🎬 Regime Change

👋 Good morning. Like a parent who refuses to let one child outshine the others, Sony is trying to figure out how to release its four Beatles movies so every one of them gets seen. Sam Mendes’s biopics (one per Beatle) hit theaters in April 2028, and the ideas on the table right now include selling tickets as a four-pack, and reporting one combined box office number for all four films. It’s partly a smart business move and partly a way to prevent fans from piling in for their favorite Beatle, hurting Ringo’s feelings in the process. (Just kidding. The Dailies loves Ringo and remains neutral on the favorite Beatle question, as all serious journalism must.)

Happy Friday. Top off that coffee and we’ll catch you up. 👇

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Oct. 8 to Oct. 14. Data provided by Luminate.

It’s been a rough week on Sunset Boulevard, and not the fun kind. The streamer cut roughly 1,000 jobs on Wednesday (about 6% of its workforce), and by Thursday the cuts had reached the C-suite.

The big one: Bela Bajaria is out after a decade at Netflix, including nearly four years as chief content officer. Former Disney and Fox exec Peter Rice takes over October 26, overseeing everything: scripted, unscripted, film, and live. Rice ran Fox Searchlight, became president of 21st Century Fox, then chaired Disney's TV empire until Disney showed him the door in 2022. Sarandos is calling him an "at-scale operator" with strong talent relationships.

Which brings us to film chief Dan Lin: in one week he lost his talent-friendly deputy (Belgrad) and the boss who hired him (Bajaria). Industry chatter has Lin following them out, but reports say that's Rice's decision to make. Meanwhile, recently ousted WB film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are said to be waiting in the wings.

The reason for the reset: engagement has stalled, and Wall Street has noticed. Viewing hours grew just 2% in the first half of 2026, the stock's down about 25% this year, and there hasn't been a real breakout hit in a while. The layoffs save money. Rice is the bet that someone with Searchlight taste and real pull with talent can get the hits going again. Sarandos basically said so last month: it all comes down to the programming.

Looking ahead… Netflix reports earnings Tuesday, and Wall Street's already bracing for its slowest revenue growth in three years. Rice starts the following Monday.

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A rare thing happened this week: CAA, WME, and UTA teamed up, voluntarily. The rival agencies, along with producers like Jason Blum, Ron Howard, and Mark Burnett, have formed the American Entertainment Alliance. They’re lobbying Congress to bring back a 1970s rule that kept TV networks from owning the shows they aired, and point it at the streamers. It boils down to two asks:

Quick history lesson: Fin-Syn, as the original rules were known, dates to 1970, when ABC, CBS, and NBC controlled basically all of primetime and were demanding ownership stakes in any show they aired. The FCC said no more, and that kicked off a golden age of indie studios. MTM made 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show,' Carsey-Werner made 'Roseanne,' Castle Rock made 'Seinfeld.' The FCC scrapped the rules in the '90s, figuring cable provided enough competition. Then the streamers showed up, started owning everything they put on, and the whole thing came full circle.

Why now? Part of it is the slump. Scripted shows are down about 40% since Peak TV ended four years ago, and the buyer pool keeps shrinking. The other part is timing. A federal film and TV tax credit bill landed in Congress last month, which means Washington is actually paying attention right now, and the alliance wants to ride that wave. The tax credit would bring production back to the U.S., and the alliance's bill would spread the money around once it's here. Or as Blum put it, there should be "a hundred Blumhouses."

Looking ahead… the group wants a bill introduced next year. Expect some pushback from Netflix and friends.

🎯 Disney just inked a deal with sports creators Dude Perfect. They're one of YouTube's biggest channels with 62M+ subscribers, and they'll bring their back catalog to Disney+ and make content around Super Bowl LXI, 'Star Wars' turning 50, and 'Avengers: Doomsday.' Disney's clearly ramping up its creator strategy lately.

🗽 New York is close to passing California as the top state for production. California kept the top spot in Q3 by just $147M, but New York’s production spend jumped 87% versus California’s 17%, thanks to new soundstages and long-running procedurals. The numbers come from ProdPro, which is watching Q4 closely.

🏰 Disney's bidding on a bankrupt AI company. Character.ai (the chat-with-AI-characters app) filed for Chapter 11, and Disney's in with a $20M stalking horse bid, eyeing its avatar tech (think an AI Mickey you can talk to). Last year Disney sent the same company a cease-and-desist over bootleg Mickeys. How the turntables.

⚽ Netflix just scored exclusive Spanish rights to the 2030 World Cup. Co-host Spain is also the defending champ. The US rights are still up for grabs, and after this summer’s record-breaking tournament (63M watched the final stateside), Netflix, Disney, YouTube, and Amazon are all reportedly circling.

🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: 'Street Fighter' should take the weekend with a $25-35M opening, roughly in line with 'Masters of the Universe' ($29.4M), another nostalgia play from earlier this year. 'Whalefall' looks like a solid second at $10-15M. Then it gets interesting: last week’s 'Other Mommy' is headed for a 60%+ drop after that D+ CinemaScore, and 'Sense and Sensibility' ($8-12M) could slip into third if the horror movie falls apart.