🎬 Gloves Are Off

👋 Good morning! File this under "unexpected awards contenders": A24’s campaigning Kevin O'Leary for Best Supporting Actor in 'Marty Supreme.' The Shark Tank mogul (who famously wears two watches at once) stars as a 1950s tycoon alongside Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow. If you had "Mr. Wonderful gets FYC campaign" on your 2025 bingo card, congratulations.

Welcome back to The Dailies. Hope the Halloween candy hangover isn't too brutal (or if you're in LA, it might be the Dodgers celebration doing the damage). Box office numbers are in and there's lots to cover. Grab your coffee and let's get into it. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ World Series + Halloween = box office bust…

1. 💔 Regretting You: (Wk 2) $8.1M domestic weekend (-41%), $27.5M domestic total, $50.8M global, $30M budget. Colleen Hoover adaptation made a rare second-weekend leap to #1, though that says more about the competition than the performance.

2. ☎️ Black Phone 2: (Wk 3) $8M domestic weekend (-38%), $61.4M domestic total, $104.7M global, $30M budget. Blumhouse's horror sequel is holding steady, right on pace with where the first film was at this point, and already in the black.

3. 🪚 Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc: (Wk 2) $6M domestic weekend (-66%), $30.7M domestic total, $129.9M global, $4.1M budget. That 67% drop would be rough for most films, but it's actually strong for anime. These franchise films typically crater 70-80% as their hardcore fanbase front-loads opening weekend. Still wildly profitable on its micro-budget.

4. 🎤 KPop Demon Hunters: (Return) $5.3M domestic weekend, $24.3M domestic total, $100M+ budget. Netflix's most-watched movie ever returned for an encore, but it turns out there wasn't more juice in that squeeze.

5. 👽 Bugonia: (Wk 2, wide) $4.8M domestic weekend (+576% from expansion), $5.8M domestic total, $11M global, $55M budget. Lanthimos' latest Emma Stone collab went wide but audiences weren't exactly swarming despite strong reviews (86% RT).

6. 🚗 Back to the Future: (40th Anniversary Re-release) $4.7M domestic weekend, $221.7M lifetime domestic total.

7. 🎸 Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere: (Wk 2) $3.8M domestic weekend (-57%), $16.2M domestic total, $30.5M global, $55M budget. The Springsteen biopic is running out of gas with a long way to go to break even.

8. 🏍️ Tron: Ares: (Wk 4) $2.8M domestic weekend (-43%), $67.9M domestic total, $133.9M global, $180M budget. Disney's sequel continues fading fast, nowhere close to making back that massive budget.

9. 🧟 Stitch Head: 🆕 $2.1M domestic opening, $30M budget.

10. 🪽 Good Fortune: (Wk 3) $1.4M domestic weekend (-55%), $14.6M domestic total, $15.1M global, $30M budget.

The bigger picture: This weekend's $55M total is the lowest Halloween weekend in 31 years and nearly claimed the crown as 2025's lowest frame overall, saved only by March's even more dismal $52.2M showing. Fingers crossed that 'Predator: Badlands' next weekend course-corrects after October's catastrophic performance. Year-to-date, we're up 3% from 2024 but still down 24% from pre-pandemic 2019.

CLOSEUP
👀 Netflix and Comcast confirm interest in Warner.…

Ever since Warner Bros Discovery officially put up the "for sale" sign two weeks ago, Hollywood's been speculating about who's interested. Well, Netflix and Comcast just went from "maybe" to "definitely."

Netflix enters the chat: Netflix went from "we're traditionally more builders than buyers" (CEO Ted Sarandos’s exact words on last week's earnings call) to hiring investment bank Moelis & Co, the same firm that handled the Paramount-Skydance deal. Now they're getting serious:

• Netflix has data room access, meaning they can see Warner's actual financials and make an informed bid

• What they'd get: Harry Potter, DC Comics, plus Warner Bros already produces Netflix hits like 'You,' 'Maid,' and 'Running Point'

• Sarandos made clear: "We have no interest in owning legacy media networks," ruling out CNN, TNT, and other cable channels

Meanwhile, Comcast’s interested too: President Mike Cavanagh suggested on Thursday's earnings call that HBO Max and the studio would be compatible businesses for Comcast, but the cable channels? Not so much. The timing makes sense when you look at the numbers:

• Peacock is bleeding cash ($217M loss, and just 41M subscribers) and combining with HBO Max would bring instant credibility and scale to compete

• Comcast's already spinning off its own cable networks (MSNBC, CNBC, USA) into a separate company called Versant, so more cable channels make zero sense

• Analyst Richard Greenfield called this Comcast's "last shot at transforming NBCUniversal into a long-term structural winner"

Where things stand: Warner's board has already rejected three unsolicited bids from David Ellison's Paramount, with CEO David Zaslav holding out for better offers. Rumors have Apple and Amazon also sniffing around, though nothing's confirmed. Analysts still give Paramount the edge thanks to the Ellison family's deep pockets and Trump connections, but we'll see what happens when formal bids start rolling in.

WIDESHOT
🎬 YouTube TV & Disney, Podcasts, and Meta…

📺 The gloves are off between YouTube TV and Disney. Disney networks went dark on YouTube TV at the end of last week after talks collapsed, pulling ESPN, ABC, and 20+ other channels from Google's streaming service that replaces cable for 10M subscribers. College football and Monday Night Football are now unavailable, and they even deleted customers' recorded Disney shows without warning. The fight's about money: Disney wants YouTube TV to pay traditional cable-level rates, while YouTube claims that would raise prices and help Disney's competing Hulu + Live TV, which just merged with Fubo to create the sixth-largest pay-TV platform at 6M subscribers (still trailing YouTube TV's 10M). YouTube TV says it'll give subscribers a $20 credit if the blackout continues.

🎙️ Tubi's the latest streamer to catch podcast fever. Ashley Flowers' true crime podcast empire Audiochuck landed a $150M multiyear deal with the Fox-owned platform. The agreement includes exclusive ad sales rights across all 20+ Audiochuck shows plus a dedicated streaming channel for 'Crime Junkie,' the #1 true crime podcast that pulls 2M listeners per episode. This follows Netflix's recent partnership with Spotify for video podcasts, and both deals show streamers adding a new weapon to their arsenal. While streamers face mounting profitability pressure, podcasts give them the one thing their $200M tentpoles haven't been able to deliver: reliable weekly engagement that doesn't destroy the budget.

👓 'Talk to Me' is going from Sundance sensation to Meta headset exclusive. The Philippou brothers are developing a six-episode spinoff of their 2022 A24 breakout horror film, which grossed $90M worldwide, exclusively for Meta's VR headsets. The series uses mixed reality to map supernatural demons into viewers' actual living rooms, with director Craig William Macneill ('Them,' 'Westworld') helming all episodes. Apple similarly tried developing content for Vision Pro, bringing in Edward Berger ('All Quiet on the Western Front') to direct 'Submerged' and The Weeknd for immersive experiences, but those efforts stalled amid limited headset adoption. Now Meta's experimenting with franchise horror as exclusive content for their own devices.

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AWARDS SEASON
🏆 Neon’s betting on subtitles this Oscar season…

Neon, the indie distributor behind 'Parasite' is pushing five international films for major Academy Awards, including an unprecedented three for Best Picture. With Cannes winners like 'It Was Just an Accident' and 'Sentimental Value,' they're banking on two things: that 'Parasite's' 2020 Best Picture win opened the floodgates for foreign cinema, and that the Academy's increasingly global membership (now 25% international, up from low teens) means voters are finally ready to read subtitles without seeing them as a barrier. The five-film slate:

• 'It Was Just an Accident' (Iran/France) - Palme d'Or winner

• 'Sentimental Value' (Norway) - Cannes runner-up

• 'The Secret Agent' (Brazil) - Two Cannes prizes

• 'No Other Choice' (South Korea) - Toronto audience award

• 'Sirāt' (Spain)

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Benicio Del Toro will reunite with ‘Reptile’ director Grant Singer on the thriller ‘Reenactment,’ with Cameron Diaz in talks to co-star. (more)

• Julia Fox has joined Radio Silence’s time-travel thriller ‘Loser’ as both a cast member and executive producer. (more)

• K-pop thriller ‘Perfect Girl’ has added May Hong, AC Bonifacio, Nancy Jewel McDonie, and more to its cast. (more)

• Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Freddie Prinze Jr. will star in Scout Taylor-Compton’s drama ‘Road to Recovery.’ (more)

• Keanu Reeves will star in Tim Miller’s sci-fi thriller ‘Shiver,’ which Warner Bros. is acquiring. (more)

• Daisy Edgar-Jones and Emilia Jones will star in Rich Peppiatt’s 19th-century Irish crime drama ‘Bad Bridgets,’ produced by LuckyChap. (more)

• Netflix has acquired Stephen Gaghan’s modern ‘Great Gatsby’ adaptation ‘Valley of Ashes,’ set in Silicon Valley and produced with Jennifer Fox. (more)

• Sony has cast Mia McKenna-Bruce, Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, and Aimee Lou Wood in Sam Mendes’ 4-part Beatles film. (more)

• Jeff Nichols has cast Margaret Qualley, Michael Shannon, and Drew Starkey in his Southern gothic horror film ‘King Snake.’ (more)

TV Development 📺

• Ariana Grande is joining ‘American Horror Story’ S13 alongside returning stars Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, and other regulars. (more)

• Michael Michele has exited CBS’ upcoming ‘FBI’ spinoff ‘CIA,’ where she was set to play the head of the agency’s New York station. (more)

• MTV has canceled ‘Ridiculousness’ after 14 years on air, with its final new episodes set to run through 2026. (more)

Business 🤝

• Amazon beat Wall Street expectations with $180.2B in Q3 revenue and $21.2B in profit, driven by 24% ad growth and accelerating AI initiatives. (more)

CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead

• THURSDAY: WBD and Lionsgate earnings announcements 📊

• NEXT WEEK: AFM kicks off, back in Los Angeles this time 🤝

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