The Final Destination: Bloodlines directors leveled way up from their previous no-budget horror film Freaks to deliver a $100 million worldwide opening, a well-reviewed horror hit that cost half as much as Sinners and restarts a franchise. And New Line doesn’t have an option on the filmmakers for a follow-up. (Scott Mendelson has more on this below…)

“Please look me in the eyes when I say this: Fuck you. Don’t tell me what to do.” —John Oliver, reacting on Last Week Tonight after Max/HBO Max marketing exec Shauna Spenley cheerfully told the Warner Discovery upfront audience she was looking forward to Oliver’s “hot take on this whole rebrand.” Runner-up: “For the record, I never stopped calling it the Gulf of HBO Max.” —Rena Hundert, the stand-up comic/actress, on Threads. Second runner-up: “I haven’t seen his movies yet.” —Sean Penn, when asked on a podcast about Timothée Chalamet after Penn said he thinks Jennifer Lawrence is “probably the last movie star.” Now a couple news items…

Take Hollywood’s most powerful producer off the table. Chris Meledandri, proprietor of the animation powerhouse Illumination Entertainment, is closing a long-term re-up with Universal Pictures that will keep him in the Universal family while slightly changing the relationship. I’m told Universal is buying part of the Illumination brand and holding company, which Meledandri has owned since its launch in 2007, in addition to increasing his take from Illumination movies and other brand exploitations. Reps for Universal and Meledandri declined to comment.

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Remember, last summer I wrote about how Meledandri had hired CAA’s Bryan Lourd ahead of the expiration of his current deal, which has seen him become a dominant force in franchise animation (Despicable Me, Sing, The Super Mario Bros. Movie) and a huge value-driver in streaming. I can’t remember the last time I looked at Netflix’s top 10 movies list and didn’t see an Illumination title or two (or three or four). Universal has also done a nice job incorporating the Minions and other Illumination I.P. into its parks. That’s why re-upping always made the most sense, and indeed, I’m told Meledandri never engaged with other suitors. He’ll share ownership of the Illumination brand, but Universal still controls the library, meaning sequels, spinoffs, and consumer products. Universal also owns the Paris studio where most of the Illumination films are made, so NBCUniversal’s Mike Cavanagh and Donna Langley made it a priority to retain Meledandri.

TMZ had some layoffs last week. Only about five people, a small percentage of its 150-plus-person workforce. Normally, that wouldn’t be news, given the downsizing at most publishers, especially those that depend on web traffic amid the shift to A.I.-driven search. But in its 20-year existence, TMZ has almost never had layoffs. And among the impacted was Dennis Broad, one of TMZ’s first employees and a key lieutenant of founder Harvey Levin. Broad’s title was senior investigative producer, but he was known internally (and on his Twitter) as the “Cop Guy,” a former P.I. who interfaced with the police and helped break many of the difficult and often grisly stories that defined TMZ. TMZ and Broad declined to comment. But his exit is consistent with what I’ve been hearing about TMZ lately. In the years after 2021, when Fox acquired the website and TV properties TMZ on TV and TMZ Sports from Warner Bros., the newsgathering operation has atrophied. Part of it is just that every outlet covers the Diddy trial now, and news consumers increasingly look to social video platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where TMZ has a presence but isn’t dominant. Levin is also 74 now, and from my conversations with the Hollywood lawyers and crisis flacks that make up his key relationships, he’s not nearly as aggressive as in his heyday. Fox probably doesn’t mind. The TMZ site has never been the biggest revenue driver. It’s more valuable to the Murdochs as a TV brand, as well as a producer of documentaries and celebrity specials for Fox and Tubi. The main TMZ on TV has not been renewed past this September on Fox’s owned stations, but one source says the network intends to do so. All of which leads to the question of how much longer Levin will care about Justin Bieber’s struggles or David Geffen’s divorce. Those who know Harvey say he’s still engaged at the company, but a seismic transition at TMZ can’t be too far away.

My new recurring feature highlighting the numbers that mattered this week in entertainment… 49.6 million U.S. homes with a traditional pay TV subscription, which dropped below 50 million for the first time in Q1. [ScreenMedia] $32 million Series A financing raised by Hedra, the A.I. video startup known for baby podcast memes, including my own. [Business Insider] 48 percent The share of British consumers who say streaming-subscription costs are top of mind, nearly triple the number worried about their gym membership. [The Big Shift UK, 2025] 15 percent The share of total viewership that comes from kids’ content on Netflix, which just picked up Sesame Street and Peppa Pig. [Ampere] No. 2 The ranking of controversial comic Tony Hinchcliffe’s podcast, Kill Tony, on the inaugural chart of the biggest podcasts on YouTube, behind only Joe Rogan and way above his rank on Spotify (No. 51) and Apple (No. 178). [YouTube] Now, Scott has some takeaways from the first few weeks of summer moviegoing…

Not all months are created equal. And this May, thankfully, looks nothing like last May. The movie industry is on the cusp of what could be a record-crushing Memorial Day weekend, with both Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch remake and Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning having the potential to gross around $200 million worldwide each over the Friday-Sun frame. After a slow start, this year is now running 16 percent ahead of 2024, and a best-case-scenario holiday weekend might be enough to end the month above even the $3.3 billion notched the same time period in 2023, which was built off the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Little Mermaid, and Fast X. What’s notable about the current box office momentum is that this year’s movies have already pulled grosses healthy enough that the industry doesn’t need a record-setting holiday weekend. So in the spirit of optimism, and a week until Memorial Day, here are a few pre-summer insights.

With a likely domestic total of around $175 million (on par with Eternals) and a global total of approximately $415 million (similar to Captain America: Brave New World), Disney’s Thunderbolts doesn’t need to be an overwhelming box office superhero. At best, good reviews and solid buzz are a step toward persuading general audiences to trust Marvel to deliver tentpole entertainment that doesn’t require a PhD in MCU to follow the plot. With Lilo & Stitch set to make a splash, and the likes of both Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash likely to soar at year’s end, the extent to which Disney needs the MCU to return to its late-2010s heights can be mitigated by strong showings elsewhere.

Before April 4, the overall year-to-date domestic gross, counting last year’s holdovers, was $1.424 billion, compared to $1.61 billion at the end of 2024’s first quarter. But that was before A Minecraft Movie ($929 million worldwide with strong legs, even after debuting on P.V.O.D.), Sinners (the first live-action original to pass $200 million domestic since Gravity in 2013), and Final Destination: Bloodlines (a $52 million debut for a franchise that averaged $55 million in unadjusted domestic lifetime totals). These three WBD releases have overperformed, and will likely end up earning around $1.5 billion on a combined production budget of around $300 million, further proof that co-C.E.O.s Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca’s film department is, with help from semiregular co-financer Legendary, on a roll. And much of this is not due to franchise and marketing, but smart bets on what audiences want. Final Destination: Bloodlines, an “I.P. for I.P.’s sake” play intended for HBO Max, offered an easy-to-explain, “hot people get Rube Goldberg-ed to death” concept without too much franchise lore or hammy nostalgia callbacks. It’s the difference between selling older I.P.s to older fans and encouraging new fans. We’ll see if Karate Kid: Legends, Freakier Friday, and The Naked Gun can bring in today’s kids, rather than aiming for the Arrested Development demographics.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

"Pop Culture's Most Urgent and Salient Work of Art"

– The Hollywood Reporter .

[WATCH] The Making of SQUID GAME A behind-the-scenes look at the second installment of the Award Winning Global Phenomenon from Emmy® Award Winning Director HWANG DONG-HYUK. Starring Lead Actor LEE JUNG-JAE, in his return to the games facing off against disguised frontman LEE BYUNG-HUN, and a new cast of players.

That WBD has pulled this off inspires cautious optimism for the third Superman reboot since 2006. While Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (currently leggier than The Hangover, Inception, and Gravity) wasn’t a youth-skewing offering, the opening weekend A+ CinemaScore grade from the under-18 set reminds us that kids often become hooked on movies that feel a little taboo.

I never thought I’d see another live-action original gross as much as Sinners is probably going to in North America, given the extent to which moviegoing has become centralized on pre-established franchises. It’s a sign that moviegoers who’ve aged out, or moved on from Disney’s industry-dominating brands, including MCU, are still going to the movies. Even if Thunderbolts (or The New Avengers, if you’re nasty) isn’t an overwhelming smash, the theatrical ecosystem need not depend entirely on whether newer incarnations of Disney’s 2010s franchises can pull 2010s-level grosses. Once upon a time, Disney’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy could soar past $700 million worldwide alongside Fox’s $500 million–grossing Rio 2, while WB’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction could pull over/under $1 billion globally, while Lionsgate could launch a new franchise in Keanu Reeves’s rescued from V.O.D. John Wick. A return to the good ol’ status quo would mean a return to when no one studio or genre overwhelmingly dominates the theatrical ecosystem or the zeitgeist. Whether this summer approaches the $4 billion heights of 2023, the hope is that every studio shares in the box office pie.

Last week, AMC announced that, as of July 9, it would offer 50 percent discounts on Wednesday, at least for its AMC Stubs members. Theaters have long offered heavy discounts on Tuesday, making it a boon for the box office and admissions. The hope is that “Cheap Wednesday” will encourage audiences to see more, and more varied, films theatrically. Coupled with a multiyear trend of movies big (Deadpool & Wolverine) and small (Everything Everywhere All at Once) showing longer legs, we’re also seeing audiences show up to a movie in weekend three or month two. So if you haven’t seen Sinners yet, you’re not part of the problem, but part of the solution.

That letter to Trump from Voight, Stallone, and the Hollywood unions asks for a bunch of tax incentives but, notably, does not mention the fin-syn rules. [Letter] Bob Iger visited the White House to show off plans for Disneyland in Trump’s beloved Abu Dhabi, which prompted the president to declare: “It’s going to be incredible.” [Insider] Does the public resignation of Wendy McMahon, overseer of CBS News and its station group, indicate a Trump/Shari Redstone settlement is imminent? [NY Times] My guy Adam Aron is offering Discount Wednesdays to AMC Stubs members to juice attendance. Hopefully this will boost his annual pay, which fell to just $10 million last year. [LA Times] But… some Stubs members are booking movies just to use a clean restroom in New York. Not great for AMC, which has to pay the studios for those poopings—er, bookings. [WSJ] Larry David’s been writing a lot lately. Just do another season of Curb! [New Yorker] With Cartoon Network and Adult Swim on the brink, Warner Bros. is close to fully squandering its once-impressive brand in animation. [Bloomberg] And speaking of animation…

In response to my coverage of the TV upfronts, one kids’ TV producer sent a thoughtful note about what *wasn’t* discussed at the presentations… “I believe a major development has been under-reported in the past few years: The vanishing of original content specifically aimed at younger audiences (let’s say 6-15 year olds). Apart from a few YouTube megahits such as Cocomelon that are low production value and target mainly a preschool audience, animation has almost vanished from the major streamers and linear networks. Back just a few years ago, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon were massive, highly rated producers and broadcasters of children’s content. They also co-produced or acquired international series. With the advent of streaming, those linear channels slowly eroded. As their parent studios abandoned their investment in linear kids’ channels, they did not move these budgets toward their streaming services. Cartoon Network animation barely exists on Max, Nickelodeon programming doesn’t even have a subcategory in Paramount+, Disney+ was so busy building up adult fare that most of its kids’ content is their animated movies and Marvel films for older kids. This is a catastrophic event:

Why? Each streamer saw that animation/kids content was good for retention, but not to draw new subscribers. Since they are mostly about new sub recruitment, they just do a few massive properties per year that are highly visible—with a small number of episodes. Everything else can be reruns of older series, and acquisitions of licensed-based properties that are financed by toy makers (Paw Patrol, etc). This strategy has killed many, many jobs and most of our industry.”

Correction: Netflix viewing in 2023 amounted to 21 million years of time spent, not 21 years. Apologies for the typo on Thursday.

Have a great week, Matt Got a question, comment, complaint, or any idea what Tom Cruise said to AMC Theatres employees for 15 minutes? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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