☀️ Let '26 Summer Movie Season Handicapping Begin!
The trends ahead in movie volume, original pics, box office 💰 comps and more
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 Tuesday, September 2, 2025.
Where congratulations, Hollywood! You’re still a trendsetter. The CPG market looked at your VERSANT and WB/D moves and said, “How can we get in on that?”
Yes, it seems KRAFT-HEINZ will no longer exist, and also split into 2 different companies once again (as far as I can tell, the KRAFT part is the cable TV network equivalent). Lemme guess — the folks who both orchestrated it and ultimately failed to execute it managerially got tens of millions of dollars?
Although Hollywood is also keeping its marriage rep intact — as WBD will have lasted just 4 years in the end, but KRAFT-HEINZ gave it a good decade+.
BUT: Add WBD + FOX on your 2024 bingo card of “near deals” — John Malone said he and Rupert had “serious discussions” about a merger in summer 2024 that also involved Zaz and Lachlan, according to an FT interview with Malone.
This would have been well before WBD’s corporate restructuring announcement in December 2024 to prep for the eventual separation announcement this year.
Malone cited having CNN and FOX NEWS under one roof as being a major 🤔 behind it not going any further . . . rather than the uh, overall questionable business logic of adding more linear TV assets onto a company already full of them in the mid 2020s, and how Wall Street may receive such news.
Oh you know CNN, it’s that “left-leaning, anti-Trump news service” that Malone said Zaz was “unable to have any meaningful impact” upon. I’m sure that’s how his pal Ted Turner describes it too.
AND: WALMART+ subs can now choose between free PEACOCK ad-free, or PARAMOUNT+ with ads . . . as NBCU continues to emphasize adoption of the ad-free plan in its 3rd party deals here in Q3 👀 (its AMAZON PV Subscriptions deal was only for the ad-free tier too).
ALSO: PERPLEXITY’s ad biz head, Taz Patel, is leaving the company after just 9 months, according to Adweek. Efforts so far seemingly centered on GOOGLE 101-like notions of putting ads that run alongside answers, and recommending products as part of the answers, to specific search queries.
THEN: Enjoy the your final season with 3 network late-night TV shows at 11:35 p.m., as all hosts return tonight.
However, Howard Stern postponed his return to his SIRIUSXM show today by a week.
REST IN PEACE: Goes out to actor and Oscar nominee Graham Greene, who died at the age of 73 this weekend.
FINALLY: As everyone seemingly took a proper vacation over the weekend . . . or simply spent their weekend on their feet clapping at film festivals — I’m gonna take the “quiet” day to look ahead to see what the movie business has in store for us 9 months from now, given we have a pretty good handle on it already. And frankly, I’m curious myself!
It gets better in 2026, movie business . . . with a few breaks going your way 🤞
Well, summer 2025 box office — you turned into the Ryan Leaf of movie seasons (link for Elaine to get up to speed on that NFL reference, and probably for 70% 80% of you as well). Ok fine, maybe more like Daniel Jones (all best in Indy!) — great intentions and looked like it had a shot . . . but ok, I digress.
It all started with such promise and high hopes . . . and a catchy slogan to boot! (#SurviveTil25 merch is also welcome at The Ankler’s Dead Media Brand Halloween party).
And yet, we come to find ourselves here at the end of the summer movie season — not with magic, but with defeat.
Ok, yes, the box office being -0.2% vs 2024 isn’t a resounding loss by any means — and ENTELLIGENCE puts tickets sold at +0.4% vs. 2024 fwiw.
HOWEVER: Given summer 2025 was fighting against a year that had a strikes-induced bum knee, and it still only tied it in the race . . . yeah, ya lose more points for that alone. Not to mention, you also fell short of 2023’s progress by a good $400M+.
AND: It’s not that it was a terrible summer, per se:
5 movies over $200M U.S. and 5 more movies over $135M U.S.
BUT: It’s just that none crossed $500M domestically, only 1 crossed $400M and 2 crossed $300M.
Lilo was the only banger in the bunch, but even that wasn’t a Barbie, Top Gun or Deadpool — it was barely a Doctor Strange.
HOWEVER: In true showman fashion . . . Hollywood always has a new pitch — just wait ’til you see 2026! Ya know, when our really big movies come out, ahem 😁. Insert your own Charlie Brown and the football gif here as ya like.
No matter what — one thing Hollywood will be fresh out of in 2026 . . . is excuses.
No strike effects, no pandemic 🤞 and no Q1 bare-bones release slate as a crappy lead in like ’24 and ’25 both had.
And let’s just put a good thought out there that 2026 is guild strike-free.
SO: Allow me to put on my “Official Hollywood Pundit” sash and take a look ahead to summer 2026 🔭 to handicap the comps for the 4 months where Hollywood has made well over 40% of its annual U.S. box office each year for the past 3 years.
While the good thing about the nature of the movie business is you get a pretty good sense of things this far out — obviously this is all subject to (and likely to) change, given that it’s 8 months away. Hopefully mostly in more movies being added to it.
BASICALLY: This all deserves to be taken with an entire salt shaker filled with grains of salt. But when has that stopped us before from pontificating?
Let’s look at:
The surprising state of original films next summer
How each month stacks up against each other through the late 2010s and post-Covid years so far.
What the summer movie volume trends look like over that time.
The potential “July 2026 To Remember” on deck, and much more.
BEFORE I START:
In going through all of this research, here’s the #1 thing that stood out to me by far: