Evenin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on SUNDAY, May 31, 2026.
Where, yes, the NBA Finals are now set for the finest, richest people in the NYC tri-state area to enjoy at MSG.
But the NHL has been no slouch this playoff season either — and it has young women to thank!
Yes, call it the Heated Rivalry effect as ya like — but TNT’s NHL female playoff audience is +66% YoY, and ESPN’s is +106% as we go into the Stanley Cup Finals.
Throw in other aspects like increased interest in the sport following the Winter Olympics and a greater presence on TIKTOK for the league, and a trend is certainly afoot!
AND: If you want to watch FCC honcho Brendan Carr compare the ‘lawlessness’ state of the current broadcast TV environment to that of the environment in the Vietnam War (that’s not a joke), enjoy his appearance on CNBC Friday.
YES: A judge ruled that everyone will have to stop calling the Kennedy Center “the Trump Kennedy Center” — as they were totally doing.
KUDOS: To Dua Lipa and Callum Turner, who got married in a small U.K. ceremony today. Sadly, I had to write this newsletter and couldn’t attend (The Wakeup life is not all glamour, folks).
OH: DISNEY TV opened up its application process for its 2027 writing program.
YEAH: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE’s new mobile phone ordering system seemingly . . . does not have many fans among its core visitors.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE PREDICTION
While taking “over $50M” on Backrooms technically was correct — yeah, this is beyond prognostications.
🎥 The Box Office
Before I get into the mind-blowing numbers in this weekend’s Top 10 to know — which spin do we want to put on the summer 2026 theatrical box office so far?
SPIN 1: The arrival of the YOUTUBE theatrical auteur is here, which is certainly the hottest take out there, and has validity at the moment with 3 examples in the past 4 months (btw, you can now buy/rent Iron Lung on Markiplier’s YT page for $5/$10).
- Is YOUTUBE now the Gen Z equivalent of ’90s Sundance & music videos / ’80s film schools farm systems for Gen X?
- While we could use some more evidence — 3 movies does not a phenomenon make, esp. as there are no more of these kinds of pics on the docket for the rest of 2026 as far as I see — it no doubt opens a new spigot of exciting theatrical talent that I’m certain will only get more theatrical shots on goal over the next couple of years.
SPIN 2: The 2 hottest, buzziest (and most profitable) movies of the summer are from indie players in A24 and FOCUS, and not from the big studio labels (yes, I’m counting FOCUS as indie even though it’s a division of the COMCAST Corporation).
- While this hasn’t really happened in some time (put summer 2023’s Sound of Freedom wherever ya like), this is not a new phenomenon.
- Be sure to send a happy 27th anniversary to The Blair Witch Project in July — a film whose DNA would have also been right at home in these 2026 trends.
HOWEVER: In my mind, the more important takeaway is in the bigger picture nature of what’s going on here — it’s not where the movies came from, per se (YouTubers, indie labels, etc.), but rather what they are:
- Movies from younger talent, being fully embraced by younger audiences they’re intended for.
- These are movies that Gen Z can call “our movies” . . . and not movies made by, for, or starring Gen Z’s parents (or their precious IP) — something the movie business used to do all the time!
- As I say here often, teens and 18-34s are the lifeblood of the movie business, and always will be. Ignore that at your peril — you’ll always be cruelly reminded of that fact if you do.
- And no — I’m not saying all movies should be focused on “the youth,” but this weekend also has a comp for older demo moviegoing in Pressure, a very good film . . . that did about 7% of what Backrooms did (granted, it was only in about half the number of theaters — but that says a lot as well). Moviegoing habits between generations just aren’t the same.
AND: Despite all of the still-persistent takes out there that teens/younger demos spend all of their time on YOUTUBE, social media and streaming, and that they think theatrical movies are for “the olds” — 2 of the most exciting and conversational buzzpoints happening right now in American culture are taking place at the good ‘ol multiplex . . . in a way that those digital platforms just can’t reproduce. (All due respect to 6-7.)
- REMEMBER: This is also reciprocal — if Curry Barker, Markiplier and Kane Parsons put these movies out on YOUTUBE, this would be a very different, and likely smaller, conversation.
- The movie business is still the big leagues, especially financially. (All due respect to YT rev-shares.)
SURE: We’ve seen blips of this kind of thing since Covid (Everything Everywhere, Anyone But You, M3GAN and bigger events like Minecraft and #Barbenheimer), but this almost feels more potent . . . as these May 2026 indie movies are bigger than those other smaller studio pics that overperformed (with much smaller marketing spends and less starpower), and they did not have the IP of those other big studio efforts either.
Certainly, films like Marty Supreme, Weapons and even Sinners (to a degree) also fell in this “our movies” Gen Z boat last year.
So, to me, that’s the real exciting part. Just as millennials had their movies at that age (late 2000s/early 2010s comedies; arguably the MARVEL movies, etc.) and Gen X theirs — many of which still show up as gifs in a certain newsletter — it feels like Gen Z is (finally) having their increasing time with theatrical movies, even if most are falling in the horror genre.
I’ll keep my comedy soapbox in the corner, other than to say someone will crack this at some point for Gen Z as well, and do a hit comedy starring someone under 35. As you’ll see this weekend — those starring comedians in their late 40s aren’t bringing out the kids.
One last thing, before the Top 10…
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