Mornin! 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 Friday, June 19, 2026.
Where a hat’s off goes out to Jalen Brunson for quashing the biggest beef of the NBA Finals.
AND: The Traitors is the new Office at NBC, or at least it is on the schedule: The Traitors: New Blood will debut in the Thursday 8 p.m. slot on Sept. 17. This version will feature normies and not celebs.
ALSO: F1 fans, APPLE TV is making this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix available free to everyone in the U.S. The race is at 9 a.m. Sunday morning (practice/qualifying races will also be free today/tomorrow).
THEN: I know Toy Story 5 is already off to a fantastic opening weekend with $17.5M in Thursday grosses (2nd biggest animated Thursday opening ever and also roughly Obsession‘s opening weekend total) . . . and we’re all-in on The Odyssey — but there’s a lotta heat on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which had the best first-day pre-sales in 5 years.
- It’s also FANDANGO’s biggest first-day sales of 2026 (ahead of The Odyssey and others), and is in the all-time Top 10 in that category for the VERSANT ticketing service.
- No matter how those 3 pics actually shake out in order on the year’s Top 10 Biggest Movies list — lotta juice left to go this summer movie season.
KUDOS: To Anne Hathaway, who is expecting her 3rd child with husband Adam Schulman.
YUP: NETFLIX is under contract on its deal for the repossessed Radford Studio Center soundstage lot in L.A. for $400M, in a deal that should close in Q3.
- PARAMOUNT sold it to private equity groups for $1.85B in 2021, or over 4x the amount NETFLIX is paying. The main PE group, HACKMAN CAPITAL, then defaulted on its payments . . . resulting in the situation we’re currently in.
- Always good for NETFLIX to get reps in on buying over-leveraged businesses that end up unable to pay their bills. 👀
HAH: Gotta love this account from Breaker of the, uh, otherwise attached NY Times staffer making out on a date with Maggie Rogers at the Gray Lady’s headquarters.
PLUS: Tiffany Haddish, Anthony Anderson, Ike Barinholtz, Colman Domingo, Rosie O’Donnell and . . . uh, Jelly Roll will be your summer guest hosts for Jimmy Kimmel Live. That should be spicy.
- I still have my 🤞 Colbert pops up for at least one night at some point.
YES: Meet PMX MEDIA, a new PENSKE MEDIA arm housing the adrift VOX MEDIA brands after the James Murdoch VOX deal, those being Eater, The Verge, Thrillist, Punch, Pop Sugar and SB Nation. What’s the X for you ask? I mean, hey — it works for SPACEX, amirite?
- VOX exec Ryan Pauley will be President of the division — whose backend functions, one has to think, will just be merged with the rest of the publishing food court at PENSKE. #CostRationale
FINALLY: I hope folks with today off are enjoying their Juneteenth holiday.
🎥 The Silver Screen
Don’t stop here
Unlock the full story — and the no-spin reporting Hollywood trusts
Already a subscriber?
