- The Dailies
- Posts
- 🎬 Rivals Unite for Tax Wishlist
🎬 Rivals Unite for Tax Wishlist
Networks battle for ad dollars, studios and unions send a tax wishlist to Trump, journalists want access to stars, and MORE!
In partnership with
👋 Good morning! Movie lovers, grab your calendars and circle every Wednesday in permanent marker. Starting July 9, AMC Theaters is slashing ticket prices by 50% on Wednesdays for all AMC Stubs members (which is free to join, by the way). The mid-week experiment aims to boost pre-weekend crowds between summer tentpoles 'Jurassic World: Rebirth' and 'Superman.' Tuesday discount day, you've officially got competition.
Welcome aboard The Dailies, your industry lifeline for when "did you hear about..." conversations start and you need to nod knowingly. Grab your coffee and we’ll get you caught up on the latest Hollywood news.
🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:
Upfronts Recap
Hollywood’s Tax Wishlist
Press Frozen Out at Cannes
LA’s New Broadcasting Hub
Last Looks: 👀 Bite-sized scoops on developing stories/projects
Video Village: The latest trailers
Martini Shot 🍸
CLOSEUP
💸 Networks are courting ad dollars at upfronts…
The TV industry's annual ad-buying extravaganza is in full swing in New York City. Networks are trotting out celebrities and sizzle reels to pitch their shows and ad tech to cautious advertisers. We’ll skip the executive speeches and celeb cameos—after NBCUniversal, Fox, Amazon, and Disney's presentations, here's what's actually shaping this year's negotiations (so far):
Sports rights are king: Live sports dominate every presentation. NBC touted a $2.5B NBA deal (starting 2026), Amazon showcased its NBA package, Fox highlighted its NFL streaming strategy for fall, and Disney unveiled its ESPN streamer launching this fall.
"Flexibility" is the magic word: Economic uncertainty has advertisers wanting to be able to shift spending between platforms, reallocate across programming, or reduce commitments if the economy worsens.
Scripted content is fading fast: NBC has just seven scripted series in its fall lineup, while Fox dedicates only 4 of 15-16 primetime hours to scripted shows. Procedurals, game shows, and reality competitions now dominate the landscape where new dramas and comedies once reigned.
Streaming-broadcast lines are gone: Shows that would have been network flagships a few years ago (like NBC's ‘Office’ spinoff ‘The Paper’) are now streaming-first productions with shorter runs.
Ad tech is the new battleground: Disney's AI contextual ad system and Amazon's shoppable video ads represent the new frontier as companies compete on targeting technology rather than just content. Netflix will likely showcase its new in-house ad tech during today's presentation.
What’s next? Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, and YouTube are set to present later today.
INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
Use AI as Your Personal Assistant
Ready to save precious time and let AI do the heavy lifting?
Save time and simplify your unique workflow with HubSpot’s highly anticipated AI Playbook—your guide to smarter processes and effortless productivity.
WIDESHOT
🎬 A letter to the President, press, and sound stages…
📨 Hollywood's power players slide into Trump’s DMs. On Monday, a team of entertainment unions, studios, and two of President Trump’s Hollywood ambassadors (including Jon Voight) sent the president their tax wishlist. Instead of responding to Trump’s recently-proposed 100% tariff on foreign films, the team suggested three federal tax breaks that would make filming in America more affordable: reviving deductions that treat filmmaking as manufacturing, increasing the cap on immediate production expense write-offs from $15M to $30M, and letting studios use past losses to offset tax bills in profitable years. The letter highlights the industry's $15.3B trade surplus—meaning American films earn way more internationally than foreign films make here—positioning this as strengthening America's global economic position, not just a handout for Hollywood. The ball is now in Congress's court, as these tax breaks would need to be added to the budget bill currently moving through Capitol Hill.
📸 Press passes are losing their power at film festivals. More than 100 international film journalists have signed an open protest ahead of Cannes, demanding better access to talent interviews. The movement follows similar actions at Venice and San Sebastian festivals, revealing a growing industry shift away from traditional journalism toward controlled promotional content. Despite A-listers like Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, and Joaquin Phoenix attending Cannes this year, journalists face "fewer, shorter and more lightweight" interviews, yielding only "one-liner clickbait." Studios and publicists are increasingly bypassing traditional media gatekeepers for direct-to-consumer messaging through social media and influencer partnerships. Journalists warn this trend threatens not just their livelihoods but the entire film culture ecosystem, potentially reducing prestigious festivals to "mere marketing elements and dumbed-down promotional speeches."
👷 When life gives you vacant studios, build more studios? Rams owner Stan Kroenke is constructing Hollywood Park Studios next to SoFi Stadium, starting with five massive soundstages and offices. The facility will first serve as a broadcasting hub for the 2028 Olympics before transitioning to regular film and TV production. What makes this move surprising? L.A. soundstage vacancy has skyrocketed lately, with occupancy dropping from 93.5% to just 63%. Kroenke seems unfazed, planning for up to 20 stages eventually. His advantage lies in creating a complete entertainment campus where everything connects—stadium, theater, offices, and housing—all in one 300-acre complex. Plus, the Olympic broadcasting deal provides guaranteed initial revenue while the broader production market recovers. While smaller studios struggle with empty stages, Kroenke's deep pockets allow him to play the long game, betting on a post-Olympic production boom.
LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️
Jennifer Garner will star in sci-fi drama ‘Zygote’ as a crisis negotiator sent to the International Space Station for a mission that may be her last. (more)
Matt Ross will direct ‘City on Fire’, the crime thriller starring Austin Butler and based on the bestselling novel, for Sony’s 3000 Pictures. (more)
Mads Mikkelsen will star in Arctic thriller ‘Sirius,’ the directorial debut of Oscar-winning editor Lee Smith, set for wide release via Decal. (more)
Zoë Kravitz and Nicholas Hoult reunite for David Leitch’s ‘How to Rob a Bank’ at Amazon MGM Studios, set to hit theaters in 2026. (more)
Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Green, and Maria Pedraza will star in ‘Just Play Dead,’ a twisted thriller about faked deaths and double-crosses. (more)
Amanda Seyfried and Scoot McNairy will star in ‘The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd,’ a prison break thriller from Tim Blake Nelson. (more)
Cannes Market 🇫🇷
Tim Roth leads action-thriller ‘Seven Snipers,’ now in post and scoring global pre-sales ahead of its Cannes market debut.’ (more)
Neon picks up ‘Fjord,’ a family drama starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve from Cristian Mungiu. (more)
Lionsgate picks up U.S. rights to true-crime thriller ‘Golden State Killer,’ starring Vincent Gallo and James Franco. (more)
Michael Cera will make his directorial debut with ‘Love Is Not The Answer,’ a comedy starring Pamela Anderson, Steve Coogan, and more. (more)
Mick Jagger is producing ‘Miles & Juliette,’ a romance about a young Miles Davis starring Damson Idris and Anamaria Vartolomei. (more)
TV Development 📺
Versant, NBCUniversal’s rebranded cable portfolio, has unveiled a packed 2025-26 slate featuring 16 new originals. (more)
Patrick Dempsey returns to network TV in Fox’s ‘Memory of a Killer,’ playing a hitman battling Alzheimer’s while protecting his family. (more)
Jude Law and Andrew Garfield will star as Siegfried and Roy in Apple TV+’s ‘Wild Things,’ an eight-part limited series. (more)
Amazon orders ‘Delphi,’ a Creed universe TV series set at the iconic boxing gym, with Michael B. Jordan executive producing. (more)
Prime Video orders a ‘Barbershop’ series starring Jermaine Fowler, bringing the iconic Chicago shop back to life. (more)
Renewed & Canceled ✅ ❌
Business 🤝
VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers
MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest trends & viral moments
INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
What do you want to build?
Prompt, run, edit, and deploy full-stack web and mobile apps with Bolt by Stackblitz.
Wednesday roundup: fin! If you're reading this because a friend forwarded you this email, it’s time to cut out the middleman—just hit that subscribe button and join the party. 📧👇
Until Friday’s episode…
-The Dailies Team
Reply