🎬 New Side Hustle

👋 Good morning! Or buongiorno to anyone reading this from Venice, where it's already spritz o'clock, cin cin. The Venice Film Festival kicks off its 83rd edition today. Fun fact: the very first Venice screening, back in 1932, was 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' on the Excelsior terrace, which is still where the deals happen. This year opens with Danny Boyle's Rupert Murdoch drama 'Ink' and runs through Sept. 12. Don't worry, we'll keep the highlights coming.

It's Wednesday and there's plenty to cover. Whatever's in your glass, coffee or Aperol, top it off and let's get you caught up. 👇

The world's largest theater chain just launched Leawood Films, a distribution label for indie and mid-budget movies that are already finished and paid for but have nowhere to go (think: festival titles that got a standing O but never found a home). Here's the plan:

Why now? Theater owners have been griping for years that there aren't enough movies to fill their screens. Meanwhile, a string of recent hits skipped the studios and went straight to theaters: Taylor Swift cut the 'Eras Tour' deal directly with AMC ($260M worldwide), and Markiplier self-distributed 'Iron Lung' in January and turned a $3M horror movie into $51M. So AMC figured, why not be the middleman?

Quick history: after a 1948 Supreme Court ruling, the Paramount Consent Decrees forced the major studios to sell off their theaters and largely kept distributors and theater chains in separate businesses for 70-plus years. A federal court scrapped the rules in 2020, and everyone assumed the studios might start buying theaters again. Instead, the biggest theater chain is going the other direction and becoming a distributor.

To pull this off, they're bringing in some heavyweights. Former Warner Bros. chairman Toby Emmerich and ex-Disney marketing chief Ricky Strauss are advising, alongside Kyle Davies, who's leaving Bleecker Street's top distribution job to join. All three report to AMC CEO Adam Aron.

Looking ahead… Don't expect anything on screens soon. Leawood hasn't acquired a title yet, and Aron says the earliest release lands in 2027 or 2028. Presumably that means a lot of festival lanyards in the Leawood team's near future.

Big money is rotating into a select group of stocks for the second half of 2026.

MarketBeat’s analysts tracked the move and identified 10 companies attracting fresh capital right now.

The updated 10 Best Stocks to Own in 2026 report lays out the tickers, trends, and catalysts.

See The 10 Names

A federal film and TV tax credit finally has a presidential yes attached to it. Trump endorsed the idea on Truth Social Monday after sitting down with Jon Voight, his hand-picked Hollywood ambassador, calling the industry "a Complete and Total Disaster" that's losing work (and money) to countries like Canada and the UK. There's no word yet on how big the credit would be or how it'd work, but he's asking Congress to move fast, together, on both sides of the aisle.

Here's what's actually new: it's not the first time Trump's weighed in on this. Back in May 2025, and again in September, his approach was a threatened 100% tariff on foreign-made films, something the industry never warmed to. This is the first time he's backed the tax credit instead, which is what industry lobbyists have wanted from him all along.

Jon Voight's team (manager Steven Paul, along with Scott Karol) is hoping to get a bill, now named the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act, introduced in Congress this month, not just floated as an idea. Here's what's on the table so far:

The support's already lining up, too. SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and Teamsters Local 399 each put out statements this week praising Trump's endorsement, with the WGA, the DGA, and the MPA also on record backing the idea.

Looking ahead… With the bill named and work on it already underway, this has more momentum than any past attempt at a federal incentive, and midterms give both parties reason to move fast.

🍎 The Tim Cook era is over. John Ternus became Apple's CEO yesterday, taking over from Tim Cook, who's sliding into executive chairman. Cook spent 15 years turning Apple into a $4T company and quietly became Apple TV's biggest champion, personally shepherding it from its 2019 launch through hits like 'CODA,' 'Ted Lasso,' and 'Severance' (plus pricier swings like 'Napoleon'). Ternus hasn't weighed in on content yet, and while Eddy Cue's still running the content and streaming deals, the budget calls now go through a guy known for hardware, not shows. We'll see if he ever earns a nickname half as cool as Tim Apple.

🎮 'Grand Theft Auto VI' just beat every show and movie on Netflix. Its 27-minute "Extended Look" trailer pulled 31.1M views last week and hit No. 1 in 87 countries. That's a huge number for a video game trailer, but this isn't just any launch: it's been over a decade in the making and is one of the most hyped gaming releases ever. It comes out Nov. 19, and studios are reportedly worried it'll keep people home and away from theaters, right as 'Avengers: Doomsday' and 'Dune: Part Three' open just weeks later. One study even estimates it'll cost the US $1B in lost productivity on launch day alone, as workers skip work to play. Grand Theft Attention, more like.

🤝 Range is closing in on a first-look deal with Paramount. Range Studios, the production arm of Range Media Partners, is nearing a two-year pact with Paramount Pictures for theatrical releases. That's a notable shift for a company built as a talent management firm, since reps typically stay unattached to any one studio so they can shop their clients and projects wherever the best deal is. Range and Paramount have a track record already, including the comedy 'Bald Eagles' and Osgood Perkins' 'Longlegs' follow-up. Founding Partner Jack Whigham is advising on the deal. Studio stability, it seems, is winning out over flexibility.

Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, professional text inside any app. Emails, Slack, client updates — speak once, send without editing. 4x faster than typing.

Try Wispr Flow free