☀️ Hollywood's Testosterone September at the Box Office

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 Wednesday, June 3, 2026.

Where it’s heartening to see GOOGLE co-founder Sergey Brin putting his CA billionaire tax-dodging savings to good use ~~providing scholarships to lower-income students~~ buying a new $42M home in Tahoe.

I mean, a guy’s gotta have a glass box tram to his “guest house” — what is he, a farmer?

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WELL: At a rate of 4 correspondents out in less than a month . . . I’m pretty sure I have a good shot at getting a gig on 60 Minutes by September.

YEAH: DISNEY’s India JV streaming partner JIOHOTSTAR is hiring up a storm in AI roles, and has finished its first AI-generated series, which ran VFX and post-production concurrently during production.

JIOHOTSTAR has already integrated AI into the platform’s voice-activated search and is working to integrate it into its ad tech.

OH: On the cusp of the NBA Finals starting tonight — that new NBA Finals image spot with the Nas voiceover you’ve probably been seeing so far in the Conference Finals features music from the composer of the Succession score, and is perhaps part of a larger new music branding effort from the league.

OR: I guess the NBA could just “Ask SUNO” instead and save some bucks — the AI music composer just raised $400M+ in a Series D funding round, valued at $5.4B, or 2x its valuation from 7 months ago.

I’m sure the extra 💰 will come in handy as the world’s 2 biggest music labels, UMG and SONY, are currently suing the company for copyright infringement.

YUP: ESPN set Marcello Hernández to host the ESPYS this summer, following Shane Gillis last year. It’ll be back in NYC for the first time in over 25 years, on July 15. #TakeThatSanAntonio!

GOOD NEWS: META is giving its employees the option to pause the AI software tracking everything they do on their computers . . . for up to 30 minutes a day. Time to fire up that Norma Rae sequel, Hollywood! #PowerToThePeople!✊

PLUS: This was an eye-catching quote from PSKY’s Chief Legal Officer and WARNAMOUNT regulatory sherpa Makan Delrahimin in an interview with the LA Times: “Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction really because of their own antisemitic views,” referring broadly to some folks in D.C. No follow-up was asked to clarify that.

BI‘s Peter Kafka did, and got no response from PSKY or Delrahimin.
Delrahimin also said that the merger“will actually create more and better and exciting jobs.” No questions were asked about the effect of $6B+ worth of promised “cost-savings” on the current headcount between PSKY and WBD.

OI: COMCAST will spend $8B on the U.K. theme park it’s building in Bedfordshire (NE of London) — $6.7B to build it, and another $1.3B over its first 10 years of operation — with plans to open in 2031. Hey, gotta use that HULU money somewhere!

It’s going with the ‘on the tin’ name of UNIVERSAL United Kingdom Resort, that I’m sure they spent more money than they’d like to admit coming up with.

AH: Yeah, this Bloomberg chart based on a BAIN survey of how companies are seeing ROI on their AI investments is . . . interesting. 40% of companies have realized under 10% of “cost savings” through AI use so far.

37% were expecting nearly 2x as much.
The top reason cited for the shortfalls was companies “cannot reliably get access to their own data.”

AND: The White House Correspondents Dinner take 2 will be July 24 with Trump in attendance at the Waldorf Astoria in D.C., formerly a Trump hotel property (do not take the KALSHI under on him not mentioning that on the dais). No word if a mentalist will once again be chosen as emcee.

SO: Who had Scorsese teaming up with an AI company on their 2026 predictions list? Marty is an advisor to the BLACK FOREST LABS company, and is using its AI tech to create storyboards for his upcoming projects. Here’s a video! Have at it, internet . . .