ABC has announced its fall premiere dates — along with a small schedule change.
Season five of Celebrity Jeopardy!, which the network announced as part of its fall schedule, is being pushed back to a 2027 premiere. A continuation of the current season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will go in its place on Wednesday nights beginning Oct. 7.
ABC will start its fall rollout in mid-September with the first Monday Night Football game of the season (simulcast with ESPN) on Sept. 14. Dancing With the Stars, coming off a ratings resurgence last fall, debuts the next night along with the second season of private eye drama R.J. Decker.
The rest of the network’s slate will follow over several weeks. America’s Funniest Home Videos and The Wonderful World of Disney will premiere Sept. 27. Scrubs and Shark Tank will each have two-episode debuts on Sept. 30, with Abbott Elementary and Millionaire joining them the following week. The Thursday trio of 911, 911: Nashville and Grey’s Anatomy will be the last out of the gate on Oct. 15.
ABC is also saving several big shows, including High Potential, The Rookie and Will Trent, for midseason, along with two new series: The Rookie: North and a Grey’s Anatomy spinoff set in Texas.
ABC’s fall premiere dates are below. All times are ET/PT unless noted.
Saturday, Aug. 29 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT: Saturday Night College Football
Monday, Sept. 14 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT: Monday Night Football (also on ESPN)
Tuesday, Sept. 15 8 p.m.: Dancing With the Stars 10 p.m.: R.J. Decker
Friday, Sept. 25 9 p.m.: 20/20
Sunday, Sept. 27 7 p.m.: America’s Funniest Home Videos 8 p.m.: The Wonderful World of Disney
Wednesday, Sept. 30 8 p.m.: Scrubs 9 p.m.: Shark Tank
Friday, Oct. 2 8 p.m.: Celebrity Wheel of Fortune
Wednesday, Oct. 7 8:30 p.m.: Abbott Elementary 9 p.m.: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire 10 p.m.: Shark Tank (regular time)
The stoner icons played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith will star in a new video game called Jay and Silent Bob’s Joint Venture. Both men have been involved in its development.
While Farmville, Stardew Valley and other cozy farming games have been family friendly, this one is described as a raunchy take on the genre, with the trailer teasing that marijuana (naturally) will be a key part of the duo’s crops.
Nitrate Games is behind the project, which Smith announced Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con. It’s targeting a 2027 release date for PC and Steam, with players getting to interact with characters from Smith’s movies.
“Since Jay and Silent Bob are the stars of this hilarious growing game, I cannot wait to play with myself,” Smith said in a statement. “Many thanks to Nitrate Games for taking my little animals to this crossing and making them Stars Dew a Valley!”
Nitrate, the upstart indie gaming company, just launched, and was founded by Daniel Kendrick, Montana Sommese and Nick Madonna. Among other IPs they are looking to adapt include the cult classic 1978 film Attack of Killer Tomatoes.
Kendrick is known for running IDW Entertainment, working across games and screen on Locke & Key, Wynonna Earp,30 Days of Night, Godzilla and Sonic the Hedgehog. He also co-executive produced Batman Azteca for Warner Bros. Animation, released last year.
Co-founder Sommese has 15 years of experience bringing the worlds of gaming and Hollywood together, working with companies such as Warner Bros. and Fox adapt IP.
And Nitrate head of development Madonna has worked on games for Saber Interactive, Square Enix, & Vivendi Universal. He is also the head of PHL Collective, which works on games for IP such as Star Wars, Justice League and SpongeBob SquarePants.
“Our core mission is to make games that we wish existed when we were kids,” said Kendrick in a statement. “We’re an independent game publisher with an eye toward creating unexpected takes on unique, beloved properties.”
As for the new game, Chase Marotz is the creative director on Jay & Silent Bob’s Joint Venture, while Ernie Altbacker is writing.
Horror is red-hot at the box office, but what is up next for the genre?
Ideas flowed freely at the San Diego Comic-Con panel for Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror: Tenth Anniversary Edition, which took place on July 24. Panelists included both actors and behind-the-camera talent, including Dan Stevens, star of AMC series “The Terror”; Deborah Ann Woll, star of Shudder’s upcoming thriller “The Cycle”; director Zachary Wigon, who helmed Bleecker Street’s “Victorian Psycho,” which debuted during this year’s Cannes Film Festival; and Dave Boyle, who directed SXSW audience award winner “Never After Dark.” The discussion was moderated by Michael Lerman, the co-founder and director of film programming at the genre-based Overlook Film Festival, and was curated by convention mainstay Rachel Walker, who founded the panel in 2015.
What were their thoughts and theories? Read more below.
Keeping audiences on their toes by not being boxed into one type of genre.
Touching on different tones is a great way to keep viewers discombobulated and primed for a scare.
“I mentioned ‘The Descent’ as being one of my favorite movies. Part of the reason for that is that it shifts,” Woll said. “You’re not always quite sure what kind of horror movie you’re in. Is it a psychological thriller? Is it a survivalist thriller? Is it a creature feature? To me, films that can play with genre in that sense are often the most engaging. When I read this script [for ‘The Cycle’], that immediately made me say, ‘I have to do this.’”
Bring in ideas from other types of storytelling, even if they’re not fully reflected in the final work.
Creatives should take from everything they’ve ever worked on — even if it doesn’t immediately seem transferable.
“I think that the thing that really prepared me to jump into the genre was working on action, just because of how precise and communicative you have to be,” Boyle said. “There are so many moving pieces, so many things to think about and keep track of. Working in Japan for the first time, it’s interesting; Japanese scripts leave half the page blank. Then the director actually draws in the cuts where each cut is gonna happen, so that you have a real sense of how the movie’s going to come together, and there’s a real precision to it if you use that system and lean into it. That’s what prepared me to jump into my favorite genre, which is horror.”
Horror mixed with humor continues to be on the rise.
This goes even beyond the influx of funny directors like Zach Cregger and Curry Barker making their mark on the industry.
“Something I’m pleased to see spreading at the moment is horror with more humor attached,” Stevens said. “I find that humor is so powerful in horror and can often be overlooked. It’s sometimes a scary word when you mention that to producers: ‘I’d like to bring some humor into this.’ ‘It’s not a comedy.’ ‘I know it’s not a comedy, but by bringing some humor in, by bringing elements of humor, you bring in humanity, which I think exists in even the most batshit of situations.’ That can really ground a story sometimes. I’ve really enjoyed seeing a proliferation of those kinds of movies recently.”
Revel in withholding some information from the audience to make for even bigger payoffs.
Conjure up interest by dropping some clues that don’t get solved right away.
“I feel like horror is a subgenre of mystery,” Wigon said. “When I think about horror storytelling, it’s almost like you have a patchwork quilt, and you can’t see what’s in any of the patches at the beginning of the movie. Then as it goes along, you start to reveal that this is one little patch, that’s one little patch, and you’re creating mystery because the audience doesn’t understand how these patches connect to one another, and that’s the game that everybody’s playing. Then as it goes along, you start to realize that you’ve been looking at one image the whole film, and the pleasure is in seeing how these seemingly disparate pieces of information come to connect.”
Watch the new trailer for “The Cycle,” which debuted during the panel, below.
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Shaquille O’Neal executive produces ID’s newest true crime offering, a limited series that resurfaces six of the most shocking murders in sports history. Premiering on July 27, and airing over six consecutive Mondays at 10 p.m. PT/ET, Game Day Murders can also be livestreamed on any TV streaming service that carries Investigation Discovery (ID), namely DirecTV (with a five-day free trial), Philo (with a seven-day free trial), Sling and Hulu + Live TV.
Episodes from the Shaq-produced six-parter will also become available on HBO Max, however the streamer does not offer a free trial period.
Game Day Murders airs weekly on ID at 10 p.m. PT/ET, beginning with the premiere on Monday, July 27, 2026.
Where to Stream Game Day Murders Online
Since Game Day Murders airs on Investigation Discovery (ID), it will also be available to watch live on any streaming service that carries the network, including DirecTV (with a five-day free trial), Philo (with a seven-day free trial), Sling and Hulu + Live TV. Episodes will also become available on HBO Max, however the streamer does not offer a free trial period through its site.
More on each live TV streaming option — and their new subscriber discounts — below.
DirecTV
Five-day free trial; packages from $19.99 per month
ID is included in any of DirecTV’s signature packages: Entertainment, Choice, Ultimate or Premier. Plus, DirecTV offers a five-day free trial for its streaming service, meaning new subscribers can tune in at no cost for a limited time.
Learn more about each plan option, including how to build your own channel lineup (starting at just $19.99 per month), at directv.com.
Philo
Philo
Seven-day free trial; packages from $25 per month
Watch ID on Philo, one of the most affordable cable alternatives. Following the Essential plan’s seven-day free trial period, a subscription costs just $25 per month for 70-plus channels.
Sling
Plans from $4.99 per day or $19.99 per month
ID is included in both Sling’s Blue Plan, from $45.99 per month, and Sling’s Orange Plan, from $45.99 per month or $4.99 per day.
For the best bang for your buck, opt for Sling’s Orange & Blue plan, from $60.99 per month, which combines the offerings of both individual packages at a reduced price. Visit Sling.com to check station availability and package options, starting as low as $4.99 per day or $19.99 per month.
Hulu + Live TV
Three-day free trial; packages from $89.99 per month
Watch Investigation Discovery for free with a three-day trial to Hulu + Live TV. Subscriptions come bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+, and start at $89.99 per month.
Sean Astin said in a new interview with The Guardian that he was forced to sell his house amid “The Lord of the Rings” fame in the early 2000s because he negotiated such a small salary to play Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson’s landmark movie trilogy. The reveal may come as a shock to fans considering the “Rings” movies were cultural phenomenons that grossed $2.9 billion at the worldwide box office between 2001 and 2003.
“I was not prepared for that level of visibility and access,” Astin told the publication. “And there was a disconnect between the attention that I was getting and how much money we had. It was not a lot of money! In fact, I had to sell my house because I negotiated such a small amount on the trilogy.”
Astin noted that he is “very comfortable financially now,” but that wasn’t the case when “The Lord of the Rings” was dominating box office charts. Peter Jackson and the team behind the “Rings” trilogy famously shot all three movies at once, meaning there was no opportunity for the cast to renegotiate their salaries based of the success of each installment.
“Because we weren’t making one movie and then renegotiating a contract for the next, it wasn’t the sort of lucrative scenario that you could sort of rest easy for the rest of your life,” Astin’s “Rings” co-star Elijah Wood told Business Insider last year. Wood noted that New Line Cinema took a “real gamble” filming all three movies at once. To mitigate financial risk, the ensemble cast was offered “not massive salaries,” the Frodo actor said.
“The benefit of that was that we were also signing up for something that was going to be a part of our lives forever,” Wood added at the time.
Astin previously revealed that he earned around “$75,000 a movie,” brining his total “Rings” salary to around $250,000. Co-star Orlando Bloom (who played Legolas) said in a 2019 interview on “The Howard Stern Show” that he was paid just $175,000 for the trilogy.
“The Lord of the Rings” franchise is currently developing its big screen return courtesy of “The Hunt for Gollum,” which Andy Serkis is currently directing, and a new movie co-written by Stephen Colbert. Astin is not confirmed yet to reprise his role in either project, but he will certainly fight for better pay if he is, telling The Guardian: “Goddamn right.”
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Shark Week has officially returned, bringing another frenzy of great whites, makos and other underwater predators to Discovery Channel.
The network’s annual programming event kicked off Sunday, July 26, and runs through Saturday, Aug. 1, with new specials airing nightly beginning at 8 p.m. ET. Cord-cutters can watch Shark Week live online through Sling TV, which carries Discovery Channel as part of its Sling Blue and Sling Orange + Blue packages.
Sling Blue includes more than 40 live channels and allows subscribers to stream on as many as three devices simultaneously. The service also comes with 50 hours of cloud DVR storage, making it possible to record Shark Week specials and watch them later.
Viewers who miss the live broadcasts can also add Discovery+ through Sling. Discovery+ is available in an ad-supported plan for $5.99 per month or an ad-free plan for $9.99 per month, with Shark Week programming available to watch on demand.
This year marks the 38th edition of Shark Week, with Discovery rolling out 20 new specials focused on shark behavior, attacks, conservation and ocean science. The lineup opened with “K-Pop Shark Heroes,” featuring comedian Ken Jeong and singer Rei Ami on a mission to challenge misconceptions about sharks across East Asia.
Other highlights include “Air Jaws: Red, White and Breach,” which investigates great white sharks breaching along the U.S. coastline, and “Invasion of the Mega Sharks,” following researchers as they search for a potentially record-breaking great white off Nova Scotia.
Later in the week, “Jurassic Sharks” uses CGI and real-world expeditions to examine prehistoric species, while “Jaws vs Orca” explores the growing evidence that killer whales are hunting great whites. “How to Train a Great White” tests whether the predators can learn and respond to cues, and “Ultimate Shark Dive” follows high diver Molly Carlson as she attempts a helicopter jump into a narrow shark cage.
The week concludes Aug. 1 with “Great White Highway,” about the increasing number of great whites traveling along the East Coast, followed by “Thresher Shark: Stun to Kill,” which examines how thresher sharks use their powerful tails to incapacitate prey.
Veteran actor Keith David voices the titular commander in chief on President Curtis, the Rick and Morty spinoff that premiered Sunday on Adult Swim following the season nine finale for the flagship series. Stephanie Beatriz and Jim Rash round out the cast for the new project that centers on the leader of the free world and his quirky staff as they navigate an array of unusual crises.
David originated the role of President Andre Curtis during a season two episode of Rick and Morty back in 2015 and has continued to return periodically throughout the series. President Curtis co-creator James Siciliano recalls talk of a spinoff happening as a natural extension of the Rick and Morty team working on the Thanksgiving episode for season five, with Rick seeking a presidential turkey pardon.
“We started to see a more dialed-in world for Curtis there, with spider-FDR, the French assassin hidden in the Statue of Liberty — the National Treasure element of that stuff,” Siciliano, a longtime member of the Rick and Morty staff, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We could see more of an X Files world that could be built out and wouldn’t necessarily be redundant with the Rick and Morty universe.”
President Curtis
Courtesy of Adult Swim
Siciliano and fellow President Curtis series creator Dan Harmon recall the writing team initially suggesting qualities that have cemented previous real-life U.S. presidents as particularly memorable. Harmon notes that he personally has been fascinated by Harry S. Truman, while other writers brought up Teddy Roosevelt — and, of course, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
“The conversations about Obama and Trump were inevitable,” Harmon admits. “Curtis has a naïveté that you could overlap with Trump, who is like, ‘I’m an outsider, and I consider this job simple, and I don’t care about the bureaucracy of it.’ On the Obama side, it’s the charmer and the guy who gets organic joy in being liked — that whole rock star aspect of Obama. But mostly just more legendary aspects of presidents from the past, all Serpentor’d into a test tube baby that then becomes our version of maybe Martin Sheen in West Wing, where it’s our fantasy president, warts and all.”
For fans hoping to catch Rick and Morty popping up on President Curtis (mild spoilers ahead), rest assured that the adventure-seeking duo are indeed part of the pilot, although they will not appear again in the first season. Luckily, there is more President Curtis to come, as the show’s team announced Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con that the spinoff had scored an early renewal for a second season.
Rick and Morty
Everett
“If we didn’t do that, people would be waiting for it,” Siciliano says of writing Rick and Morty into the President Curtis pilot. “In the first season, that’s their only appearance, but that’s not to say that we have anything against them appearing in the future. We really wanted to have this show just be able to get its own identity and breathe a little bit, so that people felt like it was its own show.”
Harmon concurs: “If the show has a life of its own, then we can go Dick Wolf nuts with the crossovers and have Detective Munch all over SVU. But we look forward to earning that.”
The President Curtis launch arrives just weeks after Rick and Morty landed its third Emmy Award nomination for best animated series, having won in 2018 and 2020. This year marks the show’s first such nomination after a turbulent stretch in recent years that saw Justin Roiland (who co-created the series with Harmon) exit following felony domestic abuse charges that have since been dismissed. The titular voice roles were recast in light of Roiland’s firing, with Ian Cardoni replacing him as inventor Rick Sanchez, while Harry Belden took over as teen grandson Morty.
“It is an incredibly important nomination for us because the show has gone through transitions of such peril,” Harmon candidly shares. “To me, it feels like we are an athlete back on a field after a major injury, and so it is an honor to be nominated. It is all I need. I’m happy to go and watch Smiling Friends win or whatever the case, but I’m so grateful for that nomination.”
President Curtis
Courtesy of Adult Swim
President Curtis is not the only potential opportunity for expansion for the Rick and Morty world. THR recently reported that supervising director Jacob Hair was in talks to helm an animated feature version of the series for Warner Bros.
Although the possible film does not yet have a script, Harmon notes that it does have “a technically approved idea that we’re dreaming away on.” He was late to checking out Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films but reveals that they now might serve as inspiration: “I just watched the Dune movies because of messing around with the Rick and Morty movie script. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so late to Dune.’ It’s so rad.”
As for his hopes with the Rick and Morty film, Harmon adds, “It would be my goal, however self-destructive, to make it the greatest movie ever to exist. That might make it hard to write. It would probably be a sci-fi epic, transcending time and space, but not in a way that was unsatisfying. It would probably blend colors as varied in its palette as Lethal Weapon 2 and Dune 2: Toon, as well as Indiana Jones and everything. One could argue that it’s a concept that would be my undoing and the franchise’s as well, since me having permission to think about stuff is not the recipe for success that people would think. It’s more of a trailhead to hell, traditionally.”
Ready for a bit of Swiss bliss on the big screen? The 79th edition of Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is set to be a showcase of adventurous new cinema from around the globe, including homegrown productions from Swiss filmmakers and/or producers.
Various sections of the fest, running Aug. 5-16, will serve up homemade cinematic fare. In addition, the popular “Panorama Suisse” section will put the spotlight on “Swiss films that have enjoyed success at festivals, found an audience in cinemas, or are currently released in the country.” Plus, the Locarno Kids Screenings program also includes two titles with Swiss participation.
For those looking for some Swiss cinematic bliss and trying to avoid having Swiss cheese-sized holes in their Locarno schedules, THR is below highlighting a selection of Swiss treats screening at Locarno79.
The Chilean Director: Sergio Castro-San Martín Piazza Grande International sales: Fandango
A political thriller telling the story of a fugitive is ready to explode onto Locarno’s screens. The big-screen epic The Chilean is a co-production between Italy, Chile and Switzerland that starts off in 1976 Chile.
Amid mining protests, Aldo, skilled in explosives, is forced into exile, leaving his wife and newborn child behind. He moves to Italy, where he must survive on menial jobs in Torino and where people simply call him Il Cileno, The Chilean. But everything changes when he meets Luciana, a doctor involved with anarchist groups. She offers him the chance to reunite with his family. But in exchange, he must return to his old trade – making bombs for revolutionary groups.
“Reconstructing an era means not only designing its atmosphere, but understanding the personalities that embody it,” the director says about The Chilean. “The exiled Aldo Marín leads us to one of the most pressing issues: immigration, omnipresent in the film.”
Happiness Is So Close! Director: François-Christophe Marzal Out of Competition International sales: Point Productions
Jean-Luc, an actor in his 80s, is set to play Don Quixote in a prestigious theater. It is the big role that he has been waiting for to bid farewell to the stage. But his health problems make rehearsals difficult, so the production team hires an understudy in case he is unable to perform. The result is paranoia. Says a synopsis: “Jean-Luc gradually sinks into an obsessive delusion, convinced that his understudy will take his place until he disappears completely.”
Jean-Luc Bideau, Gilles Privat and Aurore Clément star in the Swiss production, written by the director and Nicolas Frey, who also served as the editor.
Ahead of the Aug. 9 world premiere of Happiness Is So Close!, Bideau will receive a special honorary Leopard at Locarno.
Small Talk Director: Matteo Yberra Filmmakers of the Presence Competition International sales: Urban Sales
‘Small Talk,’ courtesy of Locarno Film Festival
How’s this tease for the hybrid feature that serves up a peek behind the curtain of an elite institution? “Hoping to launch a career in the luxury world, Charlie enrolls at Institut Villa Pierrefeu – the last finishing school still operating in Switzerland. Here, women from all over the world are prepared to move within the circles of the international elite.” Over the course of a summer, their daily life is all about lessons in elegance, protocol and the art of conversation.
Written by the director, the actress, along with Louis Rebetez, Hélène Bares, Milan Alfonsi,, the film features actress Hélène Bares.
Says the director: “By working with an actress within a real educational setting, the film explores the porous boundary between performance and social behavior, questioning how identity is shaped by learned codes and expectations.”
O Jacaré Director: Basil Da Cunha International competition International sales: Thera Production
‘O Jacaré,’ courtesy of Locarno Film Festival
Director Basil Da Cunha has dual Swiss and Portuguese citizenship, which explains this co-production and its elements that don’t sound quintessential Swiss: such as alligators and its setting, namely Reboleira, a suburb of Lisbon.
The haul from a robbery has mysteriously disappeared. Within the area sealed off by the police, rumors spread and speculation runs wild. Among the residents, a whole cast of colorful characters dream of getting their hands on the loot. But who will be first to find it?
For the filmmaker, who also wrote the script for the movie, the production marks a farewell of sorts. “For the past 15 years, I have been filming the Reboleira neighborhood, which is due to be demolished,” he explains. “O Jacaré is like a final dance before its disappearance: a vibrant, light-hearted film, infused with comedy and a sense of freedom.”
The AngelMaker Director: Marina Klauser Out of competition International sales: tellfilm
‘The Angel Maker,’ courtesy of Locarno Film Festival
This four-part documentary series from Switzerland, written and directed by Klauser, is not for the faint of heart, but it will appeal to fans of true-crime and cult stories and audiences beyond that.
After all, the series tells the story of “the Swiss religious community of Methernitha, which still exists today, its founder Paul Baumann — the inventor of a mysterious energy machine — and the young women who brought him down on charges of child abuse,” as a synopsis reads.
Klauser has previously written and directed short films and served as head writer of the writers’ room for the dramedy series How to Be Sad – The Right Way.
Frank & Louis Director: Petra Volpe Piazza Grande International sales: TrustNordisk
Kingsley Ben-Adir (left) and Rob Morgan in ‘Frank and Louis.’
Rob Baker Ashton/Courtesy Sundance
Last but not least, Locarno will showcase a well-established Swiss cinematic voice’s latest movie, but not in a world premiere, which happened at Sundance. But the film will still get a big square screening at the festival.
Swiss-Italian writer-director Petra Volpe followed up her box office and critical successLate Shift with Frank & Louis, her English-language debut, putting a spotlight on another often-overlooked care issue: the care needs of the aging incarcerated. Set within the walls of a U.S. prison, it Frank, portrayed by Kingsley Ben-Adir, who is serving a life sentence and takes on a caretaking role for aging inmates suffering from memory loss. Rob Morgan stars as one of those inmates, Louis.
“The theme of care and caretaking, what that means and how we all need it, is such an important societal issue,” Volpe told THR about her motivation for the film in a previous interview. “We take for granted that there are people who take care of us. It’s also a taboo, because nobody wants to think about being old and sick and needy. And especially in the context of prison, we never really think about it deeply.”
Pearl Studio’s animated fantasy feature “All Wishes Come True!” took over the top position at the mainland China box office during the July 24–26 weekend, generating RMB314.8 million ($46.3 million) in its second weekend of release.
Directed by Mu Zhengyang, the film now has a cumulative total of $112.5 million. The family-friendly mythological comedy centers on eight ordinary mortals who must combine their wit and courage to outsmart formidable deities, earning the legendary status of the Eight Immortals.
Shenzhen Film Studio’s sports comedy “Kung Fu Soccer” moved to second place in its third weekend, adding $33.9 million. Directed by Stephen Chow, the hit production has reached a cumulative box office total of $286.6 million. The film follows an amateur women’s team as they integrate high-flying martial arts into professional soccer to contend for a major championship.
Damai Entertainment’s sci-fi epic “The Decisive Moment” debuted in third position, bringing in $6.4 million over the weekend. Including early screenings since its July 25 launch, the film has taken $8.6 million to date. Directed by Zhang Disha from a script co-written with Hu Xiaoxi, and produced by industry veteran Huang Jianxin, the high-concept project previously served as the closing film of the Shanghai International Film Festival. Set across dual timelines, the narrative stars Huang Bo, Gao Ye, and Sun Yang as a trio of 2035 Chinese astronauts lost in space during a return mission, whose only lifeline is a mysterious encrypted signal linked back to a 1970 aerospace researcher played by Wu Lei.
Universal’s “Obsession” opened in fourth place, collecting $4.9 million in its weekend debut.
Enlight Pictures’ youth drama “A Part of Me” rounded out the top five, pulling in $2.7 million in its second week of release. Directed by Ma Yingxin and starring Zhang Ruonan and Jolin Jin, the contemporary feature has accumulated $21.6 million as it tracks the emotional journey of a friendship spanning two decades.
Mainland China’s overall weekend grosses reached $102.3 million, while the 2026 year-to-date revenue stands at $3.15 billion, down 33.6% from the same period in 2025.
The U.K. culture secretary Lisa Nandy — who has remained in her post amid a cabinet reshuffle with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham taking office — has previously said she was “minded to intervene” in the $111 billion mega-deal that, if successful, will undoubtedly change not just Hollywood, but the global film and TV industry.
Among a host of issues, the actors cite concerns over the livelihoods of British film and TV crews, independent film financing, and losing public service broadcaster Channel 5 to Hollywood ownership.
“As actors and public figures who have spent our careers in the arts in Britain — working with British crews, on British stages and sets — we have a responsibility to the public who support, enjoy and consume the art we make,” wrote the famed Marvel actors (Cumberbatch and Wong), as well as Cummng (The Traitors), on Monday in a piece titled “A TV and cinema calamity could be disastrous for what you watch and what you know. Act now to stop that.”
“The U.K. is being threatened by a media merger that would harm our workers, our culture and the public — but we can stop it.” They mention that they are encouraged by Nandy’s statements that she wants to investigate the threat to public interest, and acknowledge that she is not acting alone. This month, 12 U.S. states, led by California, sued in federal court to block the merger, warning that it would “raise prices, shrink the number of films made and degrade the quality of what audiences see,” said the men. And over the weekend, news broke that Larry Ellison’s Paramount agreed not to close the takeover until the court decides whether the deal violates antitrust laws.
“Their lawsuit confirms the danger; it cannot, however, do the U.K.’s work for it,” continue Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong, who add that the EU has conditionally backed the merger and makes its own decisions. “The fight against this merger now runs on two fronts, and Nandy commands one of them. Should her department decide to intervene, it may prove one of the most important decisions any culture secretary has taken for U.K. film, television and media in a generation,” they explain.
“This is why. We have spent our lives working in this industry. We know what it looks like from the inside: the sound stages at Leavesden [studio], the crews who move from production to production, the editors and camera operators and costume designers whose names scroll past in the credits at the end of a film. These are our cherished friends and colleagues, who create the shows we all love, who produce the news that educates the public and film the sport events we enjoy together,” write the actors.
The men say that U.K. film and TV are not just “images on your screens; they are lives and livelihoods of thousands of workers and families, whose work supports local economies.” They cite buoying figures, such as the 180,000 jobs supported through the industry and the £6.8 billion production spend reported last year. “It is one of the things the U.K. still does better than almost anyone, and a cultural heritage we must protect,” they say.
They add that they have watched “with growing alarm” what consolidation does to the “breadth and depth of the work we produce,” before recognizing that independent film acquisitions at the leading independent film festival, Sundance, fell by half between 2019 and 2025. “Award-winning documentaries – films that won Oscars and topped festival juries – have struggled to find commercial distribution because they touched subjects the remaining handful of buyers found inconvenient. Every merger of this kind narrows the funnel through which stories can reach audiences.”
To service Warner Bros.’ estimated $84 billion in debt, executives have promised investors around $6bn in “synergies,” Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong mention. “In plain English, that means redundancies, cancelled productions, fewer films commissioned and fewer risks taken,” they add.
“That is precisely what makes the Paramount-WBD merger so dangerous,” they write, adding that it has happened so many times before, such as Discovery’s merging with WarnerMedia in 2022, which led to the shelving of finished films and thousands of job losses, or Skydance’s merger with Paramount last year when around 2,000 people were laid off.
They admit they are extremely concerned about Paramount’s acquisition of Channel 5, one of the U.K.’s public service broadcasters, as well as CNN International. “The CNN and CBS news archives [are] among the world’s most important broadcast news collections, with more than 4.25m videos, images and media spanning nearly half a century of history. If one commercially interested owner controls access to both, they control the raw material of our historical memory… Fold those newsrooms into a single company, and one boardroom’s commercial anxieties — or political debts — determine what millions of people see and what they never learn existed.”
“And we know something about this particular proprietor’s intentions. Paramount’s chief executive reportedly told Donald Trump that he would make ‘sweeping changes’ to CNN if the deal went through,” they add.
“Actors are often told to stay out of legal arguments,” write Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong. “We understand the instinct. But we have spent our lives on enough U.K. sets, worked alongside enough U.K. crews and watched enough brilliant work from the U.K. struggle to find a buyer to know that this is not someone else’s argument. It is ours.”
