🎬 Taking Off

👋 Good morning! Scientists just discovered a 500M year-old worm fossil in the Grand Canyon with retractable spiky teeth and a throat that turns inside out. They wanted to name it "Shai-Hulud" after Dune's sandworms, but that was already taken by some other fossil (sad). This newly-discovered worm “would have been better to get that name because the resemblance is quite uncanny," says paleontologist Giovanni Mussini. They settled for Kraytdraco spectatus, named after a Star Wars monster instead.

Happy Wednesday and welcome to The Dailies. Grab your coffee and we’ll get you up to speed on the latest Hollywood news. Friend forwarded this email? Make it official and sign up here.

CLOSEUP
👊 Paramount enters the octagon with $7.7B…

David Ellison just made his first big swing at Paramount. The newly-minted CEO struck a $7.7B media rights deal with TKO Group for exclusive UFC content over seven years, more than doubling what ESPN currently pays for the mixed martial arts league.

Starting in 2026, all UFC fights move to Paramount+ with no extra pay-per-view fees. Fans who used to pay $80 per big fight will get everything for just the monthly subscription ($8-$13). Here’s the breakdown:

• The price tag is $1.1B annually, up from ESPN's $500-550M deal that expires next year

• The competition was fierce: Paramount beat out Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, who all wanted pieces but not the whole pie

• The strategy banks on year-round UFC programming (no off-season!) as the anti-churn weapon Paramount+ desperately needs

• With UFC's roughly 100M fans across platforms, Ellison's hoping to convert them into Paramount+ subscribers

• This could swing the recently profitable Paramount+ back into the red, but Ellison's betting the subscriber growth will be worth the short-term pain

The big picture: Between this and the recent South Park renewal, Ellison's committed over $9B to streaming content in his first week. With Paramount+ holding just 2% of U.S. viewing time (versus Netflix's 8.3%), Ellison needs something drastic like this to compete.

CLOSEUP
📺 Local TV stations just put up the ‘for sale’ signs…

Small and mid-sized TV station owners can't make it alone anymore. Three big moves this week show everyone's either buying, selling, or merging:

• Sinclair is shopping itself: The owner of 178 local stations (your local ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox affiliates) is exploring everything from a full sale, to breaking itself apart. Yesterday, they made their first move and sold their NewsOn streaming service to Zeam.

• Nexstar is in talks to acquire Tegna: A merger between Nexstar (200+ stations) and Tegna (64 stations) would create a broadcast giant reaching nearly every U.S. household.

• Gray Media is buying Allen Media stations: Byron Allen's selling 10 stations for $171M to tackle his $1.5B debt load, a cautionary tale of over-leveraging in a declining market.

Why the sudden rush to consolidate? Cord-cutting is crushing revenue. The huge retransmission fees cable companies paid to carry local channels are vanishing. Meanwhile, advertising dollars are increasingly flowing to Google, Meta, and YouTube instead of local TV.

Without scale, stations simply can't compete. They need size to get better rates from networks for programming, attract major advertisers, and spread costs across more properties. As Sinclair's CEO put it:

The regulatory dam just broke, too. For decades, the government limited how many TV stations one company could own. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr just called these rules "arcane" and "artificial." Translation: Washington won’t block these mega-mergers anymore.

The big picture: Even today's big players aren't big enough. Instead of dozens of regional station owners, we're heading toward 3-4 national giants controlling local TV.

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM THE STUDIO
Lights! Camera! Action! THE STUDIO nabs 23 Emmy Nominations

Seth Rogen stars as Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of embattled Continental Studios. As movies struggle to stay alive and relevant, Matt and his core team of infighting executives battle their insecurities as they wrangle narcissistic artists and craven corporate overlords in the ever-elusive pursuit of making great films. “The Studio” is the most Emmy®-nominated comedy series this year with 23 nominations including Outstanding Comedy Series. Stream all episodes on Apple TV+.

WIDESHOT
🎬 ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ anime, and voice actors…

🎤 Netflix's latest animated hit is heading to theaters. The streamer is taking 'KPop Demon Hunters' to the big screen for a limited sing-along event on Aug. 23-24, capitalizing on its success as Netflix's most popular animated movie ever with 26.3M views and a No. 1 Billboard hit with ‘Golden.’ Netflix has been trying to build a Disney-like IP ecosystem, and this hit has the franchise potential they’ve been looking for. The irony is that the app once referred to as “the theater killer” is now using theaters to create the communal experiences and cultural moments that build lasting fandoms.

🛫 Anime is taking off... literally. Sony-owned Crunchyroll partnered with Delta Air Lines to bring 2,000+ anime titles to the airline's 169,000 seatback screens later this year. The deal includes 50,000+ episodes spanning every genre. With such an extensive library, fans can binge entire seasons, while newcomers can sample different series and will even get a 24-hour Crunchyroll trial to keep watching after landing. The deal’s yet another sign of anime's growing mainstream momentum: Netflix recently reported that over 50% of its global users now watch anime, triple the viewership from five years ago.

🎙️ Voice actors are deciding whether to lend their talents to AI. Tech giants are dangling unprecedented paychecks to help train their AI assistants. Microsoft recently posted a job offering $80k for just 19 hours of work, significantly more than typical national brand campaigns. Here’s the thing: those 19 recorded hours will generate thousands of hours of AI-generated content, potentially eliminating future work. Some actors call it a "Faustian bargain," trading tomorrow's jobs for today's windfall. Others are taking the money, viewing AI assistant work as "industrial" (think phone menus and training videos) rather than creative performance.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Angelina Jolie will star in spy thriller ‘The Initiative,’ reuniting with ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ director Doug Liman for Universal. (more)

• Noah Centineo will star in Millennium’s ‘John Rambo’ origin film. (more)

• Chris O’Dowd has joined Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial.’ (more)

• Stavros Halkias has joined A24’s Anthony Bourdain biopic ‘Tony.’ (more)

• A24 has acquired worldwide rights to Ian Tuason’s horror debut ‘The Undertone’ after its Fantasia Fest premiere. (more)

• Universal has moved ‘Shrek 5’ to June 30, 2027, with an untitled Illumination event film now opening April 16, 2027. (more)

• Sony has acquired Justin and Jordan Shipley’s comedy screenplay ‘This Could Be Our Night.’ (more)

• LaKeith Stanfield, Jason Clarke, Sam Claflin, and Trevante Rhodes have joined Taylor Sheridan’s action thriller ‘F.A.S.T.’ at Warner Bros. (more)

• Max Minghella is in talks to join DC Studios’ ‘Clayface,’ set for release on Sept. 11, 2026. (more)

• Rachel Marsh, Nicholas Duvernay, Jaboukie Young-White, and Arty Froushan have joined Amazon MGM’s rom-com ‘The Love Hypothesis.’ (more)

TV Development 📺

• William H. Macy will star in Dan Fogelman’s untitled NFL drama series for Hulu alongside Christopher Meloni. (more)

• Kevin Hart is partnering with Netflix on an untitled stand-up competition series debuting in 2026 to find comedy’s next big star. (more)

• John Malkovich will guest star in Apple TV+’s romantic comedy series ‘Prodigies’ alongside Will Sharpe and Ayo Edebiri. (more)

• Craig Mazin is executive producing HBO’s mystery thriller ‘Blackout Room’ from ‘Nine Days’ filmmaker Edson Oda. (more)

Business 🤝

• AMC Theatres Q2 revenue jumped 36% to $1.39B amid a strong box office rebound. (more)

• Jonathan Lisco has signed a multi-year overall deal with Warner Bros. Television and HBO Max. (more)

• Netflix has signed a multi-year first-look deal with Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions. (more)

• ESPN and Fox will launch a $39.99/month bundle of their new streaming services, debuting Oct. 2. (more)

• NBCUniversal will keep the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Senior Open through 2032 under a new USGA deal. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Park Chan-wook denied violating WGA strike rules on HBO’s ‘The Sympathizer’ after being expelled from the guild. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments