🎬 The Wick Burns Out

👋 Good morning! A24 just turned Manhattan into a dating dystopia with menofny.com, a platform where single New York men can submit themselves to be ranked like stock prices. Inspired by their film 'Materialists,' the site scores guys on wealth, looks, and other "romantic assets," then displays the rankings on NYSE screens and city billboards—because modern dating needed more capitalism, obviously.

Welcome to The Dailies. Monday morning is here and so are we. Pour yourself something caffeinated and we’ll get you caught up on the latest in Hollywood. First things first: let's look at what happened at the box office. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ The wick burns out…

1. 🏄‍♂️ Lilo & Stitch: (Wk 3) $32.5M domestic weekend (-47%), $335.8M domestic total, $772.6M global. Secures its third consecutive #1 weekend, now the fifth-biggest Disney Animation remake domestically and closing in on that coveted $800M global milestone.

2. 🩰 Ballerina: 🆕 $25M domestic opening, $51M global debut. Ana de Armas's ‘John Wick’ spin-off stumbles with the franchise's lowest opening since the original ‘John Wick’ ($14.4M in 2014), tumbling from $35M+ tracking projections. Audiences who saw it loved it (76% RT, 94% audience, A- CinemaScore), but attendance was weak.

3. 🕴️ Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: (Wk 3) $15M domestic weekend (-45%), $149.2M domestic total, $450.4M global. Maintains decent holds while dominating in China with $47.5M, easily the biggest Hollywood film there this year.

4. 🥋 Karate Kid: Legends: (Wk 2) $8.7M domestic weekend (-57%), $35.4M domestic total, $74M global. Sony's nostalgia play continues to underwhelm with a steep second-weekend drop against its $45M budget.

5. 💀 Final Destination: Bloodlines: (Wk 4) $6.5M domestic weekend (-40%), $123.6M domestic total, $257.2M global.

6. 🎭 The Phoenician Scheme: 🆕 $6.25M domestic opening, $7M global debut. Wes Anderson's latest quirky caper underperforms compared to 2023's ‘Asteroid City’ ($9M opening), earning a lukewarm B- CinemaScore.

7. 👻 Bring Her Back: (Wk 2) $3.5M domestic weekend (-50%), $14.1M domestic total. A24's horror follow-up continues its decent run.

8. 📺 Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye: 🆕 $3.1M domestic opening. GKIDS' anime film marks their second-best 2025 opening after ‘Princess Mononoke’ re-release.

9. 🧛 Sinners: (Wk 8) $2.9M domestic weekend (-45%), $272.6M domestic total.

10. ⚡ Thunderbolts*: (Wk 6) $2.5M domestic weekend (-48%), $186.5M domestic total.

The big picture: Hollywood had a perfectly average weekend with $113.4M at the box office—up 8% from last year but down 24% from last week. ‘Ballerina’ learned the hard way that slapping ‘John Wick’ on your movie poster doesn't automatically mean success, opening with just $25M compared to ‘Chapter 4's’ $74M debut. It's the same story we saw with ‘Furiosa’: turns out audiences don't automatically follow when you expand their favorite franchises with new characters. Both movies landed in the mid-$20M range despite having all the right ingredients on paper. Sometimes brand recognition only gets you so far.

CLOSEUP
🤖 BFI just dropped an AI roadmap for British production…

The British Film Institute just dropped a comprehensive roadmap for making the UK the global leader in AI-powered filmmaking. Their new report, ‘AI in the screen sector: perspectives and paths forward,’ released today with one clear mission: help the UK creative sectors "thrive in the age of AI" and make sure "the UK is a global leader in creative technology."

The recommendations are designed to position Britain as the go-to destination for ethical, commercially viable AI-supported content production. Here’s what the BFI wants:

• Create frameworks where creators can actually get paid when AI companies use their content for training (fun fact: 79 deals between content owners and AI companies have already been signed globally between Mar. 2023 and Feb. 2025)

• Formal AI training programs to future-proof workers beyond the current "figure it out yourself" approach

• Build centralized intelligence hubs to track AI trends and provide hands-on experience with emerging tools for the UK's 13,000+ creative technology companies

• Establish carbon impact guidelines for AI use—basically those energy efficiency stickers you see on appliances, but showing how much power AI models burn through

The bigger picture: The UK is trying to figure out how to integrate AI to stay competitive and solve the same problems Hollywood is grappling with. The BFI's recommendations stand in contrast to Silicon Valley's "move fast and break copyright laws" approach where companies have largely trained AI on copyrighted content without permission and dealt with lawsuits afterward.

Looking ahead… If the UK gets this right and successfully builds both the infrastructure and regulatory clarity around AI, it could eventually become the new tax incentives. Instead of "We're shooting in Georgia for the credits," we might hear "We're making it in London for the AI tools."

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

THE AGENCY stars Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Richard Gere in what Newsday calls “One of the Best TV Shows of the Year.” With no shortage of suspense, action and drama, this high-stakes espionage thriller examines the human cost of putting your whole identity on the line for your country and your career. Vulture says “Spy thrillers don’t get much better than this.” Emmy eligible in all categories, including Outstanding Drama Series.

Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

WIDESHOT
🎬 Tonys, Annecy, and FAST…

🎭 The 78th Annual Tony Awards took place last night at Radio City Music Hall, with Cynthia Erivo hosting and celebrating Broadway's most profitable season ever. Several TV and film veterans took home top honors while the ceremony delivered some historic firsts. Here are some highlights:

• Best Play: ‘Purpose’ by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (his second consecutive Tony after last year's ‘Appropriate’)

• Best Musical: ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ (a robot love story by Will Aronson and Hue Park)

• Darren Criss (‘Maybe Happy Ending’), Nicole Scherzinger (‘Sunset Blvd.’), and Sara Snook (‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’), and Cole Escola (‘Oh, Mary!’) all earned their first Tonys

• Netflix success: ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ swept technical categories—apparently streaming wasn’t enough

• See a complete list of winners and historic firsts here. 👈👀

🇫🇷 Oscar-winning animated films can come from anywhere now. The Annecy International Animation Film Festival—one of Europe's premier animation gatherings—kicked off yesterday in the French Alps. For the first time, countries like Nigeria, Vietnam, and various African nations are showing off major projects alongside Disney and Netflix. This global shift makes sense—studios are increasingly investing in international animation while California bleeds talent (the state's share of top productions dropped from 67% to 27% since 2010). The trend has only gained momentum since ‘Flow,’ which won awards at last year's Annecy, became the first indie animated film to snag an Oscar. Now emerging markets aren't just producing content—they're creating prestige projects that compete with Hollywood powerhouses.

📺 Turns out people love free stuff. A new report found ad-supported streaming hit 100M subscriptions, nearly doubling in just two years, while premium services like Netflix and Disney+ have mostly stopped growing. Here's what’s interesting: 65% of people choosing ad-supported plans are brand new viewers, not existing customers downgrading to save money. Meanwhile, free platforms like YouTube now get more watch time than Netflix, and free streaming channels grew 40% while paid services flatlined. The big picture: ad-supported content now captures 72% of all TV viewing, proving the streaming wars have entered a new phase where "free with ads" beats "premium without." That's bad news for studios counting on subscription revenue, but great news for advertisers and viewers who'd rather watch commercials than pay monthly fees.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Mia Goth will play the villain opposite Ryan Gosling in ‘Star Wars: Starfighter,’ a stand-alone film set after ‘The Rise of Skywalker.’ (more)

• Channing Tatum and Brad Pitt are teaming with Amazon MGM Studios for a film and docuseries on the Isle of Man TT motorcycle race. (more)

• Michelle Randolph is in talks to star in ‘Malibu,’ a subterranean horror thriller directed by ‘Paranormal Activity 2’s’ Tod Williams for Screen Gems. (more)

• Rob Riggle and Jordana Brewster will star in ‘The Pirate King,’ a veteran-centered redemption drama about pirate reenactors. (more)

• Craig Brewer will direct Universal’s Snoop Dogg biopic, revising the script and joining producers including Snoop himself. (more)

• ‘Supacell’ creator Andrew “Rapman” Onwubolu will direct Netflix’s crime biopic ‘The Council,’ about Harlem kingpin Nicky Barnes. (more)

• Hulu has acquired an untitled college comedy starring Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Ryan Murphy’s ‘American Love Story’ has cast Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, with Sydney Lemmon and Alessandro Nivola joining. (more)

• ‘The Hunting Wives,’ the thriller series starring Malin Åkerman and Brittany Snow, has moved from Starz to Netflix for a July 21 U.S. premiere. (more)

• Bertie Carvel will play Cornelius Fudge in HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ series, joining the growing ensemble for the high-profile adaptation. (more)

• Doug Jung has joined Amazon’s long-gestating video game adaptation ‘Mass Effect’ series as showrunner. (more)

• Regina Hall has joined Jennifer Garner in Peacock’s upcoming drama ‘The Five-Star Weekend,’ based on Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling novel. (more)

Renewed & Canceled ✅ ❌

• ‘Étoile’ has been canceled by Prime Video after S1, despite an initial two-season order. (more)

• ‘Couples Therapy’ has been renewed for S5 at Paramount+ following a 30% viewership jump during S4. (more)

• ‘Alert’ and ‘The Cleaning Lady’ are cancelled by Fox. (more)

Business 🤝

• Noah Centineo launches Arkhum Productions with dark comedy ‘Our Hero, Balthazar.’ (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments