🎬 Graduating to Netflix

👋 Good morning! Francis Ford Coppola isn't done with ‘Megalopolis.’ The 86-year-old director is taking his $120M box office bomb (the one that made just $12M and got nicknamed ‘Mega-flopolis’) on a national theater tour with Live Nation, and he wants to make it even weirder. After getting the rights back from Lionsgate, Coppola is now selling out theaters nationwide with Q&As where he's teasing a new cut that adds back dream sequences he originally removed from the theatrical version. As he puts it: "It was more weird. I own the picture, I can do anything I want with it."

Happy Wednesday, and welcome to The Dailies. Grab your coffee and we’ll get you caught up on the latest Hollywood news.

CLOSEUP
🎬 Venice just dropped its lineup…

The 82nd Venice Film Festival just unveiled its 2025 lineup, kickstarting the fall festival circuit. Venice remains the crucial post-Cannes stop for serious Oscar contenders before they head to Telluride, TIFF, and beyond. Here are the heavy hitters rolling into the Lido this year:

• Netflix is back with three major titles after sitting out 2024: Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ reimagining (stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth), Kathryn Bigelow’s geopolitical thriller ‘A House of Dynamite’ (Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson) and Noah Baumbach's ‘Jay Kelly’ (George Clooney, Adam Sandler).

• ‘The Smashing Machine’ (A24) — Dwayne Johnson's dramatic Venice debut with Emily Blunt

• ‘After the Hunt’ (out of competition) — Julia Roberts' Lido debut in Luca Guadagnino's latest

• ‘No Other Choice’ — Park Chan-wook returns to competition

• ‘Bugonia’ — Yorgos Lanthimos reunites with Emma Stone

• ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ — Jim Jarmusch brings Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver

• Notable no-shows: Chloé Zhao's ‘Hamnet’ with Paul Mescal skipped Venice for Telluride/TIFF, while Netflix's Edward Berger collaboration ‘Ballad of a Small Player’ also bypassed the Lido.

• See the full lineup here. 👈👀

Festival trends emerging: Movies are getting longer—most competition films hit 2+ hours, with festival director Alberto Barbera calling it "concerning" for scheduling. Documentaries are exploding too, jumping from 6 titles in 2022 to 19 this year. And political content is surging, from Gaza-focused films to Putin portrayals, making this one of Venice's most politically charged lineups in recent memory.

Looking ahead… Venice runs Aug. 27 to Sept. 6, with Paolo Sorrentino's ‘La Grazia’ opening the festival and Alexander Payne heading the jury. Unlike other festivals, Venice programs only world premieres that then flow to Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF. It's a proven pipeline—last year's ‘The Brutalist’ launched here and rode straight to three Oscars.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 YouTube to Netflix, AI legislation, and the dollar…

📺 YouTubers are graduating to Netflix. The Sidemen, a British YouTube collective with a combined 150M subscribers, moved their reality show ‘Inside’ from YouTube to Netflix for S2, drawn by Netflix’s deep pockets and mainstream reach. It looks like it’s paying off: Netflix's S2 reached 1.3M UK households versus 967,000 for YouTube's S1. Netflix's hands-off creative approach let the Sidemen keep control while accessing premium production values and family audiences (68% of Netflix viewers had kids vs 40% on YouTube). "We've hit the limit of what we can achieve on YouTube," the group said, seeking to "futureproof" their brand as they age out of their target demographic. Expect to see more of these platform jumps as streamers ramp up their courtship of digital creators—Amazon just dropped a reported $300M on upcoming seasons of MrBeast’s show, while Netflix is rumored to be courting Mark Rober and Dude Perfect.

🤖 A new bill wants to put AI companies on the hook for using creators' work. Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal introduced bipartisan legislation that would ban AI companies from training their models on copyrighted works or personal data without explicit consent, giving creators the power to sue for unauthorized use. This comes on the heels of a court ruling last month that gave AI companies broad legal cover to train on copyrighted material under fair use doctrine, essentially letting them buy a single book and upload its entire contents to their training database rather than negotiating expensive licensing deals with publishers. This bill would hit the brakes on that, forcing AI companies to pony up and pay for the creative work they're currently getting for free.

🇨🇦 Canada's film advantage is fading with the falling dollar. The greenback has dropped about 5% against the Canadian dollar in 2025, chipping away at the currency advantage that has long lured American studios north of the border for cheaper production costs. Canadian producers are beginning to see a slowdown in U.S. service work, especially for lower-budget TV movies and indie projects, as Hollywood's purchasing power dips. While film tax credits and local talent still make Canada attractive, some producers are keeping an eye on a potential "breaking point" if the dollar continues falling. The shift is already nudging Canadian filmmakers to choose co-production partnerships and seek financing from emerging markets like Saudi Arabia, signaling a potential reshaping of North America's production landscape.

STATISTIC
📊 LA production takes another hit, but there’s hope…

No shocker here: FilmLA's latest report shows feature shoot days dropped hard in Q2 2025—down 21.4% compared to the same period last year. TV production was a bright spot, though, with a 17% bump to 2,224 days (still below the 5-year average, but hey, progress is progress).

But don’t write California off yet. A separate report from ProdPro says that while only 15 big-budget movies actually filmed in California in the first half of 2025, 95 others are currently in development or preproduction (more than New York, Georgia, and New Mexico combined), landing right as the tax credit jumps from $330M to $750M.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Katie Holmes will write, direct, and star in ‘Happy Hours,’ a film trilogy reuniting her with ‘Dawson’s Creek’ co-star Joshua Jackson. (more)

• Ana Nogueira will write DC Studios’ new ‘Wonder Woman’ film, following her work on ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Teen Titans.’ (more)

• Cristin Milioti will star in indie horror film ‘Buddy,’ a genre-bending thriller from ‘Too Many Cooks’ creator Casper Kelly. (more)

• Adria Arjona will star opposite Michael B. Jordan in Amazon MGM’s ‘The Thomas Crown Affair,’ now in production for 2027. (more)

• Jake Johnson will star opposite Tatiana Maslany in Apple’s dark comedy ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.’ (more)

• Netflix sets ‘The Truth About Jussie Smollett?’ doc from ‘The Tinder Swindler’ team, featuring interviews with Smollett and key figures. (more)

• Amazon MGM taps Alejandra Márquez Abella to direct an untitled Mennonite crime thriller based on a Los Angeles Times article. (more)

• Ken Jeong will star in indie crime-thriller ‘52nd State,’ joining a Netflix alumni-led project about a global scam investigation. (more)

• Warner Bros. acquires ‘The Land of Stories’ for a live-action film adaptation, with Phil Johnston set to write and Chris Colfer producing. (more)

• TriStar sets ‘The Nightingale’ for 2027 with Dakota and Elle Fanning starring, as Michael Morris directs the drama based on Kristin Hannah’s novel. (more)

TV Development 📺

• ‘Ted Lasso’ begins filming S4. (more)

• Starz greenlights ‘Power: Origins,’ an 18-episode prequel series. (more)

• NBC orders cheerleading comedy ‘Stumble’, starring Jenn Lyon. (more)

• Netflix is holding a massive bake-off with 40 producers competing to make its ‘Monopoly’ reality competition series. (more)

• ‘Happy Face’ is cancelled by Paramount+ after S1. (more)

Business 🤝

• Lionsgate ousts marketing co-presidents JP Richards and Keri Moore, with no immediate plans to fill the roles. (more)

• Paramount is reviewing its international pay-TV strategy, eyeing office closures and cable cuts amid its shift toward streaming. (more)

• ‘South Park’ lands a $1.5B streaming deal with Paramount+, bringing new episodes exclusively to the platform for five years. (more)

Other News 🚨

• TIFF 2025 unveils its Gala and Special Presentations lineup, adding ‘Sentimental Value,’ ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘The Smashing Machine,’ and more titles. (more)

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