Apollo’s $26 billion bid that was finally revealed today. (Paramount and Skydance declined to comment; a rep for the special committee couldn’t be reached.) The committee could still change its mind tomorrow, but if the decision holds, that’s quite a development, given Shari Redstone, who controls the company, wants the Skydance deal. In fact, during negotiations, Redstone has made it clear she won’t entertain any offer that would break up her father’s empire, which the private equity-backed Sony bid would almost certainly do, thanks to regulatory concerns and other issues.

  In fact, the Apollo/Sony offer basically confirmed what most people in Hollywood feared: Sony Pictures would take the lead and likely merge with Paramount, eliminating thousands of jobs and a major buyer for film and television, thereby reducing the number of legacy Hollywood studios down to four. Not great. At this point, it’s a bit surprising that big-name Paramount talent or industry statesmen types like George Clooney or Martin Scorsese still haven’t publicly chosen a side here. Skydance’s David Ellison has financial partners in his bid, but ultimately, he’s an individual buyer, and he has his father’s $150 billion fortune behind him. That’s almost certainly better for the creative community than a foreign company and P.E. vampires swallowing an iconic studio.

  Shari can always veto a Sony/Apollo deal, or even take on her board. Maybe she will let this process play out simply to mollify shareholders that are upset over the terms of the Skydance deal. But Team Ellison has threatened to walk, or to look for something else to buy, if they can’t get at least close to the finish line by the end of the exclusive window, so let’s see if they stick around as the committee engages with another suitor. Shari could easily be left with no deal… and then what?

  We’ll probably have more clarity tomorrow, and Bill Cohan will have more on Sunday. Citi put out a report yesterday giving the Skydance deal a 90 percent chance and Apollo just 10 percent. I’m not sure about those odds now.

• Will Zaslav get dunked on?: At the Central Perk coffee shop on the Warners lot, a regular-sized “The Rachel” drink (actually a matcha latte) will run you $7.50 plus tax. Today, you can buy one Rachel or you can buy one share of Warner Bros. Discovery stock, which stunningly fell to $7.29 on Tuesday after the Journal reported that Comcast had bid $2.5 billion per year for the “B package” of NBA rights, double what the debt-laden WBD currently pays. (The stock has since recovered a bit, but is still under $8—down two-thirds from where it stood two years ago.)

  Man, it’s Drudge siren time for C.E.O. David Zaslav, who reveals crucial earnings next Thursday. With Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta all reporting huge gains in advertising revenue, the big ad recovery that Zaz keeps teasing is most likely a recovery for the tech platforms and not the linear channels he runs. In this context, losing the NBA could push the Turner networks off a cliff. But on the bright side for Zaslav, removing $2.5 billion in annual content cost from the WBD balance sheet would create a ton of free cash flow—and thus another round of potentially insane bonuses for him and his top lieutenants.

• Netflix’s film chief wants projects from his old company: Congrats to Rideback, the production company founded by Netflix film chairman Dan Lin, which is negotiating a first-look deal at… Netflix! Yep, I’m told that’s happening. Lin left Rideback when he took the Netflix gig last month, and the trades reported that he maintains a stake in the prolific producer of the Lego movies and Disney’s upcoming Lilo & Stitch. But I’m told Lin didn’t keep his stake in Rideback, which is now run by co-C.E.O.s Jonathan Eirich and Michael LoFaso, and it makes sense they would move to sell projects to their old boss. Plus, in response to Lin’s move, Universal has taken Rideback off a planned Lego project, and other studios might assume Netflix will get first crack at its top projects. So now, Lin is just making it official. (Netflix and Rideback declined to comment.)
• Will celebs cross a picket line at the Met Gala?: That’s a real question my fashionable colleague Lauren Sherman discusses today in Line Sheet (sign up!), given that the Condé Nast union is threatening to strike outside Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s annual circus of self-promotion. Remember, Anne Hathaway walked out of a Vanity Fair photoshoot to support the Condé union, and stars made noise about no-showing the Golden Globes unless the Beverly Hilton hotel workers got a deal. But neither SAG-AFTRA nor the WGA got back to me when I asked if they had any recommendations for members.
• Academy rebukes its own president: The new Oscars campaign rules are out, and they contain this gem: “The Academy President may not publicly endorse Oscars-eligible motion pictures, performances, and achievements… unless they are directly associated with the motion picture.” That’s very specific. It’s basically the Janet Yang Rule, enacted because the current president was pretty shameless last year about plugging Everything Everywhere All at Once and its star, Michelle Yeoh, as well as Pinocchio director Guillermo del Toro, on her socials. Did Yang’s endorsement matter? Probably not, but all three ended up winning, so best to nip that in the bud going forward.
• Speaking of important P.R. news…: Lauren Sánchez has a new publicist! The future Mrs. Bezos (and past Mrs. Whitesell) has hired Desiree Gruber, the New York P.R. veteran and Project Runway producer, to improve her “absolutely revolting” reputation (Keith McNally’s words, not mine). That’s upsetting news, of course, for Stephanie Jones, the erratic screamer who’s handled press for Sánchez in recent years (and fought with me via Page Six). Jones also just lost Dwayne Johnson as a client, which may or may not explain the leaks lately of some unflattering details about him. But don’t feel too bad, she’s still got… Scooter Braun.
• How serious is Amazon about theaters?: It’s now been a year since Amazon Studios’ Jen Salke promised she would release 10 to 12 films theatrically each year. “We are committed,” she declared at the time. Cue the sad trombone: On the heels of Jake Gyllenhaal’s commercial Road House bypassing theaters, Anne Hathaway’s crowd-pleasing The Idea of You is going direct to Prime Video tomorrow. The rom-com was initially made for Prime, but when it tested great and charmed SXSW, there was some discussion about elevating it to theaters, I’m told. But Salke decided, no. So Challengers, aimed at Zendaya’s very-online young fans, gets theaters, but a mom-friendly rom-com from Michael Showalter, whose The Big Sick was one of Amazon’s early theatrical hits, doesn’t? Got it.
• Box office over/under: The Fall Guy is exactly what moviegoers say they want: fun, original, action-heavy, with real stars playing appealing characters. And it boasts a “responsible” $130 million budget after tax credits. And yet, tracking has been stuck in the low $30 million range, which David Herrin at The Quorum argues shouldn’t be a shock for an action-comedy. “That’s what both Bullet Train and The Lost City earned,” he emailed. “We’re distracted by the fact that it’s the first weekend in May and we expect this weekend to yield big openings.” Maybe so, but I’ll take the over on $33 million.

But despite the unconventional start to the season, most of the presumed biggies this summer are indeed new iterations of existing franchises: Despicable Me 4, Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, etcetera. But this season’s slate is much less surefire than the mid-2010s MCU lineup or those live-action remakes of the Katzenberg-era Disney films. And I.P. doesn’t automatically create a must-see event for audiences. As we saw in the summer of 2016 (Independence Day: Resurgence, Star Trek Beyond, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) and again last summer (The Flash, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part 1), there is a real danger in offering up a new installment of a once-spectacular franchise that fails to differentiate.

The overall cumulative success or failure of these various franchise films will determine the overall gross of the summer season. Will we end up closer to the $4 billion of 2023 or below the $3.3 billion domestic totals for 2022? In a sane ecosystem, theatrical exhibitors could shrug off a slower season, as they did in 2014 when Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Good Dinosaur migrated to 2015. But the circumstances are a bit more perilous in this, the fourth year of underfed marquees.

Those are the only two veritable locks. Among the likely successful but hardly guaranteed offerings: 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 17) will benefit from visually spectacular, Avatar-lite trailers and the popularity of the previous Apes reboot trilogy. While Dawn of the Planet of the Apes topped $200 million domestically and $700 million globally amid another tentpole-lite summer a decade ago, War for the Planet of the Apes needed a $110 million boost from China in 2017 to clear even $490 million.

Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which opens on June 7, is similarly not bulletproof. Bad Boys for Life grossed $206 million domestically and $430 million worldwide when it opened two months before the pandemic shutdown. Will this follow-up bank off the goodwill of its shockingly good predecessor? Or will a new Bad Boys opening nearly five years after its predecessor (which already played the “aging heroes confront their legacy” card) perform differently than the 17-years-later installment? The controversy over Will Smith smacking Chris Rock at the Oscars will likely have little impact among general moviegoers in either direction, though it could impact his pre-release promotional blitz.

Inside Out 2, opening June 14, looks to be one of the biggest summer earners by default. However, a Pixar film centering the point of view of an emotionally complex young girl is no longer as big of a deal as in 2015 (see Pixar’s own Turning Red, just two years ago), nor is Pixar automatically presumed to be an A+ theatrical brand. If Inside Out 2 delivers “the feels,” on par with its much-loved predecessor—and if it even dares to be a relatable melodrama about a teen girl growing up through these last several years of hell—it can be expected to perform well above Elemental ($495 million, with miraculous legs).

Will it earn as much as a 2010s Pixar sequel? Or will it earn closer to a 2000s Pixar original (Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, which earned—inflation aside—between $465 million and $735 million)? If the film earns critical raves and consumer approval, either scenario can be spun as a success.

Whether horror makes an overall comeback this summer, the season’s biggest scary movie by default will likely be A Quiet Place: Day One, opening June 28. Paramount hopes its Lupita Nyong’o-starring prequel plays far closer to its Quiet Place sequel ($295 million in 2021) than its Cloverfield spinoff ($110 million in 2016). The franchise has pedigree and a two-for-two track record. However, it may run the risk (by at least initially being less reliant on the whole “nobody can talk” gimmick) of being a more conventional dystopian apocalypse flick. Moreover, fair or not, it’s being sold as the opening scene of A Quiet Place: Part II stretched out to feature length.

It may be a modern action classic (and six-time Oscar winner), but the fourth Mad Max film only earned $370 million worldwide on a $155 million budget. Has George Miller’s previous installment sufficiently grown in esteem, including with younger audiences discovering the film in post-theatrical, to make this prequel origin story a breakout follow-up? Or will this be a case where online fandom doesn’t equate to general audience interest? On paper, the unrequested origin story prequel doomed Solo: A Star Wars Story. That said, Warner Bros.’s marketing team has been on fire over the past six months, turning Wonka, Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong into $600 million-plus hits. And Taylor-Joy is a far bigger star than Solo’s Alden Ehrenreich, thanks to the ubiquity of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix.

The other big-budget question mark is Twisters. The original Twister was a $495 million hit in May 1996, partially thanks to groundbreaking special effects in service of a then-massively scaled disaster epic, which boasted a screenplay from Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton and the directorial hand of Speed’s Jan de Bont.

This time out, it appears to be a barrel-scraping I.P. desperation play. In its favor are young, somewhat recognizable actors like Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar Jones, Anthony Ramos, Sasha Lane, and Kiernan Shipka. If it can deliver an Imax-worthy, non-fantastical disaster spectacle—which audiences haven’t gotten from Hollywood since Dwayne Johnson’s $475 million-grossing San Andreas in 2015—it likely has the best shot at ridiculously overperforming this summer.

Meanwhile, 20th Century Studios’ Alien: Romulus opens in mid-August. The Alien franchise hasn’t had a theatrical breakout with the word “alien” in the title (Prometheus topped $400 million in 2012) since James Cameron’s Aliens in 1986, unless you want to count Alien vs. Predator in 2004. I hope Disney spent closer to Predators money ($40 million in 2010) than The Predator money ($88 million in 2018).

Likewise, the summer’s final big movie will be The Crow remake. After more than a decade of false starts, it looks like a loose redo of not just the James O’Barr graphic novel, but specifically the Brandon Lee-starring adaptation. The Crow earned $95 million globally just before the summer of 1994. However, much of its mystique and prerelease interest was due to the shocking and tragic on-set death of its star. Not every of-its-time hit is an everlasting franchise.

Will audiences who thrilled to hits like Aliens, Twister, Bad Boys, Fury Road, Inside Out, and Deadpool show up with bells on for the next chapters? On a movie-by-movie basis, the key will be presenting something that looks and feels like a can’t-miss event, even for those who no longer consider the respective I.P. an automatic must-see. Franchising for franchising’s sake is the easiest way for a seemingly surefire hit to become a surprise bomb. Neither Hollywood nor the theatrical industry can afford another slew of formerly thrilling, now-shrug-worthy offerings. Fingers crossed.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or the name of a comedian who’s NOT in L.A. for the Netflix festival this week? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.