The Biggest Winners and Losers of 2026 So Far

The epic film La Bola Negra is now playing in theaters. Awards Watch proclaims it's the best film of the year. Winner of the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and Best Director at Cannes, La Bola Negra is the great sweeping romance of the year. Starring breakout actors Guitarrica de la Fuente and Carlos Gonzalez with Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close. IndieWire raves it's a love story for the ages. La Bola Negra, now playing in theaters. Rated R, under 17, not admitted without adult. This episode is presented by AMC Network. A new chapter in Anne Rice's immortal universe begins with AMC's The Vampire Lestat. Get a backstage pass to the iconic frontman who Pace Magazine calls a Bowie-inspired rocker that will have fans screaming. Don't miss the legendary vampire Lestat de Leoncourt in his own electrifying rock saga. Watch The Vampire Lestat Sundays only on AMC and AMC+. Learn more at amcplus.com. It is Monday, July 6th. We've reached the halfway point of 2026 in Hollywood. So far, I think it's been a year of recovery. Deal volume in the entertainment media space hit $112 billion, highest since 2021 at this point. Box office is up about 15% over last year and is on track for the first $10 billion domestic year since 2019. And the World Cup viewership is setting new records in this country. But don't get me wrong, this is still a hugely challenged industry. Job losses have continued. Even Netflix is now struggling with its viewership numbers. For all the success of the box office, just in the past month, we've had Minions and Supergirl and Masters of the Universe, all disappointments at the box office, at least domestically. So at the halfway point, it's time for the mid-year winners and losers report. We've got Lucas Shaw here from Bloomberg, and we're going to go through our picks one by one. Winners, losers, and some of the WTF moments so far in 2026. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town. All right, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg back again. I got to say, Lucas, for the second weekend in a row, a big flashy wedding that I was not invited to. First yours, and then Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's. You were not there, correct? I was not. You know, I spoke to some people who were going, whom both of us know, but. And I have yet to get my full debrief from the people who were there. I tried not. I don't care. I know you want. I know the public does, and so we're going to talk about it. Oh, come on. But. It made me feel icky. Come on, the guest list was fascinating to me. And we're not going to get into it. Go to Jam Session if you want that. They have a great recap. But we got to discuss our guy, Adam Aaron, my friend, CEO of AMC Theaters. Just going online. Posting about the whole thing, revealing the dress, revealing the tux, and then he deleted his LinkedIn. Amazing stuff. We'll never get invited to a Taylor Swift-related event ever again. Maybe her next movie will be exclusive to Regal, you know, after his behavior today. Oh, I hope not. Don't say that. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I talked to a couple other executives who were like, I can't talk to you because I don't want to get. The Adam Aaron treatment. It's crazy, though, the number of execs that were there. I mean, sort of revealing. Basically, all the top execs at Disney were there, except Josh Jamarro. He doesn't have a relationship with her. But all the GMA people, you know, she used to reveal her album stuff on GMA. The Disney film people that are working on the film with her. Like, interesting stuff there. She even invited the head of the Academy, Lynette Howell, Taylor, she was there. Because she wants an Oscar. She wants an Oscar for that Toy Story song. I know. I think they may have another relationship there. But, yeah. All the UMG people were there. Record label people, concert promoters, actors that she's barely met. It's gross. Sorry. I know. Unfortunately for us, we were not invited. All right, that's enough about that. We're not going into that. But we are here to talk about the winners and losers of the year so far. Adam Aaron, not on that list. He might have been a good candidate for a winner until now. They've had box offices up. Although, shaky weekend. I know, that's true. Trust me. I'm monitoring this. I have minions in the draft. Now Moana's got to work. It really does. But I'm hoping that the minion softness will help Moana. Okay, so let's go through our winners and losers. And this is our own subjective selections. Our criteria is who has had the best business year so far. Personal stuff, outside. Let's go, let's start with losers. Is that okay, Greg? Yeah, I'll allow it. Sure. You're such an optimistic guy. You're, instead of calling it winners and losers, we're going to call it losers and winners. The, uh, the math. That's fine. But I think this is the most interesting loser of the year, because you and I both identified these people as winners earlier this year. And I'm talking about Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, the co-CEOs of Netflix, when the whole Warner Brothers thing didn't work out. They walked away with $2.8 billion. They ran up the price on Paramount to buy the asset. And we both said, okay, they came, they came out of this pretty well. Cut to a few months later. The stock is down nearly 20% this year, 40% since they started going after Warner Brothers. They've sort of tipped their hand to cause Wall Street to be nervous about the company. They were, you reported this weekend about their engagement problem. They're going to be a little bit more aggressive. to be working well so um i know i don't think it's panic time at netflix yet but it will be interesting to see how they act in the next six months especially after earnings come out especially after the new engagement report comes out and they need to do something so we'll see what they do all right let's move on to our you do you want to do your first loser or do you want to do a winner let's let's lighten things up let's do a winner winner okay well then i'll just keep it and then we'll do the net keep it in the netflix family uh i feel like ben affleck is is a huge winner for the first half of the year oh good one i mean he takes a company that nobody knew he had and sells it for more than 600 million dollars to netflix but that also by the way manages to allow them both to do an ai deal that doesn't cause huge outrage because ben affleck is a filmmaker and so people trust that he is doing things sort of the ethical right way i mean that's what i've always wondered about this deal is this a game changer in the tech category or is this a 600 million dollar press release i think it's in between those two i don't i don't think people who really know ai video would necessarily describe it as a game changer i mean this is not you know a new video platform it's not something that we're hearing everyone talk about you know using to make their videos but i think if it comes to sort of professional film content it's something that netflix hopes they can use across a lot of their projects or at least gets their division started it's sort of like uh it's also a little bit of an acquihire i don't i think it's more than just you know a nice press release but i don't think this is gonna you know change how everyone makes movies and do they get the rip two three four and five out of this as well this is starting a pretty significant relationship with a guy who has previously not made movies for netflix and who makes the type of you know smart populist type entertainment that netflix says is its bread and butter yeah it's a good move um all right so i'm gonna then pivot to a winner here uh i'm gonna do as one of my winners and this is gonna pain me because he's been pretty awful to me uh during this entire process i'm gonna say graham king is a big winner of the year the producer of michael the michael jackson movie that movie is going to get to a billion dollars and didn't hasn't gotten there yet we have not seen the big triumphant press release but this is a movie that hit the absolute worst possible speed bumps on the way to theaters having to scrap the entire third act having to deal with all the you know the lawsuits and all they finally just went full populist give the fans what they want a performance movie avoids all the controversy we in the media jumped up and down stomped our feet about how lame it is boom a billion dollars so graham was right you view him as singularly responsible or just the most responsible he was driving this train and i think anyone associated with the movie even antoine fukua the director who gets credit here graham jumped on this project early championed it is a you know full believer in michael jackson's innocence i believe i don't he has not said that publicly but he wanted to make this film he got the bohemian rhapsody writer to to get involved john logan and he's the one who did it and he's the one who did it and he's the one who did it and when everything fell apart he put it back together they are definitely going to do a second movie um the question is just when they're going to get everyone back together they he found the star jafar jackson who turned out to be amazing in the film and i do think um the movie will probably get some awards attention i don't know that he'll get a nomination but it'll probably get makeup and hairstyling and it could get some other uh nominations there so overall huge win yeah do you consider that the biggest maybe not surprised i don't think people were shocked by it but sort of like the biggest win relative to expectations for any movie so far this year no it's got to be obsession well we'll get we'll get to that do you want to do do you want to do a winner for yourself i i am going to do well i feel like i should do a loser i haven't done a loser yet all right do a loser and then we'll get to the horse this will stay in the movie business we'll just do a long run of movie stuff i mean i think that the the an obvious loser has to be john and peter saffron the dc guys oh the dc supergirl after two weekends is that 100 million worldwide barely barely 100 million worldwide clearly the bomb of the year well maybe matt along with matt i would actually say this is bigger than masters of the universe because nobody thought masters of the universe was really going to work other than maybe a couple people at mattel like and amazon um you know dc this was supposed to be the you know the the rebooted dc two guys who knew what they were doing they took a big victory laugh after superman which was a hit but not the massive hit that they made it out to be especially given the cost and then huge flame out on the second movie it doesn't mean that they're gonna necessarily abort the strategy but if you're david ellison and you get your deal done how much faith are you putting in these guys to know what they're doing if they can't make supergirl work i know peter saffron did a rare statement to the new york times the sunday after the movie came out saying well supergirl did not meet our ex our box office expectations it's just one component of a broader long-term strategy i.e david david ellison we've got a long-term strategy please do not fire us we have a vision we know what we're doing we remain confident in this is peter saffron's quote i don't know i know it's the worst possible timing for them to have a the bomb in the summer um the only question is why didn't you give me this movie you had the opportunity to give me this movie and you chose dc to do it i don't know i don't know i don't know in our box office draft i thought about it but i just figured clearly incorrectly that the floor on a superhero movie was still like 250 300 like i didn't this movie is not gonna touch sniff too i kind of liked millie alcock i thought the movie could potentially be decent but yeah no you weren't at cinema con it was kind of a disaster i was not at cinema con clearly i need to go to cinema con you do honestly we gotta get you there next year it's kind of ridiculous that you don't go i'm probably gonna go next year we always do an outing with the ringer people with the big picture people we went to wizard of oz this year last year we did david copperfield um i'm trying to get us to go to carrot top but craig's that craig keeps putting his foot down i throw my body in front of that every every year yeah it will happen we will see carrot top before he retires uh all right so that's your loser now is it time for a winner for me or whichever direction you want all right you know and i'm this is gonna go in the sort of bomb that says more about where the company is going and i'm gonna go with my old friend kathleen kennedy the former head of lucasfilm one final kiss off disaster she left behind before she'd step down at the beginning of this year the mandalorian and grogu got to 330 million worldwide not great for a star wars movie by far the lowest grossing of any star wars project the thing is the movie was fine like favreau did a good job it's just the appetite for a tv show movie was not there this is now a tv franchise you just had to kick her on the way out i did because you know what that nobody was talking about the fact that she did this now dave filoni who is currently running lucasfilm uh with another executive he was very involved in this movie too he's a mandalorian guy as well and so he is not blaming him for it he's not blaming him for it he's not blaming him for it he's not blaming him unless here but this strategy they didn't have a star wars movie for seven years and to relaunch the movie franchise with a tv show episode did not work and we you we blame the leadership of lucasfilm more than your buddy john favreau i do because the movie's fine the movie's i mean i'm biased i like favreau i think he's great and he's a very commercial filmmaker when he wants to be but he was a director for hire on this one they came to him and said why don't we do this as a theatrical movie so that was coming from disney and whether it was kathy or whether it was alan bergman or even eiger that said let's play it absolutely safe this is the problem with star wars they played it absolutely safe and it's blown up in their face they couldn't do a lord and star wars movie it was too outside the box but yet they're bringing the emperor back in rise of skywalker because it was just the bottom line base what will the fans be okay with and they thought that was the same with a mandalorian movie it turns out what it's worth i hear you and i i encourage risk taking but you just praised graham king for playing it safe on michael jackson and now we're we're ripping disney for playing it that's it but that's a different scenario that was a that was a scandal hot potato and who knows maybe the original version of michael would have also done a billion dollars maybe engaging with the allegations against him would have done a million dollars maybe probably not probably not but maybe um but with star wars with a 50 year old franchise you got to do something new and interesting with it and you know the movie didn't you didn't learn anything about the mandalorian there was nothing new there were no big stars in it there was not they did an episode two episodes of the show they were good episodes of the show but that's not enough that's not theatrical and we'll see what sean levy does next year with gosling one final kiss off from kathy kennedy okay you want me to do a winner or a loser let's let's do a palate cleanser do a winner um i'm gonna save one for the later because i think it's too obvious i feel like we gotta do uh greta gerwig as a winner okay give me your argument my argument would be that she is getting the biggest theatrical release in the history of netflix and that whether maybe sure maybe it was timing maybe it was right movie but she proves to be the one director who gets netflix to do what they've never done for any other director and i think it speaks at least partly to some of the power that she and the producers on that movie had in the marketplace to be able to push it right she's not nolan but she's definitely in that next tier of directors who can kind of call her shot on a lot of this stuff and she has the ip card to play with netflix as well netflix doesn't have a lot of ip and she is in that she's attached to this big piece of ip in narnia that netflix would like to turn into a major franchise and i do think that ted is coming around to this notion that you need this big splashy theatrical marketing moment to create real ip value and i think we're seeing it with what you reported this past week about their tv shows losing consciousness with their audience between first and second season it's not just that they wait a long time to produce the second season of a show it's that the binge model down you enjoy it you instantly forget about it and you're hungry again it's the chinese food of tv shows so you you with with something as important to netflix as narnia they're going to give her theaters that's what ted has decided i think the also the only reason i pause is i think for television they are still kind of reluctant to really do the pre-release marketing and one of the issues on the seasons is like they just basically tell people who watch the first season to watch the second one they don't put in a lot of effort to expand the tent which is something that hbo does a lot right sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but shows like industry grow over time succession grows over time netflix shows generally don't grow but with movies you got no choice you got one shot at it you either got to get people to show up that first weekend or they don't and if they don't sure maybe something will get discovered online like has happened with with certain movies but usually in those cases there was a robust marketing budget and it just like pays dividends later right like within kanto and disney plus it did okay in theaters and then it blew up at home but it had a real marketing budget yeah fun little factoid from the taylor wedding i am told by someone who was there and witnessed it that our friend adam aaron went up to greta and started bowing in front of her it was apparently very awkward uh he is a big fan no doubt of greta gerwig and the theaters that she got right for her movie she accomplished what he could not exactly fan duel is now available everywhere in the u.s so you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are including these places and georgia news including minnesota buffalo lincoln chitown arizona make this your most rewarding season ever with fan duel age and location restrictions apply product availability varies by market see fanduel.com for eligibility gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER this episode is brought to you by accenture when your advertising operations fall out of sync campaigns slow down insights get buried and opportunities get missed that's why spotify and accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business the result less time spent on operations more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most to learn more check out accenture.com spotify all right let me go on to another should i do a winner you should do a winner because i want to do a couple losers yeah i'll do a winner um i am going to get a little wonky on this one i'm going to do someone not famous do greg hessinger who is the new head of the amptp the studio coalition that negotiates with talent this year everybody was afraid that the three main talent guilds actors writers directors were going to threaten to strike the ai situation has only gotten worse the industry is in a pretty tough spot not only does this guy come in as the new negotiator but he extracts a fourth year in these deals that i thought was just going to be a non starter that these guilds were going to be like no why would we give up our leverage of negotiating with you every three years and one by one started with the writers which was the biggest surprise to me he got four year deals and yes they had to agree to fund their pension plans which were in a very tough spot because of all the unemployment and there are gains that you know they the guilds have been very happy about so to a lesser extent i think the heads of the guilds are also winners here but greg hessinger amptp guy comes in and kills it in his first negotiation well it definitely helped that nobody wanted another strike right like the last time everyone just decided there's going to be a labor stoppage and we're okay with it and this time it was like the opposite both sides wanted to do deals nobody wanted no right there was no appetite for some protracted dispute or stoppage and so i think both sides did a good job of identifying like okay this is what matters the most to us and we're gonna get it and we can compromise on a lot of the other things so for a lot of the unions it was pension health care that kind of thing and for the studios it was getting that extra year so they didn't have to worry about it and they would give a little bit more money on the areas that mattered and it made it kind of a non-story this year which i think was very reassuring for most of the people who work in the business and us we don't have to talk about it for six months i don't know uh for the for the health of an industry that we both care about yes selfishly as a journalist those strikes were great stories so i you know that's true i know all the all the writers coming after us for not you know 100 buying i've been on i've been on fresh air once in my life and it was because she wanted to talk about the labor strikes in hollywood i know i miss adam conover i like having adam conover on the show he's fun to fight with um all right so give me your next one give me your loser i have a couple but i'm gonna go with one that i think is a little more interesting which is i feel like brendan carr is a loser for the first half of the year oh wow the fcc chairman why yeah also keeping it wonky because well one he he tried to go at it what he and and trump tried to go at it with kimmel again and just got completely smacked down um and i just i think the the the the reduction in approval of the current administration has weakened their ability to just sort of force things there was a feeling in the first six to twelve months of trump two where the media companies had no backbone they didn't feel like they could stand up because the the kind of populist sentiment was behind the administration and that has changed to where i think media companies yes they one they've seen that the administration is generally not is like open for business and so they view that as a good thing but at the same time there's i think less fear of the administration's ability to push them around and i think as brendan carr as sort of the the the public face of trump's war on the media he just has a little less juice than he did six months ago i think disney growing a pair and fighting back a little bit more on this stuff is a factor here i mean i don't think brendan carr expected disney to launch this campaign on all their stations to get people to submit public comments about whether the view is a news program and that i mean you could see him on twitter like fighting back to the news program to them fighting back which suggests that these surprises are standing up or he's distracted or just he's got more of a fight whereas before it was like we're gonna sue you okay we'll settle this time you've got disney pushing back i don't you know i just don't think companies are gonna lie down in the same way they will either find a way to get a deal kind of like a side deal like live nation did in their case or if they think it's something really egregious they'll just you know they'll fight back and depending on what happens in november it becomes a question of like whether they're even relevant at all like whether if the you know congress turns then is he going to even be able to to go after these companies at all or is the opposite going to be the case is elizabeth warren and all of her friends are they going to start coming after the paramounts and these other companies that have settled or given concessions totally possible um i think it would really only work if kind of both houses flip but what do i know yeah i'm surprised that paramount hasn't done more outreach to the demonstration aren't you a little surprised what do you mean by that yes they've met with rob bonta and they've they've done the basic minimum but i i would think we'd see at least a little more outreach uh from from the paramount side on this merger well i think they were when they were trying to get the deal my understanding is they spent some time with a bunch of the state ags but you're talking about trying to make sure that you know senators and congress people like the the cory bookers who've who've and and adam shifts and people who've said what is happening with this why not make sure that they're on their side yeah or at least like meet with them and say this is what we're prepared to do to assuage your concerns. Yeah, it's one, it's possible that they have done a lot of it behind the scenes. And we just don't know about it. The other is there, those people are not really in a position to block the deal right now. And so I think they're very focused on the people who can get them what they want. Right. Although that may be short sighted. All right, I'm going to go to my final loser here. And this is going to be a conversation. I've got to pick Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast. For now, you're not buying into the spin. You're you're, oh, we'll get there. We'll get there. But just from a macro perspective, regardless of what happens, we're going to have one company with all the cable networks, one company with NBC Universal and the theme parks, one company with Comcast and the connectivity. Roberts family will own controlling shares of each of these companies. But the era of Brian Roberts as this larger than life mogul that controls all of these things. One company and is a player that everyone in Hollywood has to deal with and care about. I think that's kind of coming to an end. I don't totally agree with that. I understand why you would make them a loser, but it doesn't make him any less of a mogul that they're controlling three separate companies. It didn't make John Malone or Barry Diller less of moguls that they had out of these confederations of assets. You know, he still what it ends is sort of, yeah, this sort of conglomerate era in media where you would try to combine content and distribution, or at least old fashioned content and distribution. And I think it's also part of this kind of very gradual changing of the guard as to who matters, right? You know, 10, 15 years ago, it was Brian Roberts and Rupert Murdoch and Bob Iger and a couple and and Jeff Bukas and the, the, and Sherry Redstone or really then maybe Sumner Redstone. And on that list, like only one or two of those people really matter anymore. And Brian is in a transition phase where he's having to think about succession at his companies. He's having to think about how to position them. And they also have to make a decision probably where like, if they want to keep, if they want to please wall street, they either need to get bigger, you know, merge some merge Comcast and charter, merge NBC universal with something, buy a couple of things and fold it in. Or, or decide to cash out on a couple of those assets and focus. And there he continues to take a very sort of methodical and unflashy approach to figuring out some of the challenges at his business. Well, and doing whatever he can do to maintain control of those businesses, which seems to be the primary goal here. I guess it, it just comes down to what you think the future is for these assets and whether you think NBC universal is a buyer or a seller. Now, whether you think there is some kind of roll up to do in the cable and connectivity business. And it just feels like from now on with this company, we are going to be talking about the potential disposition of it. We're not going to be talking about all of these great assets and the synergies and everything else it's who's going to buy what, right. What are they going to potentially buy? And that's going to be the narrative around this once great media company. Yeah. Although we would have thought at this point, we might be having more conversations about deals with versant than the one that's still been, you know, a relatively quiet company. They just bought a golf technology company today. What are you talking about? How could I come with that? Uh, side note, big winner, Mike Cavanaugh getting to be the CEO of NBC universal on a quasi permanent basis. He's been kind of acting CEO, this guy, not a lot of media operation experience. He's a JP Morgan deal maker. Who's been at Comcast a long time. Can't say that his track record has led to a stock price growth over the past 10 years at Comcast. And now he's running NBC universal. Doesn't that suggest that this is just a company looking for deals now, maybe, but the big Comcast, which Mike Cavanaugh, I mean, well, one, take a step back. Would you say it is a promotion or a demotion? Cause he was co-CEO of the whole company alongside Brian Roberts, but getting to be CEO on his own is a, is better. I think so because Brian Roberts was the kind of de facto guy been there, running the company for 20 years. He's been running the company for 20 years. I don't know. Comcast has always looked at big deals. Um, and I do think, you know, they're putting kind of a financial and a lot and an operations steward in place, not a kind of core entertainment person. It also means they don't have to pick between the various people, but you have to imagine that at a certain point, you know, Donna Langley is sitting there and going, well, maybe I want that job. Yeah. And if the goal was to actually grow the company and really turned it into a powerhouse in media, you put the experienced film and now television executive in charge of it. You don't put the deal guy in charge of it unless your goal is deals. Well, yeah. I mean, the guy who's now running Comcast, Brian Roberts, stepping down the guy running Comcast, he's a deal guy as well. Yeah. Michael Angelo, I guess. Yeah. He's the one that did the original deal to buy NBC universal while with, with Steve Burke. Sure. But yeah, it just feels like this company is now going to be an M and a story. Whereas before it was a media Hollywood story, the Comcast story for the last few years has been a, or many years has been a cable and internet story, not a Hollywood story, but it's definitely the case now that deals are going to hang over everything this company does for the next couple of years. Like it happened with Warner brothers discovery. As soon as they talked about splitting things up or really likes been happening with Warner brothers discovery for 10 years. Right. I know. And the question is, will they even get to the split? Which I'm skeptical. I think if Netflix is really serious about NBC universal, they'll do it now rather than wait the couple of years for tax benefits, but we'll see. Um, all right. Any other winners and losers here? Um, I had bill Ackman as a loser for the whole hedge fund guy for who kind of just agitated for change at universal music group, partial, maybe as part of trying to help his own company. And it just like universal did a couple of things to make him happy. Um, selling some of the Spotify steaks and buybacks, but for the most part, big whiff didn't get a deal done. I mean, I, I would've brought it up earlier, but I feel like we've talked about it a lot. Obvious winner is the, you know, Curry part, um, Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, the, the directors of back rooms and obsession kind of the, the two horror movies of the year so far. Yeah. Do you think that the entire horror landscape is a winner this first half of the year? I think so. Isn't it always a winner? No, we were talking last year. Yeah. About oversaturation and Blum came on the show and talked about Megan too. Original movies, original horror wasn't working and yeah. Okay. Horror has had a very good year. Yeah. And it's, and it's had this kind of original comeback in the sense that, you know, the, the feeling was that it was going to be tougher and tougher to open original horror and that everyone needed to do branded. And now we've got two big horror hits. Obsession just got to 400 million obsession is like gonna wipe the floor with the Spielberg movie. This is, this is a dumb question. Cause I should know this. It's gotta be the biggest movie focus is ever released. Right. Have they ever had one of those like random movies that actually got to, you know, 600 million? Yeah. It's focus is biggest movie ever, according to the Hollywood. Okay. So, so maybe we have a Jason Kajowski, the head of focus as a winner for the year. Peter is Peter. So maybe we have Peter Kajowski as the head of focus for a winner of the, of the first half of the year. That's a pretty good one. For Cujo justice for, I know. And cause I was making fun of, they had a lot of bombs last couple of years, although they did well with Nosferatu, like the elevated horror seems to be their thing. It was the biggest movie in the history of focus when it crossed 200 million after like two weekends. So it's doubled the biggest movie focuses ever released. I have a bunch of other winners actually that I'm happy to run through. Well, my other winner was Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Because project hail Mary, not just a massive, hit, but a massive hit that we can legitimately hang on him. He's been a star now for 20 years. He's never had a movie that you could say that is a Ryan Gosling vehicle that people showed up for. That is a massive hit. He's either done IP with blade runner and Barbie, or he's done these kind of like ensemble movies or two handers like, uh, the, you know, Lala land or what was the Emma stone one? Oh, crazy, stupid, love, crazy, stupid, love. Like he's been a star for a long time, but this is all him. And he's going to get an Oscar nomination. Like I would say that as a, as close to a shoe in as possible and coming off of one or two movies that hadn't done as well as people wanted this reasserted his primacy as a, as a star who can get movies made almost on his own. Exactly. I also think that's gotta be a win for Courtney Valenti, the head of the movie division at Amazon because Amazon had really never had a big hit. Yeah. Eddie, Jassy was tweeting about the home video release on this past weekend. Um, I, although Courtney Valenti takes a hit for the artificial debacle, the Sam Altman movie, uh, but although I think that that decision was ultimately, it's certainly not her decision, but she, it will hurt her with filmmakers and yeah, it's not going to be great for her next time. A piece of edgy material comes through her door. Uh, sneaky winner, RJ Cipriani. The degenerate gambler who brought down Jeff Schell, the head of Paramount, the president of Paramount, through his claims. He wanted his wife's reality show to get greenlit. And he then got the, you know, number two at the company fired over his claims. I refuse to hail that guy a winner. Sorry. Trust me, I'm holding my nose right now. But he also is probably getting a settlement. I don't know who's paying that settlement, but probably has something to do with the insurance policy of Patty Glazer, Schell, and Cipriani's mutual lawyer. But I don't know that for a fact. All right, any other winners? The only other one I had was. A couple of sports media ones. I mean, Jim Dolan reviled Nick Soner, who finally gets his win. And the Spears doing well. Also, you know, anyone involved in this World Cup because of how well the ratings are doing. So the Eric Shanks at Fox Sports, the Telemundo people, they're winners. The Telemundo people, I think, especially because. Because of how big those numbers are. And, you know, those numbers are going to flow to Peacock. I think we're going to see a big spike in Peacock subs this next quarter because of the World Cup. Now, the churn rate is probably going to be gigantic after that. But if you. You know, Peacock says they're almost profitable. It would be amazing if Peacock announced we're profitable and we had a, you know, 5 million subscriber spike. And by the way, we're never announcing subscriber numbers again. Yeah. All right. Any other sneaky losers? Nah. I mean, only some obvious ones that I don't feel like we need to re-litigate. Oh, like who? I mean, I feel like this has not been a good start for Alex Cooper with podcasting and a lot of the reporting that's been done around her. Maggie Gyllenhaal for The Bride. Not a great. Although she did get another movie at Warner's. Jonah Hill had his movie Bump from the Summer cut off. We could also mention Casey Wasserman forced to sell his company after the, you know, the revelations of his Epstein emails that were 20 years ago and it's still coming back to haunt him. Still no word on who's buying that company. No. I think we're going to get some news in a couple days or weeks on that. All right. Well, pretty eventful first half of the year. I think we're going to see a lot more come in the second half. Lucas, thank you for your assessment. Thanks, Matt. All right. That's the show for today. No call sheet. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horvath, John Jones and Jesse Lopez. And I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week. Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease symptoms. Don't pause for the moments that matter. That's why understanding your treatment options matters. Discover what's possible with Trimphia. 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