👋 Good morning. The Apple Vision Pro is about to make someone scream for the first time since the receipt. Apple just announced ‘Remnants,’ its first immersive horror film, a 27-minute, VR-style ghost story that drops you inside a haunted castle. It’s written and directed by Ti West, the filmmaker behind A24 slashers ‘X,’ ‘Pearl,’ and ‘MaXXXine,’ and it comes out Friday, only on the headset. Should be a fun group chat for all four Vision Pro owners.
Welcome back to The Dailies. Hope the holiday weekend was good to you. We’ve got the box office numbers and everything else you need to get caught up. 👇
BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ A quiet weekend, but the box office crossed $8B…
Jessica Chastain in ‘Other Mommy’ (Universal Pictures)
| WEEKEND TOTAL $85.2M| VS. 2025 +19.2%| VS. LAST WKND -15% | |
Other Mommy NEW Universal/Blumhouse · $27.5M domestic weekend · Global total: $45.2M · Budget: $18M · 🍅: 16% Jessica Chastain’s horror movie opened bigger than expected, even though audiences gave it a D+ CinemaScore. It's the fourth-biggest horror opening of the year, but expect a big drop next weekend. | |
Verity WK 2 Amazon MGM · $11.5M domestic weekend (-65%) · Domestic total: $53.9M · Global total: $114M · Budget: $40M A hefty drop, but the Colleen Hoover adaptation has already nearly tripled its budget worldwide. | |
Resident Evil WK 4 Sony · $8.35M domestic weekend (-33%) · Domestic total: $138.5M · Global total: $320.2M · Budget: $75M Thanks to a $40.6M China opening, it was the No. 1 movie in the world again. It's also now the biggest 'Resident Evil' movie and Zach Cregger's biggest hit. | |
Heart of the Beast WK 3 Paramount · $7.1M domestic weekend (-35%) · Domestic total: $49.7M · Global total: $131.3M · Budget: $82M | |
The Social Reckoning NEW Sony · $5.5M domestic weekend · Global total: $9M · Budget: $30M · 🍅: 55% Aaron Sorkin's follow-up came in under even its modest $7-8M projections, and made about a quarter of what 'The Social Network' opened to in 2010. Sony's not sweating it after 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' and 'Resident Evil.' | |
Forgotten Island WK 3 Universal · $4.5M domestic weekend (-38%) · Domestic total: $30.3M · Global total: $50.2M · Budget: $80M | |
Primetime WK 3 A24 · $4M domestic weekend (-50%) · Domestic total: $41.5M · Budget: $15M | |
Digger WK 2 Warner Bros. · $3.2M domestic weekend (-60%) · Domestic total: $14.4M · Global total: $35.3M · Budget: $170M+ Word is the budget was actually closer to $173M, with about $100M more spent on marketing. That leaves Skydance, the new owner, expecting to lose around $250M. It does have fans though: Anne Hathaway, Jane Fonda, Guillermo del Toro, and Mandy Patinkin have all been telling people to go see it. | |
Angel and the Badman NEW Angel Studios · $2.1M domestic weekend Zachary Levi's remake of the John Wayne western got a B+ CinemaScore, which is low for an Angel movie (they usually get A's). | |
The Odyssey WK 13 Universal · $2M domestic weekend (+54%) · Domestic total: $623M · Global total: $1.78B · Budget: $250M Got a bump after reclaiming the IMAX screens 'Digger' gave up. | |
| YTD Domestic Box Office▲ +19.5% | ||||
| ||||
| Source: RENTRAK |
The bigger picture: It was a slow weekend in a sluggish October, and audiences aren't loving what they're seeing either (none of October's four big studio releases has scored above a B- CinemaScore). But there is good news: the domestic box office has already passed $8B for the year, about two months sooner than 2025, which didn't cross that line until December (and needed a 'Zootopia 2' to do it).
Specialty Corner: Neon's Palme d'Or winner 'Fjord' had the best per-screen average of the weekend, making $124K in just four theaters. Chris Rock's 'Misty Green' pulled in $85.7K from six, and the nearly four-hour doc 'Musk' made $68.9K from four (intermission included). Meanwhile, the Gaza documentary 'NAZA' crossed $500K without a distributor after expanding to 85 theaters.
Up next: 'Street Fighter' is tracking for a $25-35M opening, with survival thriller 'Whalefall' and a new 'Sense and Sensibility' also arriving this weekend.
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CLOSEUP
👻 Sony handed its horror label to a YouTube exec…
Fede Goldenberg
Sony just smashed the hire button on 15-year YouTube veteran Fede Goldenberg, handing him the keys to Screen Gems, the genre label behind 'Resident Evil' and 'Insidious.' Under him, the label will keep its usual horror slate, but it'll now also develop theatrical movies with "digital-native storytellers" (that’s “YouTubers,” but said in a blazer). Credentials, please:
Goldenberg ran film and TV partnerships at YouTube, which made him the go-to guy for creators trying to break into movies. He's credited with helping guide Curry Barker, Kane Parsons, and Markiplier on their way there.
Those three, of course, went on to make 'Obsession,' 'Backrooms,' and 'Iron Lung,' which cost very little and made a fortune.
He's taking over for Ashley Brucks, who's moving to a producing role. This comes right after she delivered a $170M hit with 'Insidious: Out of the Further.'
Sony's thinking is pretty simple. Creators come with their own ideas and a huge audience that already trusts them. The bet is that younger moviegoers listen to creators more than they listen to ads, so a creator's movie basically markets itself.
But do creators need a studio? Fair question. Markiplier self-financed and self-released 'Iron Lung' to $50M, and other creators are taking notes. Sony's counter is that DIY releases rarely come with a global rollout or serious marketing muscle (uploading to 4,000 theaters is harder than it looks). And these are meant for the big screen. Sony has a streaming deal with Netflix it could use for creator movies, but the plan is a full theatrical release.
The bigger picture: Netflix, Disney, and pretty much everyone else in traditional Hollywood have been building out their creator strategies. Sony is the first to reorient a studio division around this talent, and it probably won't be the last.
ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…
Nicolas Cage at New York Comic Con Saturday. (Craig Barritt/Getty Images)
🕷️ Nicolas Cage says he refused an AI waiver on 'Spider-Noir' and likely won't work with Amazon again because of it. He called Amazon "very AI-friendly," citing its OpenAI investment. He also joked he's up for a 'National Treasure' about hunting the Epstein files. Honestly, stealing the Declaration of Independence sounds easier.
🎸 Sam Mendes' four Beatles films will all hit theaters in the same month, April 2028. Producer Pippa Harris says the hope is audiences will see all four, maybe one a week (the exact rollout isn't set). This is what AMC A-List members have been training for. The shoot hit day 180 this week, a long and winding road indeed.
✂️ Netflix layoffs are reportedly on the way. The word is about 5% of its 16,000 employees, as soon as this week, with Q3 earnings landing Oct. 20. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos admitted growth is slower than he'd like (the stock's down 20%+ this year). Disney, Warner Bros., and Paramount also have cuts underway or coming.
💰 Five Warner Bros. Discovery execs cashed out about $1.1B in shares and options when Paramount bought the company, SEC filings show. David Zaslav accounted for $606M, while four top deputies split about $500M (severance not included). Around 500 employees will reportedly net at least $1M.
MIPCOM
🌴 The TV business is in Cannes this week…
The view from MIPCOM. (Source: MIPCOM)
MIPCOM, the world's largest TV market, kicked off yesterday, bringing 10,000+ execs to the French Riviera to buy shows, sell formats, and line up financing (tough gig). And with US networks and streamers ordering fewer shows these days, that international money is increasingly what gets a project made.
The vibe this year: it's getting harder to tell where traditional TV ends and YouTube, creators, and tech begin. A few examples from the agenda:
YouTube is love-bombing legacy TV: It spent opening day wooing broadcasters to see it as a partner instead of a threat, promising it has no plans to make its own shows and reminding everyone it hands more than half its ad revenue to the companies that do. Exhibit A: Germany's RTL put 200+ old 'Cobra 11' episodes on YouTube and says subscriptions tied to the show on its own streamer jumped about 26%.
AI is no longer a side topic: For the first time, MIPCOM has a whole forum devoted to AI, including the big question of who gets paid when studio libraries are used to train it. Also this week: 'CSI' creator Anthony Zuiker is set to unveil Cinemalistics, which turns breaking true-crime stories into AI-made films and docs within hours. (What could go wrong?)
Creators and microdramas are being taken seriously: Dhar Mann, the YouTube creator with 170M followers and deals with Disney and Fox, kicked things off with the market's first-ever pre-opening keynote. Microdramas got an upgrade too. MIPCOM is now setting up one-on-one meetings between the producers who make them and the buyers looking to license them, the same dealmaking treatment regular TV gets here.
As for what’s actually for sale… it’s a lot more traditional. The big titles being pitched to buyers this week include spy thrillers (‘Legacy of Spies,’ with Matthew Macfadyen as George Smiley), reboots (‘The Rockford Files,’ ‘Meatballs’), and a handful of reality formats hoping to be the next ‘Traitors.’ So while the panels are all YouTube and AI, the shows on offer are the kind TV has always made.
Looking ahead… MIPCOM wraps Thursday.
LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️
'Hatchet,' Gary Paulsen's survival classic, is headed to Netflix as a movie, with Derek Cianfrance writing and directing. (more)
Rebecca Ferguson, Greta Lee, and Carrie Coon have a rom-com on the way, with Black Bear set to release 'Honeymoon/Funeral.' (more)
Blumhouse-Atomic Monster and Focus Features just paid seven figures for 'Play House,' a micro-budget horror debut from director Nicolas Curcio. (more)
Craig Zobel will direct Blumhouse’s film adaptation of 'Something Is Killing the Children.' (more)
Antonio Banderas is the latest star to sign on with an AI studio, playing Hernán Cortés in Utopai's AI-powered feature 'Cortés.' (more)
Garrett Hedlund, Jake Lacy, and Jessica Biel will star in 'Downriver,' an Artists Equity dramedy from director Sam Jones. (more)
TV Development 📺
Wong Kar-wai and Hiro Murai have an FX crime pilot in the works, and Havana Rose Liu is set to star. (more)
'Stargate' is coming back as a new series at Amazon MGM Studios, with Jac Schaeffer developing. (more)
'Artemis Fowl' is getting an animated series adaptation for Disney Channel and Disney+. (more)
VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers
MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments
That’s all we’ve got. Have a great week, and we’ll be back in your inbox Friday.
—The Dailies Team
P.S. Reading this on a forward? That’s basically watching a movie over someone’s shoulder on a plane. Get your own copy below. It’s free, and we’re fun. 👇