🎬 Prediction Season

👋 Good morning! Sorry, Paris, the screens are taken. AMC is postponing its summer slate of concert simulcasts (the bill included Bebe Rexha, Maren Morris, and Paris Hilton, who is, yes, a DJ these days) because the actual movies are doing too well to give up the auditoriums. In AMC's own words, "Week after week in 2026, the domestic box office performance has exceeded or met expectations," a sentence nobody in this industry has gotten to say with a straight face in a while. Somewhere an AMC exec just uncrossed his arms for the first time since 2019.

An extra Thursday edition this week, since Emmys season is officially underway. We've got more awards coverage to keep you oriented, plus the usual Last Looks and Release Radar. 👇

Emmy nomination ballots open today and close June 22, which means it's officially prediction season. Nothing's decided until nominations land July 8, but here's the lay of the land, and the shows generating the most heat among the trades and awards pundits. This is us reading the room, not making endorsements.

The one to beat: 'The Pitt' is last year's winner and everyone's default pick again, with Variety, THR's Feinberg and Gold Derby all putting it on top. A repeat would make it just the fifth show ever to take Drama in both its first two seasons, though not everyone's sold: a quieter, less crowd-pleasing season two has some wondering whether a repeat would just mean voters on autopilot.

The likeliest thing to crash the party is 'Pluribus,' Vince Gilligan's new one and already Apple's most-watched original ever. It's pushing Rhea Seehorn for lead actress, and a win there would be sweet vindication: she was twice nominated for 'Better Call Saul,' the most snubbed show in Emmy history, which went 0-for-53, never winning a thing.

The rest of the field: beyond those two, the shows most likely to round out the nominees are 'The Diplomat,' 'Slow Horses,' 'Task' and 'Paradise,' with a divisive final 'Euphoria' and a last-ever 'Stranger Things' fighting for the last spots.

The one to beat: 'Hacks' is riding its final season toward what looks like a farewell coronation. It's the clear favorite, even if not everyone loved the softer final season, and Jean Smart is the comparable lock in lead actress, where an eighth career Emmy would tie the all-time acting record.

The rest of the field: behind 'Hacks', the likeliest nominees are 'Shrinking' (riding a big Harrison Ford push), 'Abbott Elementary' and 'Only Murders in the Building,' while former favorite 'The Bear' has cooled off.

Looking ahead… this is still the shortlist of a shortlist, the names making the most noise out of hundreds of submissions. We'll save the full breakdown for when there's an actual ballot, nominations land July 8 (with craft categories July 15), final voting runs Aug. 17-26, and the ceremony's Sept. 14.

A champion of made in Hollywood: ‘Fallout’ season two delivers character-driven storytelling and ambitious cinematic techniques. Go behind the scenes with EP Jonathan Nolan and EP/ showrunner / writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet as they discuss their commitment to immersive detail and why they chose to bring the production back to California. WATCH HERE

For your Emmy® consideration in all categories including Outstanding Drama Series.

YouTube wants an Emmy, and after last year’s shut-out, it's putting real weight behind the push. The platform scaled up its FYC push from three creators last year to seven this year, with 14 submissions spread across variety, nonfiction, and short-form.

This isn't a first attempt. YouTubers have been knocking on the Emmy door for the better part of a decade, and no show made and distributed on YouTube has ever landed a Primetime Emmy nomination in a major category. The TV Academy has mostly answered by giving the short-form awards to spinoff content from established shows: late-night web extras and behind-the-scenes “making of” clips, not the standalone creator series. YouTube's first FYC event last year produced zero nominations.

What's different in 2026: A rule change finally clears a path. Starting this year, the short-form categories are split in two, with separate slots for standalone shows and for spinoff content, and each side guaranteed at least one nomination. So an original YouTube series no longer has to beat out a late-night web clip to get in.

YouTube is helping, carefully. Because it's a platform and not a studio, the creators still have to self-submit their own shows (YouTube would rather not be seen picking favorites), but the company backs them up with FYC events and ads, and brings creators to festivals like SXSW and Sundance to put them shoulder to shoulder with the Hollywood crowd.

But the bigger shift is in perception. Voters who long assumed YouTube meant unboxing clips and kids' content are leaving these events impressed by the real production behind the shows. Slowly, the industry is starting to see creator series as legitimate TV, made by full crews with budgets, writers, and production values to match.

🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: 'Disclosure Day' should top the charts with a $40-50M debut domestically, though some tracking has it closer to $35M, a shaky number for a $115M original. There’s some real competition from outside the multiplex: the NBA Finals are potentially peaking and the World Cup is kicking off, both gunning for the exact 35+ crowd Universal is counting on. Everyone's on borrowed time anyway, 'Toy Story 5' lands next Friday tracking north of $150M.

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