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Film, television, streaming, music, creators, and media companies.
Thursday, September 3, 2026
Franchises expand as entertainment companies manage disruption
The clearest business move was Netflix’s expansion of Dungeons & Dragons into gothic horror with a confirmed Ravenloft series centered on Strahd. Elsewhere, entertainment companies managed downside and disruption as Fox ended its relationship with Maria Bartiromo, HBO Max moved Supergirl quickly to streaming, and Toronto’s new Rogers Stadium suffered severe storm damage.
The day’s creative upside came from catalog and franchise maintenance, with Beyoncé adding unreleased and multilingual material to B’Day and Katseye sustaining its show despite two absences. The quieter remainder included a completed streaming drama in Furious and the loss of jazz singer Cassandra Wilson.
99 stories from 13 sources
Dive DeeperAug 24 - 30, 2026
Paramount's Warner Bros. Deal Defined a Week of Media Upheaval
Parton's death prompted nationwide mourning, tributes, theatrical screenings, renewed interest in her work, and renewed attention to her philanthropy and control of her songwriting rights. The week's response showed how her influence crossed music, film, business, and civic life.
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Summary
The U.K. box office took in $161.3 million in August, its strongest performance for the month since 2018. Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey drove much of the result.
Two major studio releases restored momentum to a traditionally softer month and lifted the market
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A stronger August points to continued theatrical resilience when studios concentrate major releases in the market.
Summary
Maggie Gyllenhaal said she tested AI to make Dakota Johnson look like Marilyn Monroe in her short film Flesh Impact. She abandoned the experiment after deciding that the technology erased the humanity of Johnson's performance.
The failed test exposes a central creative limit of generative transformation: technical resemblance can undermine
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The episode shows why AI adoption in filmmaking will hinge on whether it preserves performance rather than merely reproducing an image.
Summary
Bendita Film Sales has acquired international rights to Norma Vila's psychological horror film Carapace, ahead of its premiere in the Sitges competition. The debut feature stars Nagore Aranburu and Haizea Carneros.
The deal gives a first feature immediate access to international genre buyers before its festival
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A pre premiere rights deal turns Sitges into both a launchpad and a commercial test for emerging genre filmmakers.
Summary
Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things,” featuring Emma Stone’s Oscar-winning performance, is scheduled to leave Netflix on Sept. 7.
The approaching removal turns a widely praised film into a time-sensitive viewing choice for Netflix
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Viewers who want to watch “Poor Things” on Netflix have a fixed deadline before they must find another service or format.
Summary
Jocelyn Bioh adapts the social rivalries of “Mean Girls” to a Ghanaian beauty pageant, alongside updates on Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden, “Paranormal Activity” on Broadway, and a new film starring Dakota Fanning and Jake Johnson.
The Ghanaian pageant setting relocates the “Mean Girls” formula into a distinct cultural and competitive
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The adaptation shows how recognizable pop premises can gain new stakes when rebuilt around a different place, industry, and social hierarchy.
Summary
Na Hong-jin’s monster movie combines violent small-town comedy with an examination of big-budget Hollywood imperialism.
The film uses blockbuster scale to expose the power dynamics behind blockbuster culture. By colliding
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“Hope” tests whether a monster movie can deliver commercial thrills while interrogating the industry and cultural power that make those thrills possible.
Summary
Elegance Bratton’s second feature, starring Mark Wahlberg and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, approaches the legal struggle for civil rights in the 1960s through a gangland perspective.
The film recasts a landmark civil-rights battle through characters shaped by criminal-world pragmatism. That perspective
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Its tension comes from asking whether a just cause can remain principled when its advocates operate through coercion and compromise.
Summary
Multiple reports suggest Marvel is quietly developing a new live-action Disney+ series, possibly centered on the Young Avengers or the New Mutants.
The decisive fact is that the project remains unconfirmed, while the reported character options point
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The reports suggest Marvel is still building new franchise branches even as audiences and the studio reassess the scale of its superhero slate.
Summary
Julia Loktev's five hour documentary sequel continues her account of journalists escaping the Russian government's repression. The film follows the reporters on the run and is described as at least as compelling as the first installment.
The sequel shifts the documentary's focus from political pressure to the consequences of exile, making
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The film preserves firsthand evidence of how authoritarian pressure reshapes the lives and work of journalists.
Summary
Manisha Koirala is attached to star in Cowgirls and Indians, an independent film scheduled to shoot around Austin in November. Tejal Desai wrote and will direct the feature, expanding her award winning short Cowboys and Hindus.
Koirala's attachment gives a developing independent project added visibility and international casting appeal before production
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The project pairs established star power with a short to feature pipeline that often determines which independent films reach production.
Summary
Reviewers identify seven new films they consider worth knowing about, offering recommendations for both casual moviegoers and dedicated film fans.
The list turns a crowded release schedule into a short viewing guide. Its value lies
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A focused critics’ list gives viewers a practical filter in an increasingly crowded movie marketplace.
Summary
Director Dave Green walks through a scene in which a frustrated Wile E. Coyote seeks legal help, showing how the film develops the cartoon character’s grievances into a story.
The film shifts Wile E. Coyote’s repeated failures from sight gags into a legal premise.
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The movie’s central gamble is whether a familiar cartoon rivalry can sustain a broader narrative without losing its absurdity.
Summary
Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer met in a cafe rather than at a veterinary clinic, but their real relationship overlaps closely with the romance they play in ‘Colin From Accounts.’
The actors’ personal chemistry is not separate from the show’s central love story. That porous
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The show’s appeal rests partly on the unusual credibility created when its stars’ real partnership informs their onscreen one.
Summary
Barbara Forever examines the life and work of pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer through an unconventional documentary approach. The film reflects the originality of Hammer's cinema and career.
The documentary rejects a conventional biographical format to match an artist whose work challenged established
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The film keeps an important strand of lesbian film history visible while presenting it in a form consistent with its subject's experimental legacy.
Summary
An epic historical film about Charles de Gaulle has become an unexpected success at the French box office. Its performance is introducing the wartime leader to a younger generation.
The film's reception suggests that historical drama can break through when it connects national memory
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The hit demonstrates that locally rooted historical films can compete for mass audiences against imported entertainment.
Summary
Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King and Maisie Williams discuss the unlikely sequel to Practical Magic. The cast has embraced the film's witchcraft themes and expressed interest in a possible third installment.
The sequel turns a 1990s property into a multigenerational franchise by combining its original stars
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Practical Magic 2 tests whether an older cult property can convert fan loyalty into a new franchise cycle.
Summary
The streaming guide highlights 10 movies available over the weekend on Netflix, HBO Max and Hulu. The selection includes a new Star Wars story, a fresh entry in a long-running parody-horror franchise and other recent releases.
The lineup reflects how streaming services use recognizable franchises and sequel-driven releases to compete for
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Weekend streaming guides remain useful because fragmented catalogs have made choosing a movie a platform-navigation problem.
Summary
The Asian Contents & Film Market will stage Doc Square from Oct. 10 to 13, bringing eight partner organizations from five countries together to present documentary projects still in production. The market is also launching Impact Asia and has named actor Yim Siwan as host of the Busan International Film Festival's closing ceremony.
Busan is expanding beyond finished-film sales by building a development and financing hub for Asian
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Busan is positioning itself as a year-round platform for Asian nonfiction development, not just a festival marketplace.
Summary
Dutch filmmaker Finn Szumlas has begun principal photography on his debut feature, 'Stairway to Earth,' with a five-week shoot in the Netherlands. Magdalena Koleśnik and Kay Greidanus play strangers who reconnect after a one-night stand at a summer festival.
Production has moved the project from development into execution, giving Szumlas a first feature platform
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The film shows how emerging European directors are using compact, internationally legible stories to launch feature careers.
Summary
Tamar AI's TapNow is presenting an AI-native filmmaking model at the Venice Production Bridge through HappyHorse-backed 10,000 Parallel Universes Films. The company is also unveiling Glanze, a streaming platform tied to its approach to developing and distributing AI-generated film content.
The shift is from using AI as a production tool to building a company around
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The venture is testing whether AI can function as an integrated film business rather than a narrow postproduction technology.
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