🎬 Goodbye, Paramount

👋 Good morning! Last week, mysterious flyers started popping up around NYC that read: "See my friend Jesse perform a magic trick" with the Four Horsemen symbol from the ‘Now You See Me’ franchise. New Yorkers spent days speculating about who this Jesse might be. The answer arrived Saturday when Jesse Eisenberg himself showed up at Hudson Yards to perform actual card tricks with magician Noah Levine, then surprised the crowd with early screening tickets for 'Now You See Me: Now You Don't.'

Hope you had a fantastic weekend. Monday means fresh box office numbers and weekend industry news to unpack. Grab something caffeinated and we’ll get you caught up. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ Anime continues its global takeover…

1. 🪚 Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc: 🆕 $17.25M domestic opening, $108M global, $4.1M budget. Sony/Crunchyroll's R-rated anime surged way past $10M projections with an A CinemaScore and 99% audience score, pulling $3.4M in Thursday previews alone. That’s territory usually reserved for midsize Hollywood IP. Premium formats drove 43% of the gross (IMAX: 19%, PLF: 24%), with the film getting full tentpole rollout muscle across 361 IMAX screens. Its international run has it past $100M globally already—anime's clearly big everywhere now.

2. ☎️ Black Phone 2: (Wk 2) $13M domestic weekend (-52%), $49.1M domestic total, $80.4M global, $30M budget. Blumhouse's sequel held remarkably well for horror, capitalizing on zero Halloween competition.

3. 💔 Regretting You: 🆕 $12.85M domestic opening, $22.85M global debut, $30M budget. Colleen Hoover's latest adaptation couldn't match 'It Ends With Us' magic, landing a B CinemaScore and 30% RT critics score.

4. 🎸 Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere: 🆕 $9.1M domestic opening, $16.1M global debut, $55M budget. Jeremy Allen White's Boss biopic underwhelmed with its Nebraska-focused narrative failing to capture audiences beyond the 55+ crowd.

5. 🏍️ Tron: Ares: (Wk 3) $4.9M domestic weekend (-56%), $63.4M domestic total, $123M global, $180M budget. Disney's sci-fi sequel continues struggling with its massive budget nowhere near recovery.

6. 🪽 Good Fortune: (Wk 2) $3.1M domestic weekend (-50%), $11.8M domestic total, $12.3M global, $30M budget.

7. 📹 Shelby Oaks: 🆕 $2.35M domestic opening, $2.8M budget. YouTube critic Chris Stuckmann's Kickstarter-funded horror debut earned a C+ CinemaScore

8. 🧨 One Battle After Another: (Wk 5) $2.33M domestic weekend (-39%), $65.8M domestic total, $179.9M global, $130M budget.

9. 🧸 Roofman: (Wk 3) $2M domestic weekend (-46%), $19.4M domestic total, $22.9M global, $19M budget.

10. ✝️ Truth & Treason: (Wk 2) $933K domestic weekend (-64%), $4.8M domestic total, $15M budget.

The bigger picture: The weekend totaled $74.5M domestically, up 9.8% from last week but down 20.7% from the same frame last year. October 2025 has become the month of left-field winners: first Taylor Swift's concert film phenomenon, now 'Chainsaw Man' beating out traditional studio fare from Disney and Paramount. Exhibitors are counting down to mid-November when 'Running Man' and 'Wicked: For Good' arrive to jumpstart the holiday season.

CLOSEUP
🤠 Taylor Sheridan is leaving Paramount…

Taylor Sheridan is leaving Paramount for a blockbuster deal with NBCUniversal, marking one of the biggest talent moves in recent Hollywood history. The 'Yellowstone' creator just closed deals with NBCU that kick in as his Paramount commitments expire.

The move comes after growing tensions with Paramount's new Skydance regime under David Ellison, who bought the studio in August. Despite publicly praising Sheridan as a "singular genius," things were reportedly pretty different behind the scenes. Incoming streaming chief Cindy Holland allegedly questioned his production budgets, while the executives Sheridan actually worked with were either shown the door or pushed aside.

How it went down: NBCU's Donna Langley won the bidding war, beating out Warner's David Zaslav, Amazon, Netflix, and Apple who all tried to woo Sheridan. He reportedly informed Ellison about the move just 10 days ago. David Glasser's 101 Studios, which produces all of Sheridan's shows, is also heading to Universal as part of the deal.

Why it’s huge: Sheridan's shows ('Yellowstone,' 'Tulsa King,' 'Lioness,' 'Landman') consistently dominate Nielsen charts and basically keep Paramount+ afloat. His exit means Paramount loses its most reliable hitmaker, though they'll keep all his existing franchises.

Looking ahead... Sheridan moves to NBCU for film next year when his Paramount commitment expires, but the TV deal is the big one. He'll keep making shows for Paramount through 2028 before jumping to NBCU.

CLOSEUP
💿 Soundtracks are back (thanks, Gen Z)…

Remember when 2000s TV treated music like a main character? 'The O.C.' released six charting albums, 'Grey's Anatomy' spawned four soundtracks, and 'Scrubs' turned needle drops into emotional plot points. Shows built entire identities around their playlists. Then the binge era arrived. Netflix's all-at-once model killed those week-to-week water cooler moments where viewers would race to iTunes to identify songs, turning soundtracks from cultural events into background noise.

Cut to 2025: Soundtracks are staging a comeback, courtesy of Gen Z viewers who've made music the main character again:

• 'Nobody Wants This' S2 launched with a companion album featuring unreleased originals from Selena Gomez, Kacey Musgraves, and Chris Stapleton

• The show's S1 placement of Dua Lipa's 'Levitating' drove the 2020 track back up streaming charts four years after its release

• Amazon's 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' dominated Billboard's Top TV Songs chart for three straight months, occupying 9 of 10 slots in September

• One placement of Wheatus's 'Teenage Dirtbag' in 'Summer I Turned Pretty' sparked millions of TikToks where viewers posted throwback teen photos set to the song (even Madonna joined in)

Why it's working: Music creates clippable moments Gen Z shares on social media, driving new viewers back to shows. "Gen Z will watch a show because they like the music in it," confirms music supervisor Melyssa Hardwick. Studios get it: memorable needle drops spawn millions of user-generated posts that beat traditional ads—a virtuous cycle of clips, shares, and streams.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Hollywood’s animals, AI detection, and Germany…

🐕 The call sheet doesn’t need paws anymore. Between CGI advances and production cutbacks, trained animals who once booked regular film and TV roles are increasingly being replaced by CGI alternatives. Some coordinators report business has dropped to just 40% of pre-pandemic levels, and professional animal performers who worked steadily on shows like 'Veronica Mars' now struggle to book even commercials. From 2020's 'Call of the Wild' with its CGI dog to this year's 'Superman' featuring a digital Krypto, the replacement is accelerating. Both animals and their specialized trainers face an uncertain future. While animal rights activists see this trend as a win, veterans insist authentic performances deliver something pixels will never be able to replicate.

📲 Social platforms can't tell you when videos are AI. The Washington Post recently ran a test, uploading the same AI-generated video (made with OpenAI’s Sora) to eight major platforms. Only YouTube added any warning (and even that was buried in the description). Worse still, every platform stripped out the Content Credentials data that's supposed to prove whether something's real or synthetic. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, LinkedIn, and Pinterest (all companies that pledged to implement these safeguards), displayed no AI labels or warnings whatsoever. This comes just as Sora 2 launches with the ability to generate footage that can mimic actors' faces and copyrighted characters.

🇩🇪 Germany's about to make Netflix pay up for local content. The country's culture minister says they're "very close" to unveiling rules that would force global streamers like Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video to invest a chunk of their German profits into local productions. It's part of a broader European movement (France and Switzerland already did it) backed by EU rules that let countries demand investment obligations. Germany's also doubling its own film funding to €250M next year to help what the minister calls their "struggling market." The move guarantees streaming dollars will flow to German creators as Europe continues pushing to protect its entertainment industry from Hollywood dominance.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Sony Pictures Classics acquires Kirk Jones’ ‘I Swear,’ starring Robert Aramayo, after its buzzy TIFF debut. (more)

• Blumhouse is developing both a film and animated series adaptation of the hit horror comic ‘Something Is Killing the Children.’ (more)

• Sam Rockwell and Maisy Stella will star in Will Bridges’ psychological thriller ‘Tumor,’ with AGC launching international sales at AFM. (more)

• Austin Butler is in early talks to play Sonny Crockett in Universal’s ‘Miami Vice’ movie opposite Michael B. Jordan. (more)

• Omar Epps, Wiz Khalifa, and Quavo star in ‘Moses the Black,’ a Chicago-set crime drama produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson heading to AFM. (more)

• Bob Odenkirk’s action thriller ‘Normal’ opens April 17, 2026, marking Magnolia Pictures’ widest release ever with 2,000 theaters. (more)

• Lil Rel Howery and Rotimi lead Jimmy Jenkins’ faith-based film ‘God With Us,’ a modern reimagining of the Nativity set in urban America. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Chris Van Dusen joins Netflix’s ‘Calabasas,’ replacing I. Marlene King as showrunner on the series. (more)

• Netflix has ordered ‘Hollywood Arts,’ a ‘Victorious’ spinoff starring Daniella Monet as Trina Vega. (more)

• ABC is developing music competition ‘Who’s In the Band,’ with Simon Cowell, Joe Jonas, Mel B, and Rei Ami leading the test run. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
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