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👋 Good morning! Everyone's publishing "movies that are secretly the Odyssey" lists right now, so we made our own. It's on Letterboxd, it spans 1905 to Nolan, and yes, SpongeBob made the cut (scholars agree he's the most faithful one; peer reviewed). Surely incomplete, because sooner or later every movie is just a guy trying to get home, and a line had to be drawn somewhere.
Welcome back to The Dailies. It's humpday, downhill from here (allegedly). Let's get you caught up. 👇
CLOSEUP
🇨🇳 China rolls out the red carpet for ‘The Odyssey’…
For one week in August, IMAX China will essentially be a Christopher Nolan museum. The exhibitor is handing basically its entire 800-screen network to 'The Odyssey' when it opens in mainland China on Aug. 14, with IMAX China CEO Daniel Manwaring figuring "a very large majority of our entire network, if not all of our network" will be playing it.
Nolan and Matt Damon land in Beijing tomorrow, where the state-run China National Film Museum will host its first-ever red carpet for a commercial film (the venue does have Hollywood history, though: it hosted 'Avatar's’ original Chinese IMAX launch). Some details:
Previews hit Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen this weekend, ahead of the Aug. 14 wide release
Tickets aren't on sale yet, but 252K+ people have already wishlisted the film on Maoyan, China's go-to ticketing app (more than any other upcoming import)
In Hong Kong and Taiwan, where it's already playing, IMAX screens account for over 30% of the film's box office
For reference: 'Oppenheimer' earned $66.8M in China, over 30% of it from IMAX
Manwaring chalks it all up to the "Christopher Nolan effect." The director is "bigger than any movie star" in China, he says, with a fanbase that's "not just enormous but extremely sticky." The man is personally fielding 50-60 WeChat ticket requests a day, a group chat situation we wouldn't wish on anyone.
About that market: China used to be an automatic chunk of any blockbuster's global haul. Now it's a slot machine: 'Zootopia 2' just became the biggest Hollywood film ever there ($630M), while 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' fell well short of the franchise's usual China numbers. Factor in China's April 2025 vow to "moderately reduce" American imports during the tariff war, and every big US release now carries the same question: does Hollywood still play here?
Looking ahead… On paper, 'The Odyssey' is a tough sell anywhere: R-rated, three hours, zero franchise. But the film's already sailed past $652M globally without China, Korea, or Japan, and if Nolan's Chinese faithful show up in force, some watchers say $1.3B isn't out of the question.
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ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…
CBS News chief Bari Weiss (Noam Galai/Getty Images)
📰 '60 Minutes' named four new correspondents: NYT columnist Ross Douthat, author Sebastian Junger, filmmaker Gianna Toboni, and ex-politician Trevor Phillips. They replace longtime correspondents ousted by CBS News chief Bari Weiss, who's betting opinion writers and documentarians can win over younger, digital audiences.
😬 Emily Wilson, the acclaimed translator Christopher Nolan once cited, torched 'The Odyssey' in a viral London Review of Books piece, calling the script "abysmal" and saying she'd be "ashamed" to have written it. …other than that, it sounds like she loved it. The review crashed LRB's website Monday.
🏆 The Hollywood Foreign Press Association wants its Golden Globes back, suing Penske Media (owner of Variety, THR, and Deadline) for allegedly orchestrating a boycott to force the awards' sale. The HFPA seeks $150M+ and the Globes back. Variety declined to comment to Variety.
📺 Streaming underdog Peacock is coming to YouTube Premium, with all $16-a-month subscribers getting NBCU's streamer at no extra cost starting in early 2027. Unlike most bundles, Peacock content will live natively inside the YouTube app rather than sending viewers to a separate app.
STATISTIC
📉 Peak TV is now half TV…
Peak TV is now a historical era, like disco or the Roman Republic. Just 517 US-produced series premiered a season (new or returning) in the first half of 2026, per Luminate's new midyear report. That's almost 100 fewer than this time last year, and year four of the slide. Some numbers:
Overall output is down 44% from the 2022 peak: 930 premieres in H1 2022 vs. 517 this year
The decline has been remarkably steady, with premieres falling roughly 10-15% every year since
Cable has fallen hardest, going from 508 originals in H1 2022 to 267 this year (a 47% drop)
Streaming premieres slipped another 12% year over year, while broadcast is down to just 43 premieres
Audiences barely noticed, though: viewership of streaming originals dipped only 4% and remains higher than it was a few years ago
The takeaway: People are watching almost as much TV as ever while Hollywood makes about half as much of it. For the studios, that math suggests the cuts are working. For the broader Hollywood ecosystem, unfortunately, the report finds no sign of the trend reversing or even slowing down.
LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️
Michael Johnston, the breakout from 'Obsession,' is in talks to join Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz in Universal's 'Mummy 4.' (more)
Jennifer Aniston and Peter Dinklage will star in Olivia Wilde's holiday comedy 'Naughty,' which Universal has penciled in for Nov. 2027. (more)
New Line Cinema has won a bidding war for Theo James Krekis’ horror feature 'Jealous People Are Ugly People.' (more)
Regina Hall has joined Dwayne Johnson in Benny Safdie’s live-action/CGI film 'Lizard Music.' (more)
Alexandra Daddario will star in the indie drama 'American Fever Dream.' (more)
TV Development 📺
The 'Power' universe is coming to Netflix, which licensed the franchise's first four series from Lionsgate Television starting this November. (more)
Dan Brown's Robert Langdon has a new face: Morgan Spector will play the professor in Netflix's series adaptation of 'The Secret of Secrets.' (more)
MGM+ has picked up the Anna Kendrick, Sam Heughan, and J.K. Simmons thriller 'Embassy.' (more)
Mike Flanagan is in talks to executive produce Henry Cavill’s 'Warhammer 40,000' series at Amazon. (more)
Business 🤝
NATAS and the Television Academy are in talks to reunite nearly 50 years after splitting into separate organizations. (more)
John Wells is staying put at Warner Bros. Television, signing a new overall deal that runs through 2030. (more)
BuzzFeed is laying off about 180 employees, or 35% of its workforce, in its first major restructuring under Byron Allen. (more)
Warnamount ⛙
Paramount CEO David Ellison reassured Paramount staffers in a Monday memo that the merger will prevail, signing off with "Let's go!" (more)
Some Warner Bros. Discovery execs are quietly rooting for the states' antitrust lawsuit to sink the Paramount deal. (more)
Ari Emanuel, whose TKO sold Paramount its $7.7B UFC rights, penned a WSJ op-ed urging the state AGs to drop their antitrust lawsuit. (more)
Other News 🚨
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-The Dailies Team
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