Welcome back to Hollywood Signal—the anti-gossip intel brief designed for creators and execs who prefer actionable insights over noise. We deliver precise market signals, buyer mandates, and cultural shifts to keep your strategy sharp. Let’s dive straight into what’s moving the needle.

Netflix takes center stage this week, shifting Hollywood’s paradigm from subscriber-chasing to profit-first streaming. Wall Street cheers as profitability soars despite flat subscriber growth, prompting critical industry-wide recalibrations (our deep dive). Meanwhile, Paramount’s $8.4B merger with Skydance gets regulatory clearance, reshaping buyer dynamics and intensifying the race for scalable IP.

Culturally, analog nostalgia, comforting supernatural stories, and indie-folk soundtracks resonate deeply with Gen Z audiences, presenting ripe opportunities for creative executives looking ahead.

As always, let us know what you think and what you want more of.

— Bradley

The Pulse

Box-Office Top 3 • Jul 18 – 23 (W-T-D)

1

Superman

WARNER

$84.1M

W-T-D

WEEK 2 HOLD Cume ≈ $235M

Super-legs: second frame off just ~53 % and still crushing the field.

2

Jurassic World: Rebirth

UNIVERSAL

$44.0M

W-T-D

WEEK 3 Cume ≈ $286M

Dinosaurs keep stomping—weekday drop sub-30 % as word-of-mouth holds.

3

I Know What You Did Last Summer

SONY

$19.3M

W-T-D

DEBUT RUN Cume ≈ $19M

Slasher sequel lands softly—below mid-teens forecast but tops *Smurfs* debut.

ALSO OF NOTE

Smurfs opened to just $11 M—blue crew can’t crack double digits.

$147M

Top 3 Total

1

New Release

Steady

Weekdays

🎯 THE SIGNAL: Superman’s smooth second-week glide steadies the mid-summer frame; dinos remain resilient, while a nostalgic slasher slices into third and blue Smurfs battle box-office blues.