News
Paramount's Warner bid has a deadline nobody is discussing
The $31-a-share offer has been reported everywhere. The clock attached to it, which starts running on 30 September, has not.
Marcus Dey2 min2.2K reads
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Box Office
Drishyam 3 made in five days what Drishyam 2 made in its whole run
Drishyam 2 took 56 days to gross ₹342.31 crore worldwide. Drishyam 3: The Conclusion reached ₹341.90 crore by Tuesday, its fifth day, passing the Malayalam original's entire run on the way.
News
Skydance's Warner debt costs six times what its studios earn
Skydance closed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery on 6 October and filed the bond schedule the same day. Multiply each principal by its coupon and the fixed-rate notes cost $3.22bn a year. Warner's and Paramount's film studios earned $132m between them in the most recent quarter either reported.
News
The Batman Part II has slipped 868 days. Now filming has stopped
The Batman Part II is booked for 18 February 2028, which is 2,177 days after the first film opened. No Batman film has made its direct sequel wait that long, and the schedule has now moved three times before a camera stopped rolling.
News
De Luca and Abdy exit Warner with one earner from six auteur bets
Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy handed six famous directors a budget and no franchise to hide behind. Those six films cost between $653m and $733m to produce and have grossed $959.7m worldwide. Only Sinners made money.
News
Cinema United's $1.2bn of cinema upgrades is $36,000 a screen
Cinema United says North American exhibitors reinvested $2.7bn over two years. Its own figures show the annual total fell from $1.5bn to $1.2bn, and that $220m of the $300m drop came from outside the eight biggest chains.
News
Ynon Kreiz released two films in eight years. Paramount owes 30 a year
Mattel Films existed for 2,948 days and put two films into cinemas: Barbie and Masters of the Universe. The consent decree approved on Wednesday obliges the merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to release 30 a year, or pay $30m a film.
Streaming
Cindy Holland lasted 418 days at Paramount. HBO's Bloys inherits it
Holland ran Paramount's direct-to-consumer business for 418 days. Casey Bloys has run HBO's programming for roughly 3,800, which is longer than Paramount+ has existed. A judge cleared the merger on Wednesday.
News
Vashu Bhagnani's UK company owes £10m, 87% of it to a UAE firm
Pooja Entertainment UK Limited's statement of affairs, filed on 17 September, puts its debts at £10,085,267.92. A single creditor in the United Arab Emirates accounts for £8,752,652.35 of it.
News
The day in film and television: deals, casting, production starts and the moves that reshape a slate.
News
Skydance's Warner debt costs six times what its studios earn
Skydance closed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery on 6 October and filed the bond schedule the same day. Multiply each principal by its coupon and the fixed-rate notes cost $3.22bn a year. Warner's and Paramount's film studios earned $132m between them in the most recent quarter either reported.
News
The Batman Part II has slipped 868 days. Now filming has stopped
The Batman Part II is booked for 18 February 2028, which is 2,177 days after the first film opened. No Batman film has made its direct sequel wait that long, and the schedule has now moved three times before a camera stopped rolling.
News
De Luca and Abdy exit Warner with one earner from six auteur bets
Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy handed six famous directors a budget and no franchise to hide behind. Those six films cost between $653m and $733m to produce and have grossed $959.7m worldwide. Only Sinners made money.
The Grapevine
What the industry is whispering about — feuds, rewrites, walkouts and the stories behind the official statement.
The Grapevine
Higgsfield's 4-star Trustpilot score rests on reviews it asked for
We counted the 200 most recent Trustpilot reviews of Higgsfield and sorted them by who asked for them. Invited reviewers give the AI video company 4.4 stars. Unprompted ones give it 3.5, and 31% give it one. Archived snapshots show the score climbing from 2.8 to 4.0 in nine months, and when the turn came.
The Grapevine
Higgsfield faces scam claims as 'unlimited' AI renders take hours
Higgsfield launched a 33-day 'unlimited' offer on 7 August with a published average render time under five minutes. Within eleven days paying users were reporting waits of two hours and more. The refund window had already closed. Here is the timeline, the small print and the complaints on file.
The Grapevine
Coyote vs. Acme went from tax write-off to a $15.4m opening
The Looney Tunes film Warner buried for a tax break opened in second place and held third over Labor Day. The numbers are ordinary, which is exactly the embarrassing part.
Box Office
Weekend numbers, breakevens and what a result actually means for the people who greenlit it.
Box Office
Drishyam 3 made in five days what Drishyam 2 made in its whole run
Drishyam 2 took 56 days to gross ₹342.31 crore worldwide. Drishyam 3: The Conclusion reached ₹341.90 crore by Tuesday, its fifth day, passing the Malayalam original's entire run on the way.
Box Office
Avengers: Endgame is $38.2m from a record built on five re-releases
Avatar's $2,923,710,708 contains $180,133,121 its original release did not earn. Avengers Endgame: Encore has taken $86,106,643 back in three days, and needs $38,164,965 more.
Box Office
La Bola Negra outsold Avengers: Endgame 3.6 to 1 in Spanish cinemas
La Bola Negra sold 613,240 tickets in Spain for €4,673,201, an average of €7.62 a head against a market average of €7.75. Avengers: Endgame Encore, second in the same chart, averaged €8.60.
Streaming
What is landing on the services, what is quietly disappearing, and how the platforms are changing their bets.
Streaming
Cindy Holland lasted 418 days at Paramount. HBO's Bloys inherits it
Holland ran Paramount's direct-to-consumer business for 418 days. Casey Bloys has run HBO's programming for roughly 3,800, which is longer than Paramount+ has existed. A judge cleared the merger on Wednesday.
Streaming
Bob Chapek defends his price rises as Disney+ hits $21.49 a month
The last Disney+ price rise Chapek approved took effect eighteen days after the board sacked him. It put the ad-free tier at $10.99. On Wednesday it reached $21.49, and the gap between the ad-free and ad-supported plans has tripled to exactly $9.00.
Streaming
Spider-Noir cancelled at Prime Video in Spider-Man's record week
Amazon has now retired both series announced under its Sony Marvel television pact, and it dropped the second one in the week the Spider-Man film franchise set domestic box office records.