Category: Entertainment

The announcement dropped on a pulverizingly humid Thursday afternoon in New York City: just a few hours later, an Olivia Rodrigo surprise gig would take place at Brooklyn’s intimate, 1,100-capacity venue Warsaw. The expected mad dash for tickets — only available at the venue’s box office — ensued, with fans lining up in heat that was technically 91 degrees but with a “real feel” of 105. But of course, the venue was packed long before the 8 p.m. showtime, even though it was just as hot inside.  

Rodrigo, clad in a red flowered schoolgirl dress and black go-go boots, dove in at the deep end, starting the set ambitiously with the album’s first single, “Drop Dead” — a challenging song to sing, with its upper-register chorus that offers few opportunities to take a breath — but she pulled it off with ease. “We’re going to be playing a lot of songs from my new album for this first time,” she said, and promptly obliged with three more tracks from “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” concluding with the Wet Leg-esque “My Way.”

Her five-piece band was razor-sharp — they’ve played a number of concerts this year, from the Primavera Festival in Spain and “Saturday Night Live” to a surprise cameo with the Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza last weekend — but apart from an “Austin City Limits” taping last weekend, this was indeed the first time most of the eight new songs have been performed for a concert audience.

After the opening blast, Rodrigo then sat at the keyboard for a brace of ballads from her previous albums, including “Drivers License,” before rolling out four more new songs — including the fan favorites “Maggots for Brains” and “The Cure,” the latter of which she said is “probably” her favorite song from the album, as well as an emotional debut performance of “Less Than” — before finishing off the set with “Good 4 U” and “Déjà Vu.”

Throughout the set, she was her usual effervescent self, bouncing, spinning, holding out her arms, pumping her fists and leading the audience in several singalongs — and not a word about her latest altercation with the president. The “Pretty Sad” songs were note-perfect, but new material always takes a few gigs to break in and it’s likely they’ll be looser as time goes on. Likewise, a few older songs will probably be added to the setlist before they begin touring in earnest, beginning with Rodrigo’s own Daisy Chain Fields festival in Southern California at the end of this month, and the months-long “Unraveled” tour, which launches on Sept. 25.

How sweet — or suite — it still is. Judy Collins is doing a valedictory lap or two around the country on what is billed as a farewell tour, even though, at 87, she’s showing little in the way of weariness about maintaining a full concert schedule or lack of prowess in pulling these shows off. “It’s time” is the fullest explanation she’ll give about why it might be time to think about slowing down her schedule. In the meantime, there is a long way to go on her “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes Farewell Tour 2026-2027,” named for the song pal Stephen Stills wrote to celebrate her almost six decades go.

If she thought she’d looked at clouds from multiple angles when she had a top 10 hit with the Joni Mitchell-penned “Both Sides, Now” in 1968, imagine how many more cloud sightings she’s had in her career since then. She changes her sets nightly, but ticketholders for the tour are likely to get a sampling of her most well-known recordings — which include covers of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Morning” and the hymn “Amazing Grace” — as well as her self-penned material, as highlighted in her most recent studio release, 2022’s “Spellbound.” Whichever songs she picks, fans won’t likely regret a chance to see her for what may or may not be a local last time. In L.A., she headlines the Ford on Friday night, joined by a fellow monster of folk-rock, Bruce Cockburn. (Openers on some of the other tour dates include such big-name acolytes as Richard Thompson, Amanda Shires, Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter.)

Variety caught up with Collins via Zoom from her New York home as she prepared to fly out for the tour’s west coast swing.

Your official farewell tour kicked off July 4, but looking back, you already had had a really busy year. It looks like you’ve done over 35 shows so far in this calendar year, and you’re just getting started.

Yeah, we usually do 100 a year, so that’s good.

You haven’t yet put an end date on your farewell tour. Does it really feel like this is farewell, or is there some ambiguity as far as how long you might keep going?

No, it is a farewell tour. You know, I’ve been doing this for 67 years. I don’t know if anybody took note of that. But I think I’ve done a farewell tour later than most people do. I don’t know anybody to compare it with. But I think a lot of bands and a lot of organizations and groups have done farewell tours, and I think it was appropriate for me to do mine now.

And why so? As you said, you’re doing it further along in years than a lot of people who have officially done a last tour. But you have also  frequently talked about how you actually enjoy touring.

Oh, I do. I love it. But I have a lot of other things in my life that I have to deal with, which is writing a couple of new books, and I have a commitment with a Broadway (producer) with a stage show that I’ve written all the music for. So there are other things, of course, that have to be dealt with. And, it’s time.

It feels like you are… I don’t want to say wholly unique, but somewhat unique among performers, in loving being on the road so much. We talk to so many performers who say, “I love the two hours on stage. It’s the other 22 that I can’t deal with.” Yet you’ve said you enjoy the part of touring that other people hate, which is transit of getting from one place to another.

I love touring. I love it.

And this has something to do with first experiencing being on the road with your father?

When I was a little girl, my father was a great entertainer, and it was through him I found my reason to have a career and be doing what I wanna do. He had a a radio career for 30 years, and he also toured at the end of the war. I first was on the road with him when I was a little girl. I was 3, and he was touring with National School Assemblies, and we were up in Butte, Montana when I had my first time on stage. He said, “You want to sing for these nice people?” And I sang “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” It’s the one I knew. It was April.

He said, “Do you want to sing for the people?” And, “do you want  to ride in the car?” I said, “I want to do both.” And I love traveling. I love living in New York, but I also get to travel all over. The other day we were with the High Kings, and we were in Duluth, and we had a big show at this huge, wonderful place in the woods [the Big Top Chautauqua]. I was there with Don McLean years ago, and he called me up because he saw that I was gonna be there, and he was reminding me of our show at that wonderful venue. And we were driving in the most beautiful area in Wisconsin, near Lake Superior.

I get to see all these places. And I get to ride in planes; I don’t mind planes at all — I love planes. But also we get to drive, and I get to see every tree that’s ever been considered to plant somewhere. I love it. Do I know what they all are? No, because I’m not a botanist. But I love everything that grows. You know, Saturday night I got home, and I raced around and watered all my plants.

So your father was a role model for being in show business?

I do a lot of things that he did. I tell a lot of jokes. I want to make people laugh. I grew up on the wonderful entertainers who always told jokes. You know, we were babies of that culture. And also, you know, I’m the Betty White of the folk movement.

Like Betty White, just in terms of endurance and still being around and enjoying it?

Sure. I mean, she certainly kicked off pretty late. And I have a lot more steam… a lot more juice in my engine, I’ll tell you that.

You’re not bidding farewell because your voice is gone. Everyone still loves to hear you sing.  Sometimes we have to wonder if a lot of it is just genetics — that Tony Bennett can sing well into his 90s, and you are doing great well into your 80s, but other people start having voice problems when they hit 70 or even 60.

Yeah. Well, the voice is a very tricky thing, and it’s a superb instrument if you can keep it with you. If you can’t… I’ve had my issues with my voice, and I had incredible, unbelievable fortune.

First of all, I was given a gift from two people in New York. One was the great teacher who taught me how to sing. By good fortune, I found Max Martley, who was an incredibly gifted teacher, and he taught a lot of people and taught me for 32 years, and I learned what to do. But also, I was an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic but I was drinking for about 20 years. And when I hit 1977, I suddenly couldn’t sing anymore, and I canceled many shows. But then I was lucky because the doctor I was seeing, an ENT doctor named Donald Wiseman, was a genius. And there was no cure for what I had. I had a what’s called hemangioma. People who drink for years get these on their faces, and I was a heavy drinker, but I didn’t get mine on my face — I got it on my vocal cord. It would have stopped me completely forever, and there was no cure at the moment. So Don Wiseman kept at it. He kept saying, “You’re not gonna be singing anyway, so let’s try this.” And it was a process that he did on the vocal cord, and it was removed. I don’t know how miracles happen — I mean, I’m not supposed to be in charge of those — but I got one. And from then on,  I went straight back to a clean vocal cord that has been working perfectly ever since.

And of course, I know what to do. I mean, I know from Max that I have to remember clarity and phrasing — two things that are my watch words. And so it’s not a mystery really, but it is in terms of technique, because I know exactly what to do, and I also have this clean vocal cord to work with. So I think that what I was given was a gift from the higher power, from whatever, and of course, I immediately… Well, within the next few months, I also stopped drinking, and I’ve been sober for 48 years, which doesn’t hurt.

So you got a second chance at life, or your career, in the ’70s…

Well, I got another life because I not only stopped drinking, but also, about four days before I went into treatment, I met the man that I was to be living with and married to [Louis Nelson]. We were together for 46 years, and I lost him. Well, I didn’t “lose” him. He died at the end of 2024. So I have gone through this widowhood and the difficulties that come with it. It’s painful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s everything you could think of. But on the other hand, I had all those years. He was an amazing man.

He did not have to live in your shadow, with such prominent accomplishments.

Among other things, he designed the [mural for the] Korean War Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and that’s been very much a part of our lives, too. All of the wonderful people that he was working with, and our trips to D.C., and our engagement with the generals, and all the Koreans, and the people who made it such an extraordinary gift not just to the Koreans, but to us, the Americans. So he was splendid and brilliant and wonderful and all of those things. And I lucked out, that I got to spend all those years with him. For an old hippie like me, I think it’s pretty good luck.

Quite a confluence of events, between meeting him and getting your voice repaired…

And getting sober. It happened all at the same time, which I think is extraordinary. And I know people that have lost their voices in similar situations to mine. So it is the luck of the draw — I love that old song.

The title of this tour is “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes,” a la the Crosby, Stills and Nash song inspired by you, but spelled without the “suite” pun. I think I faintly recall that you might have been mildly embarrassed by Stephen Stills’ song when it came out. But you embraced it enough to make it a tour title this time around.

Oh, I wasn’t embarrassed. I mean, that was the greatest compliment he could have given me, and we have been friends ever since. We’ve been friends for close to 60 years, and we still talk, and we still get together. We did a fabulous tour in 2017 and ’18, where we did 115 shows in a year and a half. We just had a ball. We were on the stage for two hours a night together. Each of us had one song that we sang (solo), but everything else was together. He is one of the great guitarists of all time, and playing in that environment with him was such a privilege. I don’t know that he’ll go out again. I don’t know. I see him from time to time. I saw him a couple weeks ago in L.A., and we had a wonderful morning together with his wonderful wife, Kristen, and we always have a lot to say to each other. He came out in March of last year, after Lewis had died, and was on a show that I did at the Town Hall here with a lot of other artists who sang songs either that I’d recorded or that I’d written. And at the end, he came on. We did “Helplessly Hoping,” and then he said, “She married the right guy.” Because he and Lewis were good friends.

You change your setlist around a lot, from night to night. But people are generally likely to hear at least one song from your last album, “Spellbound,” which was the first album where you wrote every song on it. So it’s a lot of repertoire to draw upon.

Yeah. I like to keep it fresh, for me, but also for the audience, to reach into songs that I haven’t done for a while. And I have a lot. You know, I didn’t start writing songs until I met Leonard Cohen in 1966. And of course, I recorded “Suzanne” immediately. Then he said to me, “I don’t know why you’re not writing your own songs.” So I started. I wrote a song called “Since You Asked,” and I’ve been writing ever since.

A couple years ago I came out with a poetry book called “Sometimes It’s Heaven.” And the reason was that my husband had dared me to write every day, in 2017. I had said, “Well, now it’s a new year. I’ll start a new notebook…” And he said, “Why don’t you write 365 songs or pieces of songs, and then you’ll have a whole book of poetry,” which I did. It came out a year and a half ago. And I harvested all of “Spellbound” from all of that writing. I should have called it “365 Days,” but I didn’t.

You must imagine Leonard Cohen would have been proud?

Oh, yes. Oh, he would be so happy. You know, he was sort of like having an angel on your side. We were friends for a long time. He used to call me and read me verses of “Hallelujah” — he wrote about 40 — and he would say, “Do you like it?” And I said, “Well, it’s not me that is gonna have to like it. You’re gonna have to like it.” He finally narrowed it down, but it wasn’t easy.

Is there any song you’re most proud of adding to our musical vocabulary?

Well, I’ve written a lot of songs that people seem to like to sing. I just found out that one of the young rock and rollers in the ’80s recorded “My Father.” I went to the doctor this morning, and my doctor’s nurse is a fiend about collecting and listening to rock bands, and she found this rock band —. I don’t remember the name — who recorded “My Father” in the ’80s, and I was so happy to hear about that. [The version of “My Father” referred to was likely This Mortal Coil’s.]

Sometimes you’ve done Dylan’s “Masters of War” in concert, although not lately. which You’ve said you’re a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson and people like that. Do you feel political at this moment in time?

Oh, gosh. I don’t know what to do about it all the time, but I do. And yeah, Heather Cox Richardson is my favorite. I met her with Lewis, my husband, and they just went nuts. We went out to a big event with my brother Mike, who died five days after Lewis did. My brother had had a terrible, cancer of the mouth for five years. It’s a horrible disease. But we happened to have met Heather Cox Richardson in Illinois somewhere, and it was a good meeting and such a good time that we had with her. So, yeah, I think she’s wonderful.

I told her, “I’m trying to be a Lincoln Republican” — trying to follow her, course. You know, I think we all do what we can. I have something in my hip pocket, though, that I do almost every night. I have had two dozen roses in a vase under the piano for decades now. They never go anywhere; they just sit there. And starting this past Jan. 1, I was in England, there they were, the flowers. So when we finished singing “Amazing Grace,” I took the flowers out of the vase, and I started singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and I distributed the flowers to the audience. It has continued to be a very wonderful moment. And it is my political statement of the night, and it works wonders.

Going back to this being a farewell tour, you mentioned at some point that there may be some kind of “encore” shows after the tour ends…

Well, I don’t know about that. I just know that I’m on a farewell tour, and I like being here.

And billing it as such helps people to know, “OK, take advantage of this while you can.“

Well, that’s true. Always take advantage of things that are going out of style.

“One Night Only” director Will Gluck doesn’t want you to overthink it.

The filmmaker has been fielding a lot of inquiries about the premise, logic and loopholes of his new movie, a raucous romantic comedy about the one night a year where premarital sex is legal. (Think “The Purge,” but for banging instead of murder.) Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”) plays Allie, an aspiring singer who channels her talent through embarrassing jingles in drug commercials. Callum Turner (“Eternity”) portrays Owen, a pizza shop owner whose long-term girlfriend decides she wants to sleep with other people on this holy night. The two strangers keep running into each other during 12 hours of messy mayhem in New York City.

Gluck is aware the movie’s setup is sparking more questions — Why does the ban exist in the first place? What happens to people who break the law? How, exactly, is the government even tracking who’s getting it on? — than answers. But he maintains the particulars of this reality aren’t really the point.

“You can’t really describe this movie,” Gluck says. “[The cast] goes on talk shows and spends 80% of the time explaining the rules of the world, and that’s not what the movie is about. We have to just let people see it. That’s the best tool we have, especially for something that’s this crazy.”

Gluck, best known for directing 2010s teen classic “Easy A” with Emma Stone, knows all that matters is that people are talking about the film in the first place. Word-of-mouth fueled the success of his last rom-com, 2023’s box office sleeper hit “Anyone But You,” starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.

“I learned from my last movie that people are going to discover this and say, ‘Wow, that’s not what I thought it was going to be,’” Gluck says. “You know how the acronym for word-of-mouth is WOM? I’m calling it a WOM-com.”

Ahead of opening weekend, the director spoke to Variety about why audiences have become prudish about on-screen sex, his love of putting “cringe” songs in his movies, and why the theatrical rom-com isn’t dead, after all.

How did you decide how much backstory to include to set up your premise?

I did a lot of thinking about it, a lot of world building. These characters are living this little alternative world that could easily happen. We have to talk about it. But I really wanted the world to live in the background. I didn’t want the movie to be about that. It’s more about how our characters navigate life.

What conversations did you have about the origin of the no-sex mandate?

Someone asked me “why don’t people just get divorced?” Well, there’s municipal signage very prominently in the movie that says you cannot get divorced unless you were married for one year, plus one day. It’s like when COVID [started], there were rules, and then people started to do other stuff, so then more rules came out, right? That’s what I imagine when this mandate was passed. They had to keep doing amendments to these rules because, yes, the obvious idea would be just get married and divorce.

Recent studies have found that Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t want to see sex on screen. Was that a concern while making this movie?

The answer is 100% yes. I went through this on two movies. I have long pages of empirical data about it. The only thing is I don’t think it’s just Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I believe it’s been a societal shift from taking nudity in adult situations and putting them on your phones at home for everybody. Now it’s more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.

How does that change your approach as a filmmaker?

Once I’ve learned that, which was all through the editing process for my last movie, I applied it to this movie. But even so, I didn’t apply it enough. I cut out so much. There was so much nudity in this movie that we shot on the streets. I felt we needed to show the world that way. As we started to show it to audiences, we felt it takes you out of the movie. You’re engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex, and you watch the audience … it’s a physical thing. They turn to who they’re with and … the benefits do not nearly outweigh the negatives of it. So we just kept editing it out until we got a balance, and those comments went away.

Did you use an intimacy coordinator? So many scenes had extras having sex in the background.

Yes, we had an incredible intimacy coordinator. And we cast real-life couples in various stages of relationships. It was never like we met an extra and were like, “you guys are kissing.” It was fun because there were married couples, people who broke up during the movie and people who became couples so they could do that.

There are a lot of fun and funny posters and advertisements about “the mandate” and “one night” all around the city. Were those actual props, or were they edited in later?

This is all practical. That was the fun part of the world building. We had a huge document with every scene, not only what signage was there, but what graffiti was there and who would be in the background kissing. And the funny thing about the products, I’ve gotta stop reading the internet, but everyone says, “It’s a product placement fiasco. How much money did they make on that?” It was the opposite. We had to beg products to allow us to take them and twist it to the “one night.” Because, as you can imagine, not every corporate America consumer product was into this idea. So when I read stuff, like, “How much money did they get from Dunkin or Durex?” I’m like “Nothing!”

So you had to get permission to make the fake ads?

Of course. You can photograph anything that’s in the real world, but you can’t take something like Coke ad and say “there’s dirt in it.” We had a big list and it was “no, no, no, no.” And then we were surprised — well, the condom companies didn’t surprise us that they said yes — but Duolingo sure did. That was a shock. I was like, “Really?” So that’s why you have products like Duolingo, Red Bull, Dunkin and Equinox. Every time they would say “yes,” I’m like, “They did?” And then they would have to approve our take on it.

What are some of the challenges of filming in New York City?

Many times, we had actors in a car, half naked, and you’d have people just walking and staring. We’d say, “Hey, do you mind moving on?” A couple of people said, “No, we’re not going to move.” We were like, “Well, if this really did happen in real life, people would be staring.” So there are a couple scenes where people are looking in the windows.

How much of Monica’s character was built around her actually being able to sing?

I always rewrite the script completely once I have the actors. Once I cast Monica, I was like, “She has to be a singer.” We talked for a long time, and she does have some stage fright, which is crazy, because she has the best voice. So I just wrote that for her. And I’ve always been obsessed with drug commercials, so it was this great confluence.

Did Callum actually learn how to make pizza?

Yes, he spent five days at that pizza place being taught how to make pizza. He was really good at it. The one bummer about pizza is it doesn’t look great on film. It’s impossible because pizza gets cold so quickly. During that scene, we were constantly putting out a new fresh pizza. That’s a lesson for me. From now on, I’ll choose a different food that does not congeal that quickly.

How quickly did everyone get sick of pizza?

You can tell during that scene but Monica and Callum, they ate. They didn’t chew and spit. Because I don’t cut. I just keep rolling. They were both at the end like, “Oh my god.”

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, your stars from “Anyone But You,” don’t exactly have cameos, but they pop up in funny, unexpected ways. Did you get their permission to include them in the movie?

Yes, I did. They were both trying to do cameos, but their schedules didn’t work out. So this was great.

Music plays a big part in many of your films. I can’t hear “Pocket Full of Sunshine” without thinking of “Easy A,” and “Unwritten” went viral on TikTok after the release of “Anyone But You.” How do you choose which songs to feature?

For the drug commercials, I have a pretty good take on songs that were really popular that people think they hate, but they can’t stop singing. I’m kind of obsessed with those songs, and a lot of my movies have them in it. You’ve mentioned some of them, and I think it’s because people don’t want to admit they like popular music, so they call it cringe or lame. But they’re bangers. After my last movie, if you ever go to any bar or club all over the world, when “Unwritten” comes on, it’s like the biggest banger in the world. It always was, but now for some reason, it’s now OK to be a banger. I love those songs.

People often say the theatrical rom-com is dead. What were your takeaways from the box office success of “Anyone But You”?

If you’re not a superhero movie or gigantic IP, it’s really hard to cut through. The only way you really can cut through, if at all, is letting the audience do it. No matter how much you market it or tell people what it is, you have to let them see it and tell their friends and family about it, which is scary. If you’re spending all this money on something, you can’t just hope people talk about it. But the key is telling people it’s going to be in theaters for a while. And I think this one is going to be in theaters for a while.

Starz saw total revenue slide again in the second quarter of 2026 — but the media company reported its first year-over-year growth in streaming revenue in 18 months. Company execs believe the business is turning around, and they’ve raised their outlook for adjusted OIBDA (operating income before depreciation and amortization) growth for full-year 2026 from low single-digits to mid single-digits.

Total revenue in the second quarter was $307.9 million, down 4% year over year. OTT revenue as reported was $221.3 million, up ever so slightly from $221.1 million in the year-earlier period. However, Starz said, streaming revenue would have increased 1.4% in the June 2026 quarter excluding $3 million of OTT revenue related to Canadian operations that was recorded in Q2 2025. (Starz transitioned its Canadian operations from a distribution partnership with Bell to a content-licensing model at the end of 2025.)

Net loss ballooned to $189.4 million, compared with a loss of $42.5 million in Q2 2025. Starz reported an operating loss of $175.5 million (vs. $26.9 million a year earlier).

Taking a big bite out of Starz’s earnings: The company took a restructuring charge of $147 million in the second quarter of 2026 in association with the termination of its pay-2 film output agreement with Universal Pictures in April. The wind-down of the Universal deal was previously announced by Starz president and CEO Jeff Hirsch, who cited “lower viewership than we originally projected.” In prepared remarks Friday, Starz CFO Scott Macdonald said, “We continue to expect this to be the final content restructuring charge of this magnitude going forward, which sets the company up for meaningfully lower restructuring activity from here.” Given the timing of Starz’s final cash payments to Universal in 2028, Macdonald said, “we believe 2029 is shaping up to be a significant year for free cash flow growth relative to the trajectory we see across 2026 through 2028.”

In Q2, Starz’s stop-performing titles were the finale of “Outlander”; the premiere of “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” Season 5 (pictured above); and “The Housemaid,” Lionsgate’s psychological thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney, which debuted April 1 on Starz.

In prepared remarks, Hirsch said “Raising Kanan” Season 5 grew its audience from the first season five years ago, “a rare achievement in today’s television landscape.” In addition, he said, the July 31 premiere of “Fightland,” the boxing crime drama series produced by 50 Cent, was Starz’s No. 2 best-rated original IP launch of all time (after the Season 1 premiere of “BMF” in 2021).

“Our second-quarter results reflect the momentum we are building across the business and the strength of our content portfolio,” Hirsch said in a statement. “We delivered another quarter of strong audience engagement and OTT revenue growth, and the success of the ‘Fightland’ premiere validates our ownership strategy.”

Hirsch said the company’s improved visibility into the second half of the year and the early performance of “Fightland” have served to “increase our confidence that 2026 is shaping up to be a more significant inflection year for Starz than we initially anticipated.”

During the second quarter, Starz launched a new partnership with NBCUniversal’s Peacock that makes Starz available as an add-on subscription to the platform for the first time. And last week, Starz announced a new discounted bundle with Crunchyroll on Prime Video.

Upcoming programming coming to Starz includes the return of “P-Valley,” the continued expansion of the “Outlander” universe through “Blood of My Blood” Season 2, and the upcoming biopic “Michael” following its record-breaking theatrical run. Further out, Hirsch said, “we continue to build our owned content pipeline beyond ‘Fightland’ with the ‘Untitled Black Rodeo Show,’” which is starting production this month. and several other Starz-owned projects in development.

Adjusted OIBDA was $60 million for the quarter, ahead of Starz’s expectations and up from $33.4 million in the year-ago period. The company expects Q3 adjusted OIBDA to be in the mid-$30 million range. That “will be our lowest quarter of the year due to higher programming amortization” from the airing of “Raising Kanan” S5, “Fightland” S1 and “Blood of My Blood” S2 all during Q3, according to Macdonald. Starz expects Q4 to “finish the year strongly in the mid-60s.” As such, the company is raising 2026 adjusted OIBDA growth guidance from low single-digits to mid single digits, “and we remain confident in achieving our 20% adjusted OIBDA margin target in the back half of 2027,” the CFO said.

In the second quarter, Starz’s unlevered free cash flow was negative $15 million and equity free cash flow was negative $33 million “given the timing of content payments,” Macdonald said. Free cash flow still came in ahead of expectations, he added.

Cash content spend was $182 million for the second quarter. With the exit of the Universal agreement, Starz expects to report full-year 2026 cash content spend below $600 million.

Net debt was $566 million as of June 30, 2026, and adjusted OIBDA leverage ratio was 2.9 times. Starz has obtained commitments to increase its credit facilities by $100 million, comprised of a $67 million increase to its Term Loan A and a $33 million increase to its revolving credit. Even after incorporating the additional $67 million of debt, Starz continues to expect to end 2026 with adjusted OIBDA leverage of approximately 2.7 times.