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, August 28, 2026.
Where I hope you all enjoy your big Fed Chairman speech from Jackson Hole, Wyo., which began at 10 a.m. this morning!
See? This is what happens when the sports and entertainment calendars bottom out at the end of August. I can only do so much.
ALTHOUGH: This is a pretty cool item about the launch of a kick-ass new space telescope on Sunday, which is expected to eventually find about 100k planets outside of our solar system. We’ve only discovered about 6k to date.
YAH: Which is good timing since our time on this planet may be more numbered than we thought — all major AI organizations issued a collective letter yesterday telling us the window is closing “in the coming months” before their AI products enable widespread attacks on things like our healthcare and water treatment systems.
- And you say the AI business has an increasing “bad PR” problem?
- If you’re wondering what the big event will be that pops the AI bubble — my money isn’t on a Wall Street factor, but rather on sadly a wide-reaching disaster caused by a bad actor . . . or perhaps simply an AI development test gone horribly wrong — far worse than the infamous HUGGING FACE incident earlier this year (which we’re now learning was seemingly worse and more troublesome than what was reported at the time).
BUT: Hopefully the NYC singles who attended Singles Night at CITI FIELD last night had better luck than the METS had on the field, who lost 8-2 to the BREWERS — but it’s important for couples to have things to bond over, so it was very kind of the team to provide a “how terrible are the METS?” conversation point to encourage that.
AND: Coupling up to afford your streaming subscriptions is probably a good benefit as well — APPLE TV is now $15 a month in the U.S., +$2 vs. the previous price.
- That’s cruelly or strategically timed (depending on your worldview) to coincide with the end of Ted Lasso (the finale drops Oct. 7).
- APPLE ONE is also going up to $22 a month.
- So the ball is back in DISNEY’s court to see if we get yet another one from them in October on the DIS+ and HULU front.
PLUS: If you’re gonna go check out the 35th anniversary re-release of Terminator 2 next weekend — you can download the THEATER EARS app and listen along to the James Cameron commentary with co-writer William Wisher while you watch.
- THEATER EARS also currently has a talent commentary for It Ends if you’re looking for a more current release. It previously did this for Toy Story 5 and Mandalorian & Grogu earlier this summer.
FINALLY: Another talented voice lost in the acting community this week, albeit a bit more literally this time as Peter Cullen died at the age of 85 in the company of his family in L.A.
You may not know the name, but you’d definitely know the voice, as he was Optimus Prime in the Transformers, among many other roles, including Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, and — in a role dear to my Gen X heart — the evil KATT car in Knight Rider.
POST SCRIPT: Just a follow-up perspective to my look at how much Mark Wahlberg is single-handedly holding up the movie-making economy post-Covid — here are the comps to the other typically more heavily cited Gen X male pillar of the action movie industry:
- Mark Wahlberg (17 pics): 13 movies released since Covid / the 2020s, with 4 movies either shooting, planned or in post across streaming and theatrical (mostly streaming).
- He’s on pace to well-surpass the 19 movies he starred in during the 2010s (all theatrical).
- Jason Statham (14 pics): 9 movies released since Covid, with 5 movies either shooting, planned or in post (incl. the last Fast & Furious pic, which will be 2028). Statham notably remains theatrical-only.
- He had 18 movies in the 2010s, including quite a few ensemble pics (Expendables and Fast & Furious movies — although Hobbs & Shaw was a two-hander/more prominent).
So, in about a 7-year period this decade. . . these 2 guys alone will be responsible for the release of 30 movies.
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