This is getting ridiculous. The Neon founder scored his sixth consecutive Palme d’Or at Cannes for Jafar Panahi’s revenge thriller It Was Just an Accident. Now Quinn just needs to leverage that acclaim into someone buying his company. Runner-up: Dan Lin. It’s a pretty big flex to produce a Disney movie (Lilo & Stitch) that opens to $183 million domestic and $342 million worldwide while also running the Netflix unit pumping out films trying to derail that box office. (Scott Mendelson has more on this wild weekend below…) And speaking of Cannes… both the festival and the silly media coverage are over (Variety, for some reason, let a writer predict the awards—incorrectly, of course—without having seen any of the movies or even setting foot in France??). So it’s time to give out some Clappies for the most ridiculous coverage of standing ovations… 👏 Worst Overreach: Deadline, which clocked the clapping for Sentimental Value, Joachim Trier’s family dramedy, at a whopping 19 minutes. Variety and THR had it at only 15 minutes, and others were even lower.

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“An All-Time Technical Masterpiece.”

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[READ] Inside the ‘Chess Match’ in Episode 3 Explore the meticulous preparation, challenging rehearsals, and groundbreaking one-shot filming of ADOLESCENCE Episode 3, a standout showcase for Supporting Actor Owen Cooper (Jamie Miller) and Supporting Actress Erin Doherty (Psychologist Briony Ariston). _____ For more on ADOLESCENCE, visit series.netflixawards.com

👏 Biggest Discrepancy: Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s French New Wave homage that sold to Netflix, scored 11 minutes, per Deadline—a full 4.5 minutes more than Variety’s 6.5 minutes. 👏 Most Euphoric Headline for a Movie That Kinda Bombed: Variety, for Denzel Washington, Spike Lee and A$AP Rocky (and Rihanna!) Stun Cannes as ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Earns 5.5-Minute Ovation. Hmmm… just 5.5 minutes? That’s the French basically spitting rosé in Spike’s face. 👏 Wildest Third-Act Twist in a Headline: Variety again, for Julia Ducournau’s ‘Titane’ Follow-Up ‘Alpha’ Gets Thunderous 11.5-Minute Cannes Ovation After Premiere Sees Attendee Carried Out on Stretcher. Okay, that’s enough. And thanks to the Times for explaining why none of these headlines are remotely relevant and why this is all so dumb.

“Imagine paying $50 million for fucking nothing, just to get somebody to approve a merger.” —Jon Stewart, ripping Trump payoffs by media moguls, including his Daily Show owner Shari Redstone, on The Bill Simmons Podcast, adding, “A policy of appeasement always leads to more conquest.”

$8 billion Valuation of OnlyFans, the porn-y video-sharing site, in sale talks with various suitors. (By comparison, Paramount Global is currently valued at about $8.5 billion. Maybe Jon Stewart should do Daily Show nude.) [Reuters] 52 percent Share of respondents in a Hub survey that pay for three or more of the “Big Seven” premium subscription streamers in the U.S., down from 61 percent last year. [Hub Entertainment Research] 15 percent Share of total viewing of kids programming on Netflix, noted in an announcement that Sesame Street will join the service (days before Disney+ swiped Cocomelon, beginning in 2027). [Netflix] 66 percent Share of U.S. marketers who plan to increase their connected-TV ad spend over the next year, up from 44 percent in the same period last year [Nielsen] 25 percent Decline in original series on Disney+, Netflix, Max, and Prime Video between 2022 and 2024. [Digital i via Bloomberg] Now here’s Scott on the record weekend in theaters…

A year after the media declared the death of the theatrical industry for the seventh or eighth time this decade, Hollywood and theater chains are toasting a record-setting Memorial Day weekend: around $327 million in raw domestic grosses, including a record-setting Lilo & Stitch, and a franchise-best launch for Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoning, which is saying something since there are eight of them. But what, if any, lessons can we deduce from the holiday haul? Five come to mind…

Lilo & Stitch opened with $185 million in its first four days of domestic play, but it almost went straight to Disney+. Likewise, last weekend’s top flick, New Line’s Final Destination Bloodlines ($102 million), was initially developed as a Max original. Instead, Bloodlines is on track to earn more globally than any of the handful of big-deal horror revivals, going back to the Blumhouse-produced Halloween relaunch ($256 million worldwide) in 2018. Almost every studio has at least one movie now seeing theatrical success that was originally intended for streaming. Paramount’s Smile, from 2022, grossed $218 million worldwide and spawned a new franchise. Warner Bros. just scheduled a new Evil Dead for July 2026—the result of the theatrical success of originally streaming-bound Evil Dead Rise in early 2023. Disney retrofitted a planned Moana Disney+ show into the $1 billion-grossing Moana 2. Indeed, the days of studios sending I.P. films straight to their own platforms, or licensing them to a third-party competitor, are over—at least for now.

After Snow White bombed, many in the industry assumed that live-action remakes of animated classics were toast. But the new Lilo & Stitch’s $350 million global debut suggests that the premonition was unfounded. Disney should have learned back in 2019 that not all live-action reboots are created equal. The $1 billion-plus successes of The Lion King and Aladdin didn’t mean anything for Dumbo—just because audiences flock to one particular live-action remake doesn’t mean they’ll flock to any remake. The 2002 animated Lilo & Stitch was the only 2000s-era (non-Pixar) Disney toon that was anywhere near as generationally popular as the so-called Waking Sleepy Beauty–era films.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

“The Closest Thing to TV Perfection in Decades.”

– The Guardian

“An All-Time Technical Masterpiece.”

– Forbes _____

[READ] Inside the ‘Chess Match’ in Episode 3 Explore the meticulous preparation, challenging rehearsals, and groundbreaking one-shot filming of ADOLESCENCE Episode 3, a standout showcase for Supporting Actor Owen Cooper (Jamie Miller) and Supporting Actress Erin Doherty (Psychologist Briony Ariston). _____ For more on ADOLESCENCE, visit series.netflixawards.com

Moreover, the Stitch brand has gained fans over the past 23 years via post-theatrical discovery, direct-to-consumer sequels, and the oft-syndicated animated series that eventually landed on Disney+. It’s a matter of appeal: Unless there’s star power (Angelina Jolie in Maleficent), a novel reinvention (Cruella), or sui generis cinematic razzle-dazzle (The Jungle Book), the source material itself better be popular enough with today’s paying moviegoers to justify the expense. Lilo & Stitch succeeded because it was a Lilo & Stitch remake, and Snow White tanked because nobody cared about the 88-year-old I.P.

The eighth Mission: Impossible movie earned $64 million during the Fri-Sun window of its $77.5 million holiday debut, besting the domestic milestone set by the $61 million Fri-Sun launch of Mission: Impossible—Fallout in 2018. Ditto its projected $204.5 million global launch. And yet, whether the supposedly “final” Tom Cruise action sequel ends its run closer to Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation than Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, it’s still playing like a Mission: Impossible movie. Perhaps the expectations were placed at unfairly high levels due to the $1.5 billion blowout of Top Gun: Maverick. Sure, Dead Reckoning cost $290 million, while Final Reckoning topped $400 million. But that was primarily due to overages incurred while shooting during the pandemic and dual labor strikes. The larger consideration is that the sequels from the past decade cost between $150 million and $180 million, and benefited from around $12 million in Russia, and between $101 million and $181 million from China, back when American films enjoyed a friendlier marketplace. Final Reckoning debuts on about 800 Chinese IMAX screens on May 30, so we’ll see how it does.

Yes, IMAX, Dolby, and related premium large format enhancements can persuade consumers to see a given film on the big screen. But if folks want to see the movie, they won’t shy away from non-augmented auditoriums, either. Sinners continued to leg out to nearly 5.5x its $48 million domestic debut—despite not having been in P.L.F. theaters since late April. The sky-high debuts for Barbie and Lilo & Stitch demonstrated that the formats were not zero-sum dealbreakers. Does anyone think Jurassic World: Rebirth is going to bomb because it won’t have IMAX theaters this July? To paraphrase Spider-Man: Homecoming: If a tentpole can’t succeed without P.L.F., maybe it doesn’t deserve them.

A key reason we’re seeing a record-high cumulative gross (sans inflation) for the Memorial Day weekend is that the top two earners nabbed more than $260 million combined. However, it wasn’t just the top-tier debuts holding up the fort. The weekend saw a slate of viable holdovers, like Final Destination Bloodlines, Sinners, Thunderbolts, and A Minecraft Movie, contribute a combined $50 million. Meanwhile, A24 expanded the Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson–led comedy Friendship to 1,055 theaters for $5.7 million—a number that would have been impressive a decade ago. Angel Studios’ The Last Rodeo, starring faith-based movie star Neal McDonough, debuted at $6.3 million. This is how a theatrical ecosystem is supposed to work. We had two mega-movie openers scoring best-case-scenario grosses without somehow cannibalizing each other, all while older movies still generated interest. In the simplest of terms, this occurred because Hollywood bothered to release a comparatively decent volume of movies in April and May, as smaller studios chipped in with underdog sports dramas and character comedies. There was arguably something for everyone, and almost everything earned what it needed to earn for commercial success. It’s too soon to declare what this strong start says about the summer, but it’s trending toward optimism.

Many seem to be sure that California law will shut down Disney’s anti-poaching lawsuit against YouTube over the defection of dealmaking exec Justin Connolly. But remember, when Fox sued Netflix for poaching execs back in 2016, the case generated an appeals court decision in favor of Fox. (Eriq Gardner will have more on this in WIH+ tomorrow.) [LA Times] Voice actors are pissed about dead James Earl Jones stealing a Fortnite job from them via A.I., but I’m afraid that ship has sailed. [NY Times] Maybe there are too many sports documentaries. [Bloomberg] More on the Google deal with management-production firm Range to produce propaganda films plugging A.I. How do Range’s talent clients feel about this? [LA Times] Jim Dolan might not be the most hated man in New York any more? [Bloomberg] The alleged source of the claim that Blake Lively threatened to leak Taylor Swift’s texts if she didn’t publicly support Lively in the Justin Baldoni case was… Taylor’s dad, Scott Swift?? [Daily Mail via Page Six]

A few fun responses to Thursday’s second annual summer movie discussion with high school kids… “I love your interview with the high school students. Very insightful. This town rarely talks to the actual audience.” —An executive “I know you know this, but the opinions of kids on the westside of Los Angeles probably don’t track the larger population cohort, particularly if they are predominantly white as their names suggest. If you do this again, I recommend heading outside the TMZ [30-mile zone around Hollywood] and try to get a more racially diverse group together.” —An analyst “One of them comparing Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible to ‘reheating nachos’ may be one of the best lines ever. These kids were great! Are they worth doing a show with?” —An unscripted producer

Does Sony have a Final Destination–style reboot hit on its hands with I Know What You Did Last Summer in July? It’s generating the same interest and awareness at the eight-week mark, according to the early tracking chart from The Quorum…

Have a great (short) week, Matt Got a question, comment, complaint, or a new Emmy category for whatever Nathan Fielder is doing? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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