Sorry, Bad Bunny. It’s gotta be the YouTuber known as Markiplier, who smashed expectations with an $18 million domestic debut for his self-financed, self-distributed horror game adaptation Iron Lung. Besides pocketing millions for himself via his 50-50 theater split, Fischbach solidified a template for ambitious digital creators. You don’t have to be Taylor Swift to go directly to theaters if you’ve got a smart booker (like Bill Herting at Centurian, who was connected to Fischbach via his manager, Ben Curtis), a large following (38 million subscribers) and, most important, a devoted audience that will pressure the increasingly desperate—sorry, open-minded—theaters to play the film. And show up to support it.

Runners-up: Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the Send Help screenwriters, who, with director Sam Raimi, got an original, $40 million thriller made for theaters (at Disney!), and it opened to nearly $20 million domestic. What was once routine now seems heroic. Special, only-in-Hollywood honor: Shane Salerno, the manager-producer, who is part of the E.P. team on just-ordered HBO Max limited series The Chain while simultaneously spearheading another client’s massive lawsuit against HBO Max over The Pitt. Extra-special nine-figure-budget award: Congrats to Nancy Meyers, who finally convinced Warner Bros. to greenlight her long-gestating rom-com. As I first reported back in 2023, Meyers initially sought a $150 million budget from Netflix, which wouldn’t go beyond $130 million. And despite CAA’s best efforts, the whole thing imploded. But it’s now been reconstituted at Warners with a budget between $110 million to $120 million, per two sources familiar. (A Warners source insists the California tax credit will bring it down to $110 million, kitchens included.) There’s no backend buyouts, and Scarlett Johansson and Michael Fassbender have been replaced by the cheaper Emma Mackey and Jude Law; Penélope Cruz and Owen Wilson remain. Still a huge budget for a rom-com, but Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give ($265 million), It’s Complicated ($220 million), and even her most recent film, 2015’s The Intern ($195 million), have played far bigger than most rom-coms. Will they still? Speaking of Warners… why sleep on ‘The Invite’?: Going into Sundance, I thought the new indie-focused division at Warner Bros. would be an aggressive bidder for star-driven crowdpleasers. And yet, Christian Parkes and his new team waited about two days after the Saturday screening to make an overture on The Invite, the Olivia Wilde sex dramedy that became the talk of the fest. By then, A24 and Focus features had already bested other suitors and were jockeying for the deal. Wilde and the producers, including Megan Ellison and David Permut, ultimately got A24’s Noah Sacco and Nicolette Aizenberg (and their team in New York) to commit to around $12 million for domestic rights, plus a planned early-summer release. That opening date was apparently an issue for Warners; Parkes and his team wanted a holiday window, but Wilde preferred summer… with a guaranteed awards campaign.

“So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” —Casey Wasserman, the talent/sports agency owner and L.A. Olympics chair, in racy 2003 emails to Ghislaine Maxwell releasedlast week as part of the Jeffrey Epstein files. (Wasserman said he’s “terribly sorry,” though Friday probably wasn’t the best timing for Hits to drop a puff piece Q&A.)

More: A few other Hollywood folks play supporting roles in the latest Epstein dump: Film producer and New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch was connected via the convicted sex trafficker to multiple women (“adult women,” as he very awkwardly made clear in a statement). Melania auteur Brett Ratner is pictured with Epstein and a young woman (Ratner told Piers Morgan today that the blurred-out face was “my fiancée” at the time, but wouldn’t name her). Todd Boehly, the Golden Globes co-owner, set up at least one meeting with Epstein in 2011, nearly three years after the financier had been imprisoned for sex offenses. New York publicist Peggy Siegal sent Epstein multiple invoices, including for more than $500,000 for 2011 alone. And crisis P.R. guru Matthew Hiltzik, who has downplayed his appearance in previous Epstein emails as stemming from advice provided in connection with a pro bono client, sent Epstein two $25,000 bills “for communications counsel and public relations services.” (Hiltzik says he donated the fees to charity after Epstein’s indictment.) Will any of this stuff matter? Like everything these days, the answer is probably no. Now let’s put the Melania story to bed…

Many, many readers seem incapable of believing that a 104-minute Melania Trump infomercial, heavily promoted via a highly unorthodox $35 million marketing campaign (including ads during NFL playoff games!) and several endorsements from the president, could gross $7 million in 1,778 theaters over the weekend. At nearly $4,000 per screen, it’s the biggest debut for a non-music doc in more than a decade, which is understandably triggering for some, especially those who were gleefully posting screenshots of empty big-city theaters and desecrated billboards on social media all weekend.

Melania may have been a documentary, but it was released—and performed—more like a faith-based feature or one of those rage-bait Dinesh D’Souza–type stunts. Which means it’s possible to not know a single person who saw the film or was even aware of its existence while also acknowledging that this movie was a big deal for many people. (Also, to get this out of the way, apparently I’m discussed briefly in the film. When I broke the news of Amazon’s $40 million bribe—sorry, totally reasonable purchase price—the Melania press team debated on camera whether to respond to me. Spoiler: They did not respond to me.) Anyway, the skepticism persists. So for the record, Amazon says it didn’t artificially boost the box office, and both AMC and Regal tell me they did not experience unusual block purchases of tickets for Melania—from the R.N.C. or Jeff Bezos or Vladimir Putin or anyone—outside the usual churches and old folks groups that often over-index for faith-based or overtly political movies. The theater chains might not necessarily know, of course, and veteran box office tracker Tom Brueggemann noted on his Substack that “industry sources say there were signs that blocks of tickets were purchased for the weekend, then distributed to senior citizen homes, Republican activists, other interested parties for free to help boost audiences.” Emails from the National Faith Advisory Board, led by a former senior advisor in the White House Faith Office, encouraged bulk buys of tickets via a special portal to “support our first lady.” To that end, the Regal chain, which typically sells about 15 percent of tickets for most titles, sold a far larger 21 percent for Melania, per internal data shared with me. That could indicate some funky block purchases. In my research this weekend, I did notice that a Regal theater in Trussville, Alabama, for instance, sold out several showings in a row except for the same two seats, which could have been left by a block purchaser to maintain the appearance of available tickets. Or, much more likely, the Regal skew reflects its larger footprint in markets like Nashville, and West Palm and Naples in Florida, where Melania performed best. Remember, per exit surveys provided to Amazon, the audience skewed 75 percent white, 72 percent over 55, and 70 percent female on opening night. Its top markets were overwhelmingly in the South and away from big metropolitan areas. Regal also started presales earlier than other chains. A better candidate for manipulation, of course, would be the Rotten Tomatoes audience score, which stood at a hilarious 99 percent this afternoon, despite a rotten 6 percent from critics. (No, that’s not the widest discrepancy in the history of RT, per a rep, though they wouldn’t reveal which movie holds that title.) Inflating the audience score isn’t too difficult, though Melania did generate an A CinemaScore and an 86 percent “definitely recommend” in post-screening surveys, so the sentiment isn’t fake. Still, after all the hoopla, this movie will likely top out at around $15 million at the box office and definitely lose money for Amazon in theaters, as Amazon content chief Mike Hopkins knew it would when he paid that $40 million bribe—sorry, the perfectly reasonable purchase price—and gave it a P&A push more akin to the Chris Pratt thriller Mercy that debuted a week before. The question is whether the attention will translate into eyeballs on Prime Video when the movie drops at the end of the month, followed by whatever the accompanying “docuseries” entails. And, more importantly, whatever this whole movie stunt extravaganza prompts the Trumps to “ask” of Amazon next.

71 Live-action films and TV shows shot in and around London in 2025, second only to the U.S. and Canada. [London Standard]

$3.5 billion Valuation of OnlyFans based on a potential acquisition of around 60 percent of the racy social network by Architect Capital. [WSJ] 3 percent Share of Netflix’s current U.S. movie catalog that consists of titles released before 2000. [Reelgood] $200,000 Minimum commitment to secure space on ChatGPT when it launches advertising. It’s asking $60 CPM. [Adweek] 8.6 Heated Rivalry’s rating on Russian streaming and film database Kinopoisk, one of the highest ever for a TV show. [AP] Now to the Disney succession race…

There’s gonna be a bunch of disappointed people in Hollywood later this week if and when Disney announces that Dana Walden, head of its TV and streaming unit, won’t be elevated to C.E.O. of the company. I’m not quite predicting riots at Craig’s or looting of the Brentwood Country Mart. But certainly a sense of… What the heck happened here?

It does seem quaint now to look back only a little more than a year ago, to when Disney board chair James Gorman revealed that new gold-plated mouse ears would finally be awarded in early 2026. The chatter around town became instantly and overwhelmingly that the job was Dana’s to lose. That was probably due to some combination of her own competence and cult of personality leading the TV units at Fox and then Disney; decades of relationships with creators, stars, and their representatives; the legacy dominance of television at the company; the lack of an L.A. profile for her rival, parks chief and inland Orange County jogger Josh D’Amaro; and the presumption of industry people that Disney—at its core a creative company—must have a creative executive at its helm. Bob Iger, though he was C.O.O. under Michael Eisner before being elevated to the top job, has always been given the benefit of the doubt by creatives because he’s perceived as one of us. A local weatherman turned ABC programmer turned C.E.O. That makes sense to people, and Dana’s path was similar: TV publicist turned talented creative executive turned programmer and team-builder… and yet… It doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen—if it was ever a possibility. Disney’s first-quarter earnings report today evidences exactly why Gorman and the board almost certainly will endorse D’Amaro as Iger’s successor. Did you see those theme park numbers? Despite hurdles like the uncertain economy, Trump’s tariffs and antagonism of Canada (a key market), and tough competition from a new Universal resort in Orlando, Disney reached new heights for parks and cruises. Thanks in part to relentless price increases on everything from annual passes to my beloved Tomorrowland churros, the company topped $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the Experiences division for the first time, up 7 percent at both the domestic and international parks. Gone are the days of television, and especially ESPN, driving the Disney bus. As the Times noted this weekend, D’Amaro’s unit now provides about 60 percent of Disney’s profit, and about 80 percent of its value, per MoffettNathanson. The company has committed $60 billion over the next decade to grow the parks and cruises business, and if it truly succeeds over the next decade or two, it will be because the new C.E.O. figures out gaming, which D’Amaro also oversees. “The entire Disney investment thesis rests on the power of theme parks and cruise ships, and virtually all the company’s capital is being spent to expand in those areas,” Rich Greenfield, the analyst and longtime Disney-watcher, told me today. “It is far more important to have depth of understanding of parks today than ever before in Disney’s history.” Unfortunately, that’s not Walden. Little indicators were all over Iger’s comments today. He first called out Disney’s film franchise-creation-machine, specifically Zootopia 2 and Avatar, run by Alan Bergman, with TV and streaming clearly secondary. He noted the company took a $110 million hit from its YouTube TV carriage dispute, a negotiation Walden oversaw. Contrary to the Experiences narrative, Disney has been more judicious in its spending on entertainment content, given the profitability push in streaming and the cost of sports rights. Even the picture accompanying Iger’s prepared remarks featured a giant Disney cruise ship. To that end, even Walden’s biggest fans have struggled at times to make the case for her outside her TV comfort zone. Bluey is the biggest show in streaming, but Disney doesn’t own it. Disney+ and Hulu have produced legitimate hits like Percy Jackson and Paradise and Only Murders in the Building, but nothing that could be called a platform-defining smash like Reacher on Prime Video or Stranger Things on Netflix or the Taylor Sheridan output on Paramount+. Profitability in streaming has improved dramatically under Walden’s watch, but increasingly, that is not what impacts the company share price. By contrast, the slight decrease in guidance today for parks and cruises due to less international tourism sparked a 7 percent drop in the Disney stock. Larger forces are at work, too. Walden, who came to Disney as part of its $71.3 billion acquisition of most of the Fox empire back in 2019, embodies one of Iger’s more debatable moves as C.E.O. He again defended that deal today, calling it “ahead of its time” and “extremely well priced, considering what’s being offered for the Warner Bros. Discovery assets.” The transaction brought Disney the Avatar and X-Men properties, but it also included FX, NatGeo, and the 20th TV studio, which all compete with Netflix, Amazon, and the others for general-interest audiences. Many both inside and outside the company, especially TD Cowen media analyst Doug Creutz, have questioned why Disney, the ultimate family brand, levered up to double down on undifferentiated general-interest content at a time when competition was creating an arms race. The company took on $26 billion in debt to finance the deal, and ended up paying about $9 billion to Comcast to acquire the remaining part of Hulu, even though that service is being folded into Disney+ later this year. “We’ve seen a dramatic downsizing of Disney’s TV ambitions,” Greenfield noted. So no, it doesn’t add up to a compelling case for Walden, which is what this 15 month bake-off was supposed to reveal. Now the question is likely whether the board will offer her an elevated position under D’Amaro, as Gorman engineered for the runner-up in his own succession sweepstakes at Morgan Stanley, or whether that will be up to D’Amaro, if he’s indeed the choice. And, of course, whether Walden will stay at the company through the transition and beyond.

Yikes: The Outsiders is the only new Broadway musical to open since 2022 that’s become profitable. [N.Y. Times]

How do we feel about using A.I. to complete an unfinished Orson Welles movie? [New Yorker] How in the world did Oscar-nominated cinematographer Dante Spinotti end up shooting Melania? [New Yorker] Diller wants CNN, because of course he does. That doesn’t seem plausible, but Elon? [Puck] Endeavor’s On Location hospitality business lost at least $250 million on the Paris Olympics, and heading into Milano Cortina, “The jury is out on the viability of the model.” Ooof. [SBJ] Film students can’t finish an entire movie without looking at their devices. (Ssshh: Maybe it’s because most movies are way too long.) [The Atlantic] Should I be offended that newsletter writer manager Max Stein of Brigade has never emailed me? [N.Y. Mag]

Nothing worth sharing this week…

Good news for Amazon: Project Hail Mary is pacing similarly to last summer’s F1, according to early tracking from The Quorum. Bad news, it’s also similar to The Running Man…

Have a great week, Matt

Maya Tribbitt contributed research for today’s issue. Finally, a huge send-off thank you to my part-time assistant Robert for great work over the past two and a half years. He’s leaving for a TV staffing job, which means those jobs do still exist. Congrats! Got a question, comment, complaint, or a good part-time assistant for me? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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