🎬 Embracing the Scroll

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👋 Good morning! Netflix wants to know what's your sign, and no, they're not trying to date you. The streamer is launching "Your Zodiac Watchlist" this weekend (definitely the brainchild of an intern who checks their horoscope before breakfast). On this hub, your sign determines whether Netflix thinks you want murder mysteries or royal dramas, though you can secretly browse all 12 if your cosmic assignment seems off.

Happy Friday, and welcome to The Dailies. Every M/W/F we beam the industry's most crucial updates straight to your inbox. Friend forwarded this? Make it official and sign up here.

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

How last week’s releases are stacking up…

• 🔫 Butterfly: (Prime Video) Opened with 2.1M season views and 10.4M hours watched in its first week in the US. It lands well below Prime’s other scripted dramas this year, including ‘Ballard’ and ‘The Better Sister.’

• 🌑 Night Always Comes: (Netflix) Pulled in 2.3M US views in its opening weekend. Not a huge hit, but it still managed to rank as the most-streamed original movie of the week.

• 💪 Fit for TV: (Netflix) The fitness doc series debuted with 3.2M views and 6.8M hours watched in its opening weekend. A solid showing that puts it just under other Netflix docuseries like ‘Amy Bradley Is Missing.’

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Aug. 15 to Aug. 21. Data provided by Luminate.

CLOSEUP
📱 ESPN and Fox are embracing the scroll…

ESPN and Fox just launched their separate streaming apps yesterday (on the same day), marking the first time their full cable content is available outside of cable. The competing networks are also packing in TikTok-style vertical video feeds and features that would've been blasphemous to traditional TV just five years ago. Some details:

• Both include vertical feeds with sports highlights, news clips, and user-generated content

• ESPN brought social media stars in-house, hiring creators like Katie Feeney and House of Highlights founder Omar Raja as full-time talent

• Shows like SportsCenter will also feed content into the vertical streams

• ESPN will sync your phone to whatever game you're watching on TV, automatically feeding you stats, fantasy updates, and betting lines

The rival apps are chasing a massive untapped market: 65M "cord-never" households who've never bothered with cable and treat their phones like a bodily appendage.

They’re walking a tightrope, though: ESPN's cable subscribers have plummeted from 100M homes in 2011 to just 61M today thanks to cord-cutting. They need these new streaming viewers desperately but can't afford to accelerate the exodus of their remaining cable base, hence the strategic pricing ($29.99 for ESPN, $19.99 for Fox) that won't undercut cable packages. Current cable subscribers get the apps free. The rivals are even offering a joint bundle for $39.99 starting in October.

The bigger picture: This isn't about killing cable overnight. It's about hedging bets, capturing phone-addicted audiences, and gaining leverage. Now when bidding against Amazon and Netflix for sports rights, they can promise leagues both cable and streaming reach. The networks have stopped fighting the second screen and decided to become it.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Talent reps, Disney, and brand sitcoms…

🔎 Talent reps are using AI to negotiate better deals. In the pre-streaming era, box office and Nielsen ratings once made a star's value clear, but these days streamers keep that data mostly to themselves. Hollywood agents are now turning to AI tools like ChatGPT and Grok to instantly quantify social media buzz and prove how much their clients drive viewership. When Amazon's 'Heads of State' launched last month, Priyanka Chopra Jonas's team used AI to show she generated 50-60% of the online conversation and was a main driver of the show’s success despite being third-billed. These social metrics that were once impossible to track can now give agents concrete leverage in negotiations going forward.

🎯 Disney's ditching franchises to lure Gen Z men back to theaters. Despite dominating the box office today, Disney faces a long-term threat: their superhero movies and franchise reboots aren't capturing males aged 13-28. This gaming-obsessed generation didn't grow up on Disney classics and doesn't respond to their franchises like millennials do. Disney's solution: They're actively seeking pitches for original concepts (like globe-trotting adventures and treasure hunts) instead of relying on their vast IP library. It's a big shift for a company that built its empire on recycling beloved properties, now forced to adapt as audiences change.

📲 Brands are making scripted shows now. Payments platform Bilt's marketing team wrote, produced, and directed 'Roomies,' a scripted vertical series that's pulled in 8M+ views on TikTok and Instagram without a single brand mention (except a link buried in the bio). Bilt's joining a growing roster of brands like Dick's Sporting Goods (launched its own studio to produce sports docs), Walmart (made a Roku movie where viewers can buy what they see on screen), and Tower 28 (recruited HBO talent for sketch comedy about their product). Rather than making commercials or branded content, they're producing legitimate shows that build audiences first and maybe drop in products down the road.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Hailee Steinfeld, Rhenzy Feliz and others are set to star in Doug Liman’s XR thriller ‘Asteroid,’ premiering at Venice’s Immersive showcase. (more)

• Paramount has preemptively bought Brandon Cohen’s R-rated workplace comedy spec ‘Bald Eagles’ in a seven-figure deal. (more)

• Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are set to produce a Universal feature adaptation of the classic ‘Archie’ comics. (more)

• Blake Lively will star in and produce Lionsgate’s action rom-com ‘The Survival List’ with producer Marc Platt. (more)

• Bleecker Street acquires Zachary Wigon’s ‘Victorian Psycho’ starring Maika Monroe, Jason Isaacs and Thomasin McKenzie, for a 2026 release. (more)

• Dave Green and BenDavid Grabinski are teaming on dark magic feature ‘Hex,’ set at 20th Century Studios. (more)

• New Regency lands erotic thriller spec ‘Fixation’ from ‘Wednesday’ writers Erika Vazquez and Siena Butterfield, with Made Up Stories producing. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Andrew Haigh will write and direct a Working Title TV series about 1980s pop art icon Keith Haring. (more)

• Dominic West and Sienna Miller will lead Sky and HBO’s two-season legal thriller ‘War’ from ‘Hijack’ creator George Kay. (more)

• Nicolas Cage is in talks to star in HBO’s ‘True Detective’ S5, set in New York with Issa López returning as showrunner. (more)

Business 🤝

• Patrick Somerville inks an overall TV deal with Amazon MGM Studios, following news he’s developing a ‘Wolfenstein’ series for Prime Video. (more)

• Hallmark cuts 30 jobs, including VP of Production, as part of a workforce restructuring. (more)

• Lifetime lays off most of its unscripted team, including VP Nicole Vogel, as the network pivots focus to TV movies. (more)

• NBCUniversal nears a $600M deal to air MLB games on NBC and Peacock, while Netflix eyes rights to stream the ‘Home Run Derby.’ (more)

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…

🎥 THEATRICAL

• Eden: Survival thriller from Ron Howard starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, and Vanessa Kirby.

• Honey Don’t: Neo-noir dark comedy from Ethan Coen starring Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, and Chris Evans.

• Ne Zha 2: Record-breaking Chinese animated fantasy adventure with Michelle Yeoh leading the English dub cast.

• Relay: Thriller from David Mackenzie ('Hell or High Water') starring Riz Ahmed and Lily James.

• KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along: Netflix's animated hit gets two-night sing-along screenings with 1,000+ sold-out shows nationwide.

📺 STREAMING

• The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox: (Hulu) True crime miniseries starring Grace Van Patten and Sharon Horgan.

• Eenie Meanie: (Hulu) Heist thriller starring Samara Weaving.

• Peacemaker: (HBO Max) S2 of James Gunn's superhero comedy series starring John Cena.

• Thursday Murder Club: (Netflix) Crime comedy from Chris Columbus starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley.

• Invasion: (Apple TV+) S3 of the sci-fi series from Simon Kinberg.

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: In what should’ve been one of the year’s sleepiest weekends, Netflix’s ‘Kpop Demon Hunters Sing-Along’ is staging a surprise takeover. The two-day theatrical event is tracking to take the weekend’s top spot with $15M+ from 1,700 locations with over 1,000 sites already sold out. ‘Weapons’ will likely take second place with around $13.5M in its third frame, and is expected to cross the $100M domestic milestone this weekend.

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
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