Westwood’s historic Village Theatre will welcome moviegoers one more time before it shuts its doors for an extensive and extended renovation odyssey later this year.
Under a special arrangement between Universal and the Village Directors Circle, the collective of filmmakers led by Jason Reitman that bought the movie palace in 2024, American Cinematheque will screen Christopher Nolan’s new epic The Odyssey in a special three-week engagement beginning July 17.
The movie will be presented in 70mm and play three times a day, according Cinematheque, which partnered with the theater last year to program and operate the theatre.
The three-week engagement is part of programming and special events Cinematheque is putting on as a fundraising effort prior to its fall closure for a 12-month renovation and restoration. The theater recently hosted the world premiere of James Cameron and Billie Eilish’s Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D).
Nolan and Odyssey producer and wife Emma Thomas are partners in the VDC, which bought the theater in 2024 and features a galaxy of filmmakers ranging from J.J. Abrams and Ryan Coogler to Steven Speilberg and Denis Villeneuve among its ranks.
“There are many reasons to go to the movies, but few better than a three-week run of ‘The Odyssey’ in 70mm at one of the most beautiful movie palaces in the country. This American Cinematheque series is a preview of what we hope the restored Village Theatre will become,” said Reitman in a statement. “A home for great filmmakers, great audiences, and the kind of theatrical experiences that simply can’t be replicated anywhere else. Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas were among the very first filmmakers to step in when the Village Theatre needed help. Their commitment to keeping the spirit of moviegoing alive continues to inspire us all.”
Cinematheque artistic director Grant Moninger stated, “The Village booth will be fitted with restored dual 70mm projectors to ensure a world-class presentation throughout the entire run.”
Odyssey is the one of the more anticipated cinema releases of the summer. Opening July 17, the movie is a retelling of the epic tale of Homer and stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya and Charlize Theron, among others.
With a projected 2027 completion to its planned renovation, the VDC and Cinematheque want the remodeled Village Theatre to be the latest go-go venue for special screenings with in-person conversations, awards season events, new theatrical releases, retrospectives and tributes, as well as Cinematheque’s popular year-round programming and festivals such as Beyond Fest, Bleak Week, This Is Not a Fiction and Ultra Cinematheque 70. The organization also want to continue the venue’s legacy of hosting movie premieres.
After ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ made history, here are the talents on deck to make the jump from YouTube views to theatrical grosses.
THR Illustration
Do you hear that sound? That is the collective hum of assistant keyboards trawling Reddit and YouTube at the behest of their bosses, who are looking for the next big thing in the horror space.
The YouTube-to-horror feature filmmaker pipeline has been proving particularly profitable over the past couple of weeks. Curry Barker’s Obsession sits at $111 million-plus in its third week of release, while the Kane Parson-directed Backrooms has also crossed $100 million domestically.
Barker and Parsons are the latest directors to have blown up after cutting their teeth with an internet audience. Before them, it was the Philippou brothers who parlayed online notoriety into a feature debut, Talk to Me, that landed at A24 after a Sundance Film Festival debut and quickly begat a sequel. Long before them, there was David Sandberg, who released horror short films online under the name ponysmasher before landing a feature deal for his film Lights Out.
While horror directors have long had a reputation for stretching a dollar and finding creative solutions to filmmaking problems, the directors coming out of YouTube are seen as being able to do so on an even smaller scale, all while capturing the attention of the easily distracted Gen Z masses.
As the genre continues to be reliably bankable for both the major studios and specialty outfits, there has been a land grab for the next stars in the space. The Hollywood Reporter called insiders to see who could be on deck.
Dylan Clark
Image Credit: Screenshot/YouTube
Clark posts his high-concept, low-budget horror short films to YouTube, earning millions of views and a loyal following (as well as some Hollywood attention). His most popular short, Portrait of God, has over 10 million views and earned the attention of horror heavy hitters Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi, who are now attached to produce the feature film version of the story for Universal. He has also been tapped to direct a Blair Witch Project reboot, set up at Lionsgate.
Nicolas Curcio
Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images
Sometimes, just being a good hang can get you far. GOAT writer Curcio hasn’t focused on horror shorts, but instead has gotten to know the players in the genre with his podcast Hollywood Hang, which boasts guests including Weapons producer Roy Lee. In addition to the podcast, which he hosts with Kristen Tepper, he’s built a TikTok following of 140,000, where he dishes out storytelling advice. That’s all been enough to help him get his first feature off the ground, Play House, which he directs for M3GAN producers Divide/Conquer.
Sam Evenson
Image Credit: Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images
Evenson is behind the YouTube channel Grimoire Horror (196,000 subscribers), where he periodically debuts short films that earn millions of views. The filmmaker, who has also worked as a VFX artist with credits on Dune: Part Two and The Last of Us, was recently tapped by Neon, the indie studio behind Longlegs, to make his feature directorial debut. Evenson will direct the project based on his short film, Mora, about an artist who uses an AI model corrupted by dark web images and becomes haunted by a mysterious woman. Roy Lee, the uber horror producer behind Weapons, and Steven Schneider (Late Night with the Devil) are among the producers.
Spencer Lackey
Image Credit: Jason Mendez/Getty Images
With over 6 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, and nearly 600,000 subscribers on YouTube, Lackey has built his following with ingenious horror short-form content. Lackey stars in his own content and many of his videos have a humorous bent (see: monsters that watch unsuspecting victims do laundry). Lackey told Dread Central last year, ”Industry folks are starting to take digital creators more seriously. Sure, there’s a difference between making a TikTok and making a feature, but a lot of the same creative muscles are being exercised.”
Caleb Phillips
Image Credit: Robby Klein/Getty Images
Phillips first landed attention with his 2018 short Other Side of the Box, which amassed more than 30 million views on YouTube and centered on a couple who is gifted a mysterious box — to creepy and disastrous results, and followed it up with the mind-bending Play Me (1.4 million views). In March, he screened his genre-bending feature Imposters at South by Southwest, and has capitalized on the Jessica Rothe starrer by signing with Underground, the management company that is home to Obsession filmmaker Curry Barker.
Heidi Wong
Image Credit: Maya Dehlin Spach/Getty Images
She’s a horror content creator who developed her audience with a mix of movie reviews, original videos based on creepy internet stories and self-produced scary content. Wong has 1.8 million Instagram followers and nearly two million YouTube subscribers, but it’s on TikTok where Wong has earned her biggest following, 6 million strong. She posts deceptively simple videos (most are text with reaction shots) under her series “A Heidi Wong Horror Story” that earn millions of views. While she already gets tapped by studios to help promote their biggest genre projects, from Stranger Things to the Scream movies, Wong has long expressed her filmmaking aspirations.
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
If the New York Knicks win the NBA Finals, they’ll have one person to thank. That’d be Danhausen.
The WWE wrestler, whose shtick involves laying theatrical curses on his rivals, seems to have actual supernatural powers over the team’s fortunes. On April 17, he went on ESPN and hexed the Knicks during a TV beef with host (and Knicks superfan) Stephen A. Smith. Within a week, they started losing games — to the Atlanta Hawks, no less.
But 11 days later, on April 28, Danhausen reversed the curse after a Knicks fan on Cameo offered to pay him (Cameo lists a cost of $200-plus for his services). The team instantly started winning again. They haven’t lost a game since, sweeping the Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers, building the most dominant scoring differential 10-game streak in NBA history.
Turns out Danhausen isn’t the only celebrity throwing down jinxes. Back in 2011, Lil B hexed Kevin Durant after the basketball star dissed the Bay Area rapper’s music on Twitter. Sure enough, Durant’s game stumbled for the next five years — until he signed with Lil B’s hometown team, the Golden State Warriors, and all was forgiven. “Welcome home KD,” Lil B posted, “the curse is lifted.” Durant went on to win back-to-back championships.
Then there was the time in 2018 when rapper and self-described witch Azealia Banks — who once posted a video of the blood-caked closet where she sacrificed chickens — got into an online spat with Lana Del Rey. Banks threatened to burn down Del Rey’s house with voodoo. That curse, though, didn’t take; the following year, Del Rey released her best reviewed album ever and her house is still standing.
And let’s not forget the Kardashian Curse — or Kurse — which while entirely unintentional may be the most potent of all: Any athlete who gets romantically involved with a K girl can kiss their career goodbye. Just ask Lamar Odom. Or James Harden. Or Blake Griffin.
Once again, the name “Jeffrey Epstein” has surfaced at the center of a Washington, D.C., scandal. Only this time it’s a very different Jeffrey Epstein — and the controversy in question involves a bunch of legacy musical acts who never owned any private islands.
You’ve no doubt heard something about Trump’s now-iffy plans for a Freedom 250 concert to be held on the National Mall over the Fourth of July holiday. How a slew of musicians who had signed up to perform — Martina McBride, Morris Day and The Time, Bret Michaels of Poison and Young MC — have since backed out after realizing that the event was being organized as a partisan gathering rather than a non-ideological celebration of the nation’s semi-quincentennial. And how, in the latest wrinkle, Trump has announced that he may call the whole thing off, or else turn it into a proper MAGA rally with himself — “the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime” — taking center stage.
Well, it turns out that many of the music acts involved in the kerfuffle are reportedly represented by a talent booker at New York-based agency Universal Attractions. And that booker’s name, through no fault of his own, happens to be Jeffrey Epstein. Even more remarkable, this booking agent isn’t the only Jeffrey Epstein working in entertainment. Rambling found another, a former magazine editor turned publicist at talent agency UTA.
The Epstein at Universal Attractions hasn’t responded to Rambling’s request to connect, and the Epstein at UTA isn’t talking either, but was kind enough to point Rambling to his social media feed, where he periodically posts good-natured reminders to the world that he is not who people think. “Love all the hilarious comments about my ‘island’ and lists,” he wrote on Instagram in 2024, during an early Epstein file dump. “I’m still not that Jeffrey Epstein.” In that same post, he helpfully answered the one question Rambling most wanted to ask. “I feel like the ‘why don’t you change your name’ ship has sailed,” he wrote. “But thanks.”
If he ever reconsiders, Bernie Madoff has a nice ring to it.
***
Also in Rambling Reporter:
From pro-wrestler Danhasen to LiB to Azealia Banks, a slew of stars are casting spells; Director Graydon Carter found himself getting photographed aboard a boat in the Mediterranean — he’s still trying to figure out exactly why.
This story appeared in the June 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
The Hollywood talent, entertainment, sports and advisory company will represent Roberts as she continues to balance leading roles with producing films and TV series via her production banner Belletrist.
Having produced Hulu’s Tell Me Lies series and First Kill for Netflix, Belletris also secured a series order for Calabasas at Netflix and adaptations of One Fifth Avenue, based on the book by Candace Bushhell, at Hulu. And Belletrist is at work on a TV reimagining of Bride Wars for Peacock, in which Roberts is attached to star as a wedding planner, and a feature adaptation of Expiration Dates at Amazon MGM Studios.
Belletrist also has a first-look deal with Blink49 Studios for scripted TV projects. As an actress, Roberts will next appear in Hal from director Mark Williams, and The Technique, helmed by Brian McGreevy. She is also set to return for the upcoming 13th installment of FX’s American Horror Story from Ryan Murphy.
Roberts’ other TV credits include Coven, Freak Show, Apocalypse, 1984, and Delicate, Scream Queens, and her breakout role in Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous. On the film side, she appeared in We’re the Millers, Nerve, Palo Alto, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, and Nancy Drew. And her streaming hits inlcude Holidate at Netflix, Space Cadet and About Fate at Amazon and Maybe I Do at Hulu.
Away from film sets, Roberts curates a collection of designer handbags, jewelry and accessories for luxury resale retailer Fashionphile. She continues to be represented by Sweeney Entertainment, Shelter PR and attorney JR McGinnis.
Kane Parson’s Backrooms is making another piece of A24 history. The feature is expected to pass the $100 million mark domestically on Wednesday, after officially becoming A24’s highest grossing film of all time in North America Tuesday with a cume of $97.7 million.
The $10 million movie takes the crown from the Timothée Chalamet starrer Marty Supreme, which brought in $96 million domestically and was the studio’s most expensive movie.
The film has not slowed down and has been big during the week, collecting $7.6 million on Monday and $8.6 million on Tuesday.
Parsons began Backrooms as a series of popular YouTube Shorts and maintains the rights to the IP. After building up a massive online following, the movie has hit a nerve with Gen Z, with half of the opening weekend audience under 25 and 75 percent under 35.
Backrooms‘ producers include Chernin Entertainment, which co-financed it, Blumhouse-Atomic Monster and 21 Laps. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a a failed architect who stumbles across an endless series of rooms in the furniture store he manages and Renate Reinsve as his therapist.
Parsons’ ascension comes just two weeks after fellow YouTuber Curry Barker surprised Hollywood with Obsession, which has become a breakout hit and was the first movie since 1982’s E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial to have its second and third weekends increase rather than fall as most movies do. All eyes will be on both Backrooms and Obsession this weekend as Gen X property Masters of the Universe and a revival of 2000s favorite Scary Movie hit theaters.
Crunchyroll revealed its lineup for the upcoming Anime Expo featuring a slew of its most popular titles, including Demon Slayer, as well as a slate of new acquisitions and first looks.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Crunchyroll will “transform the Peacock Theater [in Los Angeles] into a dedicated anime destination featuring the most prominent titles in the medium” at the anime fan convention on July 3 and 4. The anime giant said it is planning more than 20 blocks of programming packed with “iconic creators, beloved voice actors, exciting announcements and first looks.”
On the schedule are programs with talent from behind The Apothecary Diaries, a look at what’s next in Gachiakuta, a deep dive into Daemons of the Shadow Realm and a chat with the creator and cast of Witch Hat Atelier.
In addition, the juggernaut Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle will be featured in a special event with the film’s voice cast along with a video look at the film with studio ufotable. It also will include a sneak peek of footage from ufotable’s newest film project.
Also on the lineup are a close look at the direction and creation of Clevatess, a 10th anniversary celebration of Mob Psycho 100, “voice cast hijinks” for You and I are Polar Opposites and early screenings of Mushoku Tensei Season 3, Returner’s Magic Should be Special 2, Reborn as a Space Mercenary and more.
Crunchyroll also will be sharing a first look at its slate of new titles via guest panels, world premieres, advance screenings and exclusive sneak peeks. Those titles include:
The Apothecary Diaries Season 3
Firefly Wedding
Gachiakuta Season 2
I Became a Legend After My 10 Year-Long Last Stand
Overgeared
Saga of Tanya the Evil Season 2
Sasaki and Peeps Season 2
The Oblivious Saint Can’t Contain Her Power
The Ogre’s Bride
The Villager of Level 999
Victoria of Many Faces
In addition, Crunchyroll has revealed that Goodbye, Lara and Tomb Raider King are coming to the platform in July. These titles will also be featured at Anime Expo.
Also at Anime Expo, Crunchyroll is bringing its Dubbing Dojo voicing acting experience where fans can step behind the mic to experience the art of voice acting with scenes from Attack on Titan, BLUE LOCK, Sentenced to Be a Hero, Solo Leveling and more. Other immersive experiences will feature Daemons of the Shadow Realm and Witch Hat Atelier. Also, Crunchyroll News and Newtype magazine have partnered for a summer 2026 special issue available for free at the Crunchyroll booth while supplies last.
Bari Weiss addressed the elephant in the room during CBS News‘ daily editorial meeting Wednesday morning.
Late Tuesday night, CBS fired Scott Pelley, the veteran 60 Minutes correspondent and former CBS Evening News anchor, after he lashed into Weiss and new 60 executive producer Nick Bilton in a meeting with show staff Monday.
Weiss used the call to explain the decision, as first reported by Jeremy Barr.
“I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it,” Weiss said. “That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.”
“We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose,” she continued. “That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career.”
The comments from Weiss are similar to ones she made in the daily meeting late last year, after she held a 60 Minutes story from Sharyn Alfonsi about the notorious CECOT prison.
“I want to say something about trust: our trust for each other and our trust with the public,” Weiss said at the time. “The only newsroom I’m interested in running is one in which we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters with respect, and, crucially, where we assume the best intent of our colleagues. Anything else is absolutely unacceptable.”
In Monday’s meeting, Pelley told Bilton that Weiss was “murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place, she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that,” and said that he had “slender” qualifications for the EP job.
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” Bilton told Pelley in his note Tuesday informing him of his termination. “I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort.”
In a statement of his own late Tuesday, Pelley one again ripped into the leadership, criticizing their actions since taking over late last year.
“For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” he said. “I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.”
Bilton, a former New York Times and Vanity Fair tech reporter, was named EP of the show last week. He outlined some of the changes he hopes to bring in an interview with THR, including expanding the roster of correspondents and bringing the show to more digital platforms.
The Hollywood Reporter is on the set of Alice and Steve watching a master at work.
It’s June of last year, and on a warm day in southwest London, THR is a guest of the Disney+/Hulu show that would go on to sweep Canneseries and garner some serious buzz for writer Sophie Goodhart, whose credits include Rivals and Sex Education.
That portfolio is a great symbolizer of what’s to come in the six-episode “wrong-com” Alice and Steve, streaming this week on June 8, a year on from getting to hit the set and see Nicola Walker do exactly what she does best: have a bit of a meltdown.
The series follows BAFTA-nominated Walker, famed for roles in Spooks and the hit BBC drama The Split, as Alice. She’s been best friends with Steve (Jemaine Clement, best known for Flight of the Conchords and as the creator of What We Do in the Shadows) for decades, but her whole world is turned upside down when Steve announces that he’s began dating Alice’s 26-year-old daughter Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith).
In one particularly excruciating episode two scene, filmed on the day THR comes to set, Alice gives up on her attempts to appear calm about the situation and flips out on family board game night. Izzy’s Gen Z friends and Alice’s husband (Game of Thrones‘ Joel Fry) are forced to witness the toll that seeing her own daughter and lifelong pal hook up has taken. As aforementioned, it’s flawless work from Walker, who navigates each take with a combination of imaginative looseness and script-sharp precision.
“I have to apologize,” begins Walker to her co-star while sitting down with THR. “Halfway through the first day, I had to go, ‘I’ve been a fan of yours forever,’ and I’ve just been really, really shit the last two hours,” she says, referencing those board game takes — ones that required her to stay pretty emotionally fraught.
“No!” objects Clement. “I felt like the fan.” He turns to us. “Nicola’s probably not a method actor, but she’s a little bit method when we’re doing scenes.” Walker laughs: “I feel very angry today.”
The dreaded karaoke scene in ‘Alice and Steve’
Clerkenwell Films/Disney+
It’s a surprise that Walker, industry-acclaimed in the U.K., and Clement, a big comedy name here, have not yet crossed paths. All of a sudden, however, they are thrust onto a show that leans on the chemistry between two friends who have known each other for over 30 years. And their first scene together? A drunken karaoke bar that acts as a marker for that chemistry. “That was a hard day,” says Clement. “But we bonded over [it].”
Adds Walker: “I think they scheduled it really well, though. Right at the beginning of schedules, they always seem to put either having sex or getting on really well with someone — always, on any job you do, they always put those things first. And I think there is some method in their madness, actually, because by the end of that week, I did just feel like, ‘Oh yeah, Alice and Steve really know each other.’”
At this stage in their respective careers, they must receive a lot of scripts. Walker reflects on what attracted her to Goodhart’s writing. She remembers reading the first page, in which a middle-aged woman, seemingly in the process of a nervous breakdown, is walking up the stairs of a grand manor house carrying a blood-covered axe and stuffing wedding cake into her mouth. “I phoned my agent and went, ‘Please, please, I want to do this,’” she says. “It’s a very unusual tone. We keep talking about that. And when you get it, it feels amazing. So, I think what Sophie’s done is written something very, very, very funny, but then it can go really sad, and it’s sort of brutally honest at times.”
“It’s definitely intergenerational,” she continues about the broad audience appeal of Alice and Steve. “Which we don’t really have enough of. When people go, ‘What’s it about?’ and you say, ‘It’s about best friends, about mothers and daughters. It’s about betrayal and really hating someone you actually really love.” Clement chimes in: “They all picture it in their own minds with their own friends and parents’ friends. It’s a really easy one to describe.”
So what exactly is Steve thinking, getting involved with Izzy? “He isn’t thinking,” is the simple answer from Clement. “And then the rest of the time he’s thinking, ‘How can I fix this?’ [But] it’s too late. He’s trying to put the water back in the balloon.”
Just before Alice loses it over Trivial Pursuit, Steve, a celebrity hairdresser, is telling a half-ridiculous, half-touching story about one of his clients. Clement’s propensity for comedy is, of course, effortless — has it been a different muscle to stretch for Walker, as someone who has such a vast background in drama? “Not really, because I think that it’s all about good writing, and I think this is his good writing,” she says. “Our job is to put flesh on to a set of characters, [so] I didn’t really think of it like that.”
It’s ripe material indeed. Walker describes Alice as having “a can of hairspray under a lighter” burning every bridge around her, including her own marriage. “She ends up really isolating herself because she’s so convinced she’s right. She doesn’t allow for any gray in the spectrum of this situation.”
We’re privy to how this impacts all of the characters across the six half-hour episodes, including Izzy. Margalith tells THR: “She really looks up to her mum, and I think she considered her mum one of her best friends before this happened. It’s like when you’re a kid and you have something difficult that you want to tell your parents, and you think, ‘Yeah, they find that difficult, but not when it comes to me, surely — because she’s my mum.’ And then she does find it difficult. She still can’t be happy for me.”
Yali Topol Margalith, Jemaine Clement ‘Alice and Steve’
Courtesy of Disney+
“Because I do genuinely feel like I’m in love,” she continues about Izzy’s infatuation with Steve, “and I’m treated really well for the first time in my life after being hurt so badly again and again.” Clement says there is “a lot of understanding” between the two characters, despite his being twice her age: “They’ve both gone through a horrible breakup, and they feel mistreated.” Let the (board) games begin.
All six episodes of Alice and Steve will be available to stream on Monday, 8 June exclusively on Disney+ in the U.K. and Hulu in the U.S. It is created and written by Sophie Goodhart and directed by BAFTA winner Tom Kingsley. Petra Fried, Andy Baker, and Wim de Greed executive produce for Clerkenwell Films and the series is produced by Fran du Pille. The Hulu Original was commissioned by Lee Mason, vice president, scripted, Disney+ EMEA.
Suno, the most prominent AI music generation platform in the music industry, has raised $400 million at a $5.4 billion post-money valuation, the company announced on Wednesday.
Suno said Bond Capital, the venture capital firm whose portfolio includes OpenAI, Substack and Kalshi, led the round along with IVP, Forerunner, Union Square Ventures, Alkeon and Quiet, with Matrix, Lightspeed, Menlo Ventures, and Schroders Capital participating as well. Notably, Suno also said leading artists, songwriters and producers” also participated in the round, though the company didn’t disclose who.
The funding round comes just six months after Suno previously announced a $250 million funding round that had valued the company at $2.45 billion.
“We’ve seen Suno used by professional producers and songwriters, but also by millions of people making music for the first time – because music creation is no longer the domain of a niche few,” Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said in a blog post announcing the new funding round on Wednesday. “It is becoming one of the most human things we do, a way people communicate, remember, and connect. What started as a simple idea has grown far beyond what we imagined, and today, we’re excited to share an important milestone.”
Suno remains one of the most controversial companies in music, with its ability to generate entire songs in seconds with just a text prompt from a user. The major music companies sued in 2024 on allegations of massive copyright infringement from the world’s biggest’s artists and songwriters, though Warner Music Group had announced last November a settlement and new partnership with the company. UMG and Sony remain in active litigation.
Earlier this year in an interview with THR,Shulman said he’s seeing a market shift in how the business views AI, with professional creators embracing his platform along with more casual users.
“I don’t meet a lot of producers and songwriters who aren’t using Suno at least a little bit in their workflows,” Shulman said. “I think people are starting to be a little more comfortable being public and upfront about their use, and most importantly, I think a bit more optimistic about the future. It’s not everyone, but there’s definitely a market shift.”
Actual consumption of fully AI music still appears to be quite low. French music streaming service Deezer reported earlier this year that as much as 85 percent of AI music consumption on the platform is fraudulent, while Apple Music said less AI music made up less than 1 percent of weekly consumption on its service.
Still, earlier this year Suno said it had surpassed 2 million paying subscribers, and it’s currently the third most-popular app on Apple’s App Store’s music section.
In the blog post Wednesday, Shulman said its new model developed in partnership with WMG, its first industry-sanctioned model since the company’s founding in 2021 would be rolling out “in the coming months.”
“We believe there’s a huge opportunity to create new experiences for fans while helping artists reach audiences, build community, and unlock new creative and economic possibilities,” Shulman said.
