Paramount Warner and Venice deal: International Insider Movies Counter

Good evening insiders from sweltering London, we’ve got your newsletter set up and ready after a busy week. Max Goldbart with words. Register here.

Weeks of uncertainty for WarnerMount

“A giant conglomerate beholden to Trump.”: We’ve been keeping you updated on every twist and turn in the regulatory quagmire that is the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. Discovery (WBD) at $110 billion. In the UK, where the future of the deal could lie, WarnerMount now faces weeks of uncertainty. This is because Parliament closed for the summer, with Culture Minister Lisa Nandy making no decision about intervening on the grounds of media pluralism (she said she was “thinking about intervening” several weeks ago). This will continue until at least 1 September, at which point there will be a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and thus potentially a new Culture Minister. A reminder: The David Ellison-run company has a “timed fee” commitment to WBD shareholders of 25 cents per share — roughly $650 million — per quarter whose acquisition doesn’t close after the third quarter, so delaying Nandy could be fairly costly. Behind the scenes, we revealed on Wednesday that big stars like Alan Cumming were organizing to block the merger via a coalition urging people to contact Nandy’s division, with Cumming saying WarnerMount would create a “giant conglomerate beholden to Donald Trump, autocrats and oligarchs.” Jake’s story suggests the deal could technically go ahead without UK clearance, but all of Ellison’s signals so far are that he will stick by the book. With dozens of states filing lawsuits against the US merger, WarnerMount remains the most chaotic M&A company of the year. Ted Johnson’s book on current events across the Atlantic is worth reading.

Danny Boyle opens Venice

Spilled “ink”: It’s Venice next on the ongoing film festival circuit, and Thursday brought news of an exhilarating film to kick things off. The opening film at this year’s festival will be Rupert Murdoch’s film directed by Danny Boyle ink. Starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, and based on the play by James Graham. ink It is about the early days of The sun When Murdoch, in collaboration with no-nonsense editor Larry Lamb, turned it into Britain’s best-selling tabloid. Venice president Alberto Barbera described the film by Studiocanal, Media Res and House Productions as “highly anticipated” and would be happy to secure such a coup. Graham’s play attracted rave reviews when it landed in the West End and subsequently transferred to Broadway. Cannes has been described as a bit quiet by everyone this year, with smaller productions dominating, but Venice, which opened last year with Paolo Sorrentino’s beautywasn’t afraid to reach for the bigger, more spectacular images of recent years and ink The booking shows it. Meanwhile, Ellen Burstyn will take home the Golden Lion, while Akinola Davis Jr. and Ted Hope are among a number of famous Venice jury members. We watch with interest what Barbera pulls out of the hat next.

Insider Interview: David W. Zucker

The good wife EP David W. Zucker has been thinking about how the industry is changing at the rate of a decade.

Speaking to us from the Italian World Series Festival, Zucker lamented the death of the experimental system, which he feels led to a free-for-all. “We were used to being a seasonal business, and just as many of us in the pilot season era used to complain about the crazy reality of that chaos and hysteria, we knew that by May a decision would be made,” he said.

Elsewhere, Scott Free Productions’ creative director updated the FX news Alien: Earth Season 2 and Horror: Devil in Silver. >>>Read the interview

The BBC’s big question for broadcasters

License to expand the fee: The BBC’s annual report week always provides a marker of where the 100-year-old broadcaster stands, and in 2026, it will be all about funding, or lack thereof. With the BBC desperately seeking to revamp its license fee funding model, all the chatter at the press conference during director-general Matt Brittain’s first annual report was about an interesting but seemingly flawed plan to force subscribers to streaming services to pay the license fee. The report showed that 539,000 fewer families paid £180 ($240) last year. This leaves the BBC in a precarious position, according to Brittain and senior BBC officials. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has backed the plan, but it leaves more questions than answers and it’s hard to imagine it could help fill the BBC’s shortfall of many years (FWIW the broadcast companies and studios predictably opposed the plan). The BBC is clear that something needs to change: Brittain has criticized the current license fee as “yesterday’s model”. With the company laying off thousands of workers amid a £500m savings plan, it needs to find a way to keep up with rapid inflation and has identified rapidly enhanced license fee collection as a way to solve this problem. Elsewhere, disgraced radio presenter Scott Mills is back in the headlines, with the annual report revealing he was the BBC’s highest-paid presenter over the past year, before his show was abruptly terminated in connection with a police investigation into alleged historical sex crimes, which prosecutors eventually dropped. Mills earned up to £750,000 in the 12 months to the end of March 2026. All coverage of the report is here.

The basics

🌶️ Hot one: Idris Elba’s 22Summers is working on a slate of upcoming action films from all over West Africa.

🌶️ Another one: ITV, along with Simon Cowell’s partner Jeff Pope and Lauren Cowell, are producing a drama series about the “devastating” impact of social media on children.

📖 investigation: Executive producer of the BBC programme ambulance The producer is suing Banijay for damaging his mental health.

🤝 Deal done: Irish producer Playhouse Studios has purchased the assets of Halo Post and will launch its own post office as a result.

🇺🇸 American House: French thriller film Jean-Xavier de Lestrade Sambar Heading to Babylon Berlin Streamer MHz check.

🏆 World Cup: Tom Cruise and IShowSpeed ​​will appear at the World Cup closing ceremony, as football’s biggest tournament finally comes to a close.

📺 “Accounts” are closed: Colin from accounts, The Australian blockbuster that made people smile around the world will end after three seasons.