🎬 Underdogs Win

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👋 Good morning! The Emmys tried something new last night: Host Nate Bargatze pledged $100,000 to charity, but deducted $1,000 for every second winners went over their 45-second acceptance speech limit. By night's end, the donation counter had swung into the red as emotional winners understandably struggled to squeeze their thank-yous into such a tight window. In the end, CBS and Bargatze made sure the charity still walked away with $350,000.

Welcome to The Dailies. Monday means Emmy winners, weekend box office numbers, and plenty of news to unpack. Grab your coffee and we'll get you caught up. 👇

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ Who said September was slow?

1. 👹 Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle: 🆕 $70M domestic opening, $386.3M global debut. The anime trilogy starter (playing in both dubbed and subtitled versions) shattered records, marking the best opening ever for an anime title (beating Pokémon's $31M record from 1999), the best ever for Crunchyroll, Sony's biggest opening in two years, and the 6th biggest September opening of all time.

2. 👻 The Conjuring: Last Rites: (Wk 2) $26.1M domestic weekend (-69%), $131.1M domestic total, $332.9M global. The $55M-budgeted horror sequel dropped hard this weekend, but it's already the second-highest grossing Conjuring film domestically, just $6M shy of the original.

3. 🏰 Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale: 🆕 $18.1M domestic opening, $30.4M global debut. Focus Features' $50M period drama performed solidly with older audiences (57% over 55) but couldn't match the original film's $31M opening from 2019.

4. 🚶 The Long Walk: 🆕 $11.5M domestic opening. Lionsgate's $20M Stephen King adaptation delivered modest results despite strong reviews (90% on Rotten Tomatoes), falling short of other recent King adaptations.

5. 🧸 Toy Story (30th Anniversary): 🔄 $3.5M domestic for the re-release. Disney's anniversary showing of the Pixar classic drew families back to theaters, adding to the film's lifetime total of $370.5M domestically.

6. 🔫 Weapons: (Wk 6) $2.7M domestic weekend (-48%), $147.5M domestic total.

7. 🎭 Hamilton: (Wk 2) $2.2M domestic weekend (-78%), $15M domestic total.

8. 😱 Freakier Friday: (Wk 6) $2.1M domestic weekend (-46%), $91.1M domestic total, $146.2M global.

9. 🎸 Spinal Tap II: The End Continues: 🆕 $1.7M domestic opening. The mockumentary sequel barely registered on a $22.6M budget despite the original's cult status and an A- CinemaScore from those who showed up.

10. 🎵 The Sound of Music (60th Anniversary): 🔄 $1.5M domestic for the re-release.

The bigger picture: All told, the weekend brought in $147.9M, which is up 36.7% from this same weekend last year. September's usually a pretty sleepy month at the box office, but 2025 is definitely breaking that pattern with some serious overperformers. Between last weekend's 'Conjuring: Last Rites' and this frame's 'Demon Slayer,' the month is way ahead of where anyone expected it to be. That momentum should benefit Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another' with Leonardo DiCaprio, which hits theaters September 26.

Anime’s not niche anymore: The global market's on track to hit $60B by 2030, streaming's made it way more accessible, and 'Demon Slayer' just showed everyone that the genre can compete directly with Hollywood blockbusters.

CLOSEUP
🏆 The 77th Emmy Awards were last night…

First-time host Nate Bargatze presided over television's biggest night last night at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with the ceremony airing on CBS this year. Everyone's calling it one of the most surprising Emmy nights in years, with underdogs beating heavy favorites across major categories. Some highlights:

• 'The Studio' ended up with 12 total awards, breaking the single-season record 'The Bear' set last year. Seth Rogen won Lead Actor and shared directing and writing wins with Evan Goldberg.

• 'Adolescence' basically swept Limited Series with 6 awards including the top prize, Lead Actor for Stephen Graham, Supporting Actor for 15-year-old Owen Cooper who's now the youngest male Emmy winner ever, and Supporting Actress for Erin Doherty.

• Here's the big one: 'The Pitt' beat 'Severance' for Outstanding Drama Series even though 'Severance' had 27 nominations. Noah Wyle finally won Lead Actor in a Drama after 7 previous noms.

• 'Severance' did get something though: Tramell Tillman won Supporting Actor and Britt Lower beat Kathy Bates for Lead Actress, which nobody saw coming.

• 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' won Outstanding Talk Series, and when Colbert showed up as the first presenter, he got a standing ovation from the crowd.

• Jean Smart got her 4th Emmy for 'Hacks,' while Hannah Einbinder won Supporting Actress.

• 'The Bear' went home empty-handed despite multiple noms.

• Other surprises: Jeff Hiller from 'Somebody Somewhere' beat Harrison Ford for Supporting Comedy, and Stephen Graham beat Colin Farrell for Limited Series Lead Actor.

• Streamers dominated: Netflix ('Adolescence'), Apple TV+ ('The Studio,' 'Severance'), and HBO Max ('The Pitt,' 'Hacks') split all the major series awards. Broadcast TV only won for late-night shows.

Check out the full list of winners here. 👈👀

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Sean Astin, TIFF winners, and SAG-AFTRA…

🗳️ Sean Astin is SAG-AFTRA's new president. The 'Lord of the Rings' star won the union’s national election with 79% of the vote. He’ll be taking over from Fran Drescher as the 160,000-member union prepares for high-stakes 2026 negotiations with studios. His running mate Michelle Hurd took secretary-treasurer. Interestingly, only 17% of members cast ballots—quite the drop from 26% when Drescher first won in 2021. It's looking like the union's leaning toward collaboration over confrontation going into next year's negotiations. Astin, who served on the negotiating committee during 2023's strikes, is already saying it's in both parties' interest to get a good deal. He plans to start by meeting staff and visiting local chapters.

🏆 Chloé Zhao just became the first director to win TIFF's People's Choice Award twice. Her Shakespeare adaptation 'Hamnet' took the audience-voted top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, with Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' as runner-up and Rian Johnson's latest Knives Out mystery placing third. Zhao previously won in 2020 for 'Nomadland,' which went on to sweep the Oscars. TIFF's track record speaks for itself: 15 of the last 17 People's Choice winners scored Best Picture nominations, and five of those took home the statue. Given that this year's top three finishers are all awards season veterans, the 2026 Oscar race is basically underway. See the full list of TIFF winners here.

💰 SAG-AFTRA's "Robin Hood fund" is finally launching after a two-year wait. The streaming revenue-sharing mechanism, officially called the SAG-AFTRA-Producers Success Bonus Distribution Fund, was a marquee win from the 2023 actors' strike but took nearly two years to implement. The fund distributes money from successful streaming shows to performers beyond A-listers, marking the first time background actors, stand-ins, and stunt riggers will receive backend payments. Initially the fund was pitched as industry-wide wealth redistribution, but the final version is more targeted: payments go to performers on successful shows rather than a general union pool. Drescher called it "the last puzzle piece" of her tenure as she exits the union presidency.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Nintendo and Illumination have set the title for their sequel, ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’ arriving in theaters April 3, 2026. (more)

• Rhys Darby, Beverly D’Angelo, Matt Friend and Natasha Leggero have boarded rom-com ‘Grace Period,’ which has wrapped filming. (more)

• Lin Shaye and Amelia Eve will star in Blumhouse and Sony’s next ‘Insidious’ movie, directed by Jacob Chase for 2026 release. (more)

• Netflix picked up holiday feature pitch ‘South Pole Santa,’ with ‘SNL’’s Colin Jost set to produce. (more)

TV Development 📺

• A24 is closing in on film and TV rights to ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,’ with a series from JT Mollner, Roy Lee and Glen Powell up first. (more)

• Ego Nwodim is exiting ‘SNL’ after seven seasons, ahead of the show’s S51 premiere on October 4. (more)

• Chris Parnell, Katelyn Tarver and David Hornsby have joined Will Ferrell’s untitled Netflix golf comedy series. (more)

• Tony Hale leads the cast of Hulu comedy pilot ‘Don’t Get High,’ from creator Megan Ganz. (more)

• Luciane Buchanan confirmed she won’t return to ‘The Night Agent’ for S3, while continuing in Apple TV+’s ‘Chief of War.’ (more)

• Netflix renewed ‘The Hunting Wives’ for S2, which will stream globally as a Netflix Original with the main cast returning. (more)

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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