☀️'Karate Kid' Gets Bronze, As 'Lilo' Prints 💵
UNI, Ariana Grande re-team / Fincher casts up at NETFLIX / Wes Anderson sets '25 box office record
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, June 1, 2025.
Where it’s a sad day in NYC today . . . especially around NBA league headquarters in midtown. Enjoy your INDIANA / OKC NBA Finals, America! Look, they can’t all feature at least one team in a top-25 NIELSEN market — okay, fine, Indianapolis is technically the #25 market.
But what better way to test the pure national appeal of the NBA going into its new TV deals era! And at least TNT is likely to go out with a big ratings winner to end its NBA era with the KNICKS game last night. See ya on ESPN, Chuckster.
AND: This weekend, I finally sat down with this excellent NY Times story on one of Hollywood’s great remaining prop houses, HISTORY FOR HIRE. An area of the business Elaine Low looked at last spring as well, and it doesn’t seem like much has changed (if anything, it likely has gotten worse).
It’s both maddening and just a sign of how outta whack priorities have gotten amongst industry leadership. CEOs get $20M to $50M pay packages every year here in the mid-2020s (some for not even working a whole year), and yet the town’s business can’t support enough work anymore (or simply scrape together enough 💰) to cover the now $500k a year lease to keep an institution open that’s both a main go-to for set decorators in L.A. and houses much of the industry’s history.
It also reminded me of a great column Richard had in May, which lays bare this very leadership failure happening right in front of our faces.
THEN: MCCLATCHY is shutting down Life & Style and In Touch magazines, as well as Closer and First For Women, with final issues released by the end of the month. No word on the number of resulting layoffs.
ALSO: Here’s NETFLIX’s one-stop shop recap of its TUDUM event yesterday, and here are some select links:
Happy Gilmore 2 trailer
Frankenstein teaser trailer
Wake Up Dead Man/Knives Out 3 promo (NETFLIX, I expect an extensive collab on the marketing here).
Squid Game season 3 trailer
Wednesday season 2: the first 6 minutes
Stranger Things is doing a 3-part final season drop:
The day before Thanksgiving— 4 episodes
Christmas — 3 episodes
New Year’s Eve — Grand Finale
PLUS: Some stark, definitive words from Jamie Dimon, the leader of America’s largest bank, JP MORGAN CHASE, on the #TrumpTariffWar:
“I just got back from China last week. They're not scared, folks.”
"This notion they're going to come bow to America, I wouldn't count on that. When they have a problem, they put 100,000 engineers on it. They've been preparing for this for years."
As for America’s looming debt problem and Trump’s budget proposal currently in the Senate, that by almost all accounts exacerbates the problem: “You are going to see a crack in the bond market. I tell this to my regulators. I’m telling you it’s going to happen, and you’re going to panic. I’m not going to panic, we’ll be fine.”
ALSO: If you’re sucker for a good CBS NEWS Steve Hartman story 🙋♂️ . . . or are just looking for a little boost of courage to do something that is giving you apprehension — this is a good one.
REST IN PEACE: Goes out to actress Loretta Swit, who died at the age of 87 last week, and was one of the prominent faces of one of TV’s biggest all-time hits in M*A*S*H, winning two Emmys for her work.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
The bears had it on Karate Kid: Legends . . . kudos to the 35%, as my fellow 42%’ers were a bit too optimistic.
🎥 THE BOX OFFICE
TOP 10
NOTE: Rushfield and I will do our usual Monday reparteé on the Box Office tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET on SUBSTACK Live.
If you follow Richard or yours truly here on SUBSTACK, you’ll get an email alert when we’re live.