🎬 Officially in Business

👋 Happy Friday. Nostalgia-maxxing has officially escalated from vinyl and flip phones to resurrecting Blockbuster: Bingebuster, a new browser site, rebuilds your streaming libraries as a walkable 3D video store, with genre aisles and VHS box art you can flip over. Every title clicks straight through to your streamers. It cannot, however, recreate the closing ceremony: your mom saying no to candy at the register, your dad flashing the headlights from the parking lot because you've been in there for 30 minutes, you clutching the last copy of 'Space Jam.' If that sentence means nothing to you, congratulations on your youth.

Welcome back to The Dailies. Before you check out for the weekend, we've got fresh streaming numbers, the latest industry news, and this week's releases. Let's get into it.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Jul. 30 to Aug. 5. Data provided by Luminate.

Disney and TikTok have inked a "first-of-its-kind" deal that hands creators access to Disney's asset library and puts their videos right inside Disney+. Yes, that Disney, historically Hollywood's most protective IP owner. Some details on the deal:

Since taking over in March, CEO Josh D'Amaro has pitched an expanded Disney ecosystem with Disney+ at its center, pulling in games, merch, and experiences. This deal hands the platform a running tap of vertical content, a boost Disney+ will happily take: per Nielsen, its streaming apps combined draw about 5% of US TV viewing, trailing both YouTube and Netflix (roughly 13% and 8%, respectively).

It's also a bet on the creator economy. The feed is where cultural relevance gets decided now, and Disney figures creators armed with its IP will keep its properties in the conversation. In one TikTok-commissioned survey, nearly half of respondents said content they found on the platform led them to watch a movie or show.

This is also Disney's second run at the idea. Last year it partnered with OpenAI to let users make videos with Disney characters in Sora, a deal that died when the video generator shut down earlier this year. Same goal here, with humans doing the generating.

Looking ahead… The partnership launches in the US in the next couple of months, and it's an early piece of the bigger Disney+ buildout D'Amaro plans to start rolling out in spring 2027.

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🦖 Gareth Edwards is walking away from the 'Jurassic World Rebirth' sequel over "creative differences." David Koepp's script is done, and stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey are expected back. The director presumably left as tradition demands: mid-storm, clutching a Barbasol can.

📡 The FCC voted to scrap the national broadcast ownership cap, which limited station groups to reaching 39% of US TV households, replacing it with case-by-case review. Broadcasters have long called the cap outdated in a world where their real competition is YouTube and Netflix. Expect the M&A machine to fire up quickly.

🍦 Eli Roth admitted his slasher 'Ice Cream Man' uses generative AI. He initially claimed he hand-drew its vintage-style animated sequences. Turns out the real jump scare was in the credits, which turned up an AI VFX company, prompting Roth to walk things back and say he "misspoke." The film opens today.

🇬🇧 The UK waved Paramount's Warner Bros. Discovery takeover through, as expected, with Paramount pledging to keep its British channels editorially independent and commission original UK kids' content. That leaves the state AGs' antitrust suit as Warnamount's last major hurdle.

For five years, Paramount+ has basically been the Taylor Sheridan channel with a 'Star Trek' annex. But with Sheridan's deal moving to NBCUniversal in 2029, new streaming chief Cindy Holland and originals head Jane Wiseman (both Netflix alums) are quietly rebuilding the service to appeal to everyone who's never bought a cowboy hat. The new mandate:

To be clear, this isn't a Netflix-style spending spree. The whole approach is built on selectivity: agents describe a small team taking a handful of very specific shots, and they're in no rush. A year in, Holland's team has yet to launch a show it developed, and new originals likely won't show up until 2027 at the earliest.

Looking ahead… Insiders close to the streamer say the strategy holds whether or not the Warner Bros. Discovery deal survives its antitrust fight, and that the plan was never built around HBO Max arriving. Sheridan isn't gone until 2029, which gives Paramount+ a few years to figure out who it is without him.

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🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: No suspense at the top this weekend: 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' will cruise to #1 again, and the real question is whether its projected $150-160M second frame breaks the all-time second weekend record. 'The Odyssey' should hold second place and cross $1B global in the process, a milestone that eluded 'Oppenheimer.' The weekend's newcomers are all just fighting for scraps.