24 Surefire, 100 Percent Probable Hollywood Predictions for 2024 (Part 1)

Declining budgets, a potential Imax sale, more agency consolidation, a Netflix film reckoning, Fox’s humbling, Jenna Ortega’s rise and exit, and other hypotheses for another wild year in the entertainment business.

Jenna Ortega is red-hot on casting lists, has already quit the Scream franchise, has Beetlejuice 2 in September, and is said to want to follow the path of her fellow Disney Channel alums Zendaya and Austin Butler, which means prestige films. Photo: Mark Von Holden/Variety via Getty Images

Matthew Belloni

January 5, 2024

Last year, around this time, my top prediction for 2023 was that “A.I. Comes for Actors and Writers.” Turns out it was the other way around—or at least the response to the A.I. threat by SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild ended up being the story of the year. I did fine on some picks (I predicted the legacy streamers would license way more shows to Netflix, and that the Murdochs would pay big to settle the Dominion case; I even said Indiana Jones would struggle). I did less fine on others (ugh, I thought Renfield looked promising?!).

Now, for the third year in a row, I polled sources for more observations and foreshadowing on the topics of ’24, both big picture and small. Today I’ve got the first batch, followed on Sunday by the rest. Here’s last year’s list, so you can check me. Let’s begin…