🎬 Microdramas in Theaters?

👋 Good morning! Microdramas have breached the sacred halls of cinema. Right before the trailers roll, moviegoers will now start seeing previews for the phone-sized vertical series, thanks to a new deal between National CineMedia and aTwist. What's next, Subway Surfers playing along the bottom of the screen during the trailers?

Happy Friday, and happy Juneteenth. We've got streaming numbers, the latest industry news, and a fresh batch of releases to get through before we all clock out for the weekend. Let’s get into it. 👇

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Jun. 10 to Jun. 17. Data provided by Luminate.

While Hollywood's feel-good story lately has been surprise original hits like 'Backrooms' and 'Obsession,' 'Toy Story 5' hits theaters today tracking for the biggest opening of 2026, and a franchise best to boot. It won't have the spotlight for long, though. Two weeks out, Illumination's 'Minions & Monsters' shows up to see whether the summer's big enough for two animated heavyweights. Here's how things are tracking:

So you've got two legacy IP giants going head to head in a year that's been pretty rough on legacy IP. 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' is on track for a reported $100M-plus loss, 'Masters of the Universe' and 'Mortal Kombat II' both underwhelmed.

There's data under the slump, too: Gen Z is now the most active moviegoing demo (Fandango has them at the highest attendance of any generation, roughly seven trips a year), and they told NRG they'd take original content over remakes and sequels 75% of the time. So today is really a test of whether the right animated IP can still get people off the couch. Early tracking says it can.

As for whether these two fight or feed each other, history leans hard toward feed. 'Toy Story 3' and the original 'Despicable Me' opened weeks apart in 2010 and both cleaned up ('Toy Story 3' cleared $1B; 'Despicable Me' launched a franchise). Same in 2013, when 'Monsters University' and 'Despicable Me 2'shared a summer and both flourished. When one of these stumbles, it's almost always the movie, not the neighbor.

From Paramount+ and Executive Producer Taylor Sheridan comes the record-breaking drama series THE MADISON. Michelle Pfeiffer shines in this epic drama about resilience, transformation and the family ties that bind. Variety proclaims, “Michelle Pfeiffer gives a powerhouse performance” in a show RogerEbert.com calls “rock-solid, gripping television.” For your consideration all categories including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress Michelle Pfeiffer, Outstanding Supporting Actor Kurt Russell, Outstanding Guest Actor Will Arnett and Outstanding Director Christina Alexandra Voros.

In the wake of 'Backrooms' (the horror sleeper that grew out of an online scary story and became A24's biggest movie ever), YouTube's gotten most of the attention, since that's where director Kane Parsons (and 'Obsession's’ Curry Barker) built their followings. But Hollywood's also turned to Reddit, where the scouring for source material has kicked into overdrive.

The 'Backrooms' lore was actually built in the r/backrooms subreddit years before Parsons ran with it on YouTube. And studios were already poking around (an r/nosleep horror story became the upcoming feature 'I Pretended to Be a Missing Girl,' produced by and starring Sydney Sweeney), but the film's success has pushed the hunt into a higher gear. Now agents and execs are treating the platform as a real-time IP incubator, which is a polite way of saying they're lurking in subreddits at 2am:

Not everyone thinks Hollywood's learning the right lesson, though. Peter Chernin, whose Chernin Entertainment co-financed 'Backrooms', says Hollywood's pattern-matching to the wrong thing. The bet was never a platform or a creator, he argues, but a specific piece of content and a specific talent that took years of script and production work to land.

📺 Ryan Coogler's Proximity Media has signed an overall TV deal with Netflix. The move lands the 'Sinners' director's company, cofounded with wife Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian, at the streamer after its five-year Disney pact ended. Coogler's still finishing two Disney projects, an 'X-Files' reboot and 'Southern Bastards.'

👻 Curry Barker's next film landed at Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster in an eight-figure deal, with the 'Obsession' filmmaker writing, directing, and producing an original horror feature. It’ll be his third with Blumhouse Atomic Monster, which also produced his already-shot second feature, 'Anything But Ghosts.'

🚫 Netflix canceled the Duffer Brothers' series 'The Boroughs' after one season, even though it was working: a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score and 1.2B Nielsen minutes in its debut week. Sources blame its $10M-plus per-episode budget, though some suspect ties soured after the Duffers' jump to a four-year Paramount deal.

🤝 It's official: Netflix is under contract to buy LA's historic Radford Studio Center for around $400M, way down from its $1.85B 2021 price after lenders led by Goldman Sachs repossessed it. The buy lets Netflix consolidate its footprint and ditch the Hollywood buildings it currently leases from Hudson Pacific through 2031.

🤖 The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously cleared the NO FAKES Act, which targets unauthorized AI deepfakes. It'd let people authorize use of their voice and likeness, demand takedowns, and pass that right to heirs for up to 70 years. Next up: a full Senate floor vote, though it's unclear when that'll be scheduled.

🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING