39 pieces in this section.
Netflix's advertising-supported tier, launched in November 2022, crossed 125 million global monthly active users by the fourth quarter of 2025. The ad business is now material to the company's financials.
Mubi, once a streaming service with a small cinema programme, has become one of the most active theatrical acquirers in the independent market. The Substance made it profitable. What it does next is the question.
The 45-day theatrical exclusivity window, first negotiated after the 2020 pandemic disruption, has become the de facto industry standard. The stability it provides is helpful. The constraint it preserves is partial.
Mufasa: The Lion King grossed approximately $717 million globally on a reported $200 million budget. By most measures it is a modest commercial success. By the standard Disney sets for the Lion King franchise, it is something closer to a question mark.
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival acquisitions market cleared more titles than any edition since 2022, but at substantially lower average price points. The buyers are active. The cheques are smaller.
Universal's Wicked Part One grossed over $750 million globally. Part Two, released a year later, faces a specific commercial question familiar to every two-part release: does the second half hold?
The annual exhibitors' convention in Las Vegas is the single best public signal of the theatrical industry's mood. 2025 was cautiously better than 2024, and the studios noticed.
Georgia's 30% film tax credit survived the 2025 legislative session without a cap, but the underlying fiscal pressure that produced HB 129 is unlikely to recede before the 2026 session.
The UK's new Independent Film Tax Credit raises the rebate rate to 53% for qualifying productions under £15 million. Early application data suggests the scheme is already reshaping the mid-budget production calendar.
Skydance Media's $8 billion merger with Paramount Global closed this week, ending a year of corporate drama and beginning a larger one.
Sean Baker's four-award sweep for Anora at the 97th Academy Awards was the industry headline. His acceptance speech, which explicitly called on audiences to see films in cinemas, was the industrial subtext.
Disney announced that former Morgan Stanley chief James Gorman will become chairman in January, stepping up from the board's succession committee. The move aims to professionalise the Iger handoff.
Warner Bros Discovery has reversed its 2023 streaming-service rebrand, returning the Max service to the HBO Max name. The admission is that dropping HBO cost the service more than it gained.
Warner Bros Discovery will split into two companies in mid-2026, separating the studio and streaming business from the declining cable networks. The move mirrors Comcast's earlier transaction.
Letterboxd's user numbers have tripled in under three years. The specific question the industry is now asking is how a service still run out of Auckland converts cultural centrality into durable revenue.
Comcast confirmed it will spin most of its cable television networks, including MSNBC, CNBC, and USA, into a separately-listed company. The move concedes what the affiliate numbers have been saying for years.
Conan O'Brien hosted the 97th Academy Awards on 2 March 2025. The ratings ticked up. The question is whether the host delivered the number, or whether the number would have arrived regardless.
Starz and Lionsgate closed their long-announced separation on 6 May 2025, splitting the studio and the premium cable network into two independent public companies. The transaction's specific structure matters.
Apple has signalled a more disciplined content posture at Apple TV+ following multiple reports of an annual operating loss above a billion dollars. The pullback is measured rather than structural.
Letterboxd confirmed its five-million-member milestone in early 2025. The number is small by social-platform standards and large enough to matter for how film distribution reads its audiences.
Netflix streamed two NFL games on Christmas Day 2024, reported 65 million US viewers across the gameday, and ran into the specific technical problems live sports at scale continues to produce.
Village Roadshow Entertainment Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware in March 2025, citing litigation costs and the collapse of its long-running Warner Bros co-financing relationship.
WWE Raw began streaming exclusively on Netflix in January 2025 under a ten-year rights deal reported at around five billion dollars. The early numbers are positive. The broader question is what the deal tells us about Netflix's posture on live rights.
Apple TV+ loses roughly $1 billion a year. At what point does Apple decide that the strategic value justifies the loss? The question is becoming urgent.
FX's John Landgraf coined 'Peak TV' in 2015 and has been tracking the scripted-production numbers since. The 2024 numbers confirmed the inflection. We are now in Post-Peak.
The 2024 global theatrical year closed near $30 billion, below the pre-pandemic benchmark and below public targets. The shape of the shortfall is more informative than the headline.
Marvel Studios has quietly restructured its multi-year slate for the third time in two years. The rate of revision itself is the story.
AMC Entertainment is still the largest movie-theatre chain in North America. It is also still, by several measurable metrics, insolvent. How is both of those true at the same time?
The Writers Guild of America's 148-day strike ended in September 2023. Fourteen months on, the industrial effects are becoming clearer.
Amazon has owned MGM for three years. The James Bond franchise has not released a film in that time. The reasons are worth understanding.
Blumhouse built its reputation on low-budget original horror. Its 2024 slate tells a different story. The pivot is rational and also a loss.
Netflix's 2023 paid-sharing rollout was widely predicted to cost the company subscribers. It did the opposite. A look at the numbers, eighteen months in.
A24 has closed a funding round at a $3.5 billion valuation, roughly two and a half times its previous round. The number is the story. What the number implies is the longer story.
Louisiana reduced its film production tax-credit programme by 40% this year. The productions that had been locating there are already reshuffling.
James Gunn and Peter Safran have been running DC Studios for eighteen months. The new slate is now announced, and the strategy is clearer than it was.
The SAG-AFTRA contract ended a 118-day strike. Six months on, the AI provisions are being tested in specific productions. The answers are complicated.
David Zaslav's Warner Bros. Discovery has written off more than $3 billion in produced content over the last two years. The accounting logic is specific, and the industry consequences are larger.
Bob Iger's return to Disney was supposed to be a two-year fix. It has turned into something more complicated. A progress report on fifteen months of the restoration.
