You survived ’til 2025. Here are the big Hollywood business stories to watch for

Covering the entertainment business is never boring, and 2025 is already shaping up to be another banger as business models that have been around for decades continue to evolve, erode and unravel.

Here’s a look at some of the most significant storylines we expect to play out for Hollywood and beyond in the new year, along with a couple bonus predictions (because who can resist?).

The shape of streaming to come

The first streaming merger of 2025 is already here. On Monday, Walt Disney Co. announced it would merge its Hulu Live TV business with rival Fubo, settling the latter’s legal challenge to Disney’s planned sports streaming joint venture with Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery. Fubo had sued to block the new streamer, known as Venu Sports, on antitrust grounds.

Disney’s deal is an interesting tactic to clear the way for Venu and get out of the business of managing channel distribution (the combined company will be 70%-owned by Disney but run by Fubo’s leadership team). The agreement still requires approval from regulators and Fubo shareholders. Hulu Live TV and Fubo are in a different business from, say, Netflix, because their focus is on live channels, essentially as a direct alternative to cable. Netflix and its ilk are mostly on-demand.

Will streaming consolidation follow? Conventional wisdom says that the business is ripe for it, because there are too many services aimed at general audiences, and the landscape just keeps getting more confusing. The coming launch of Venu and ESPN’s stand-alone service will fragment the business further.

Netflix is booming, and some of the legacy media companies’ streaming divisions have stopped bleeding money, including Disney’s, which became profitable last year. But Peacock and Paramount+ are still small enough to get roasted by Nikki Glaser at Sunday’s Golden Globes on CBS, which is owned by Paramount (ouch).

That doesn’t necessarily mean any other major combinations will happen with the streaming subscription services this year. Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t letting go of HBO/Max and Comcast can afford to keep growing Peacock. But don’t rule out other moves, especially more joint ventures and bundles.

Consolidation and cuts

The job cuts in media and entertainment will continue this year, particularly in cable channels and news divisions, where budgets are getting tighter amid broader turmoil. Fewer people are watching TV news, and cable channels are losing customers. Prominent and highly paid anchors are already heading toward the exits, with Hoda Kotb quitting NBC’s “Today” show, Neil Cavuto bailing from Fox News and Chris Wallace exiting CNN.

MSNBC and other Comcast-owned cable networks are preparing to be spun off, a move that will probably spur more consolidation of linear TV networks as cord cutting and declining ratings eat into profits. Then there’s Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of HBO and CNN. With its low stock price and a shifting political and regulatory climate, many expect Warner Bros. Discovery’s Chief Executive David Zaslav to lay the groundwork for a major transaction in the near future. Paramount could also shed some of its flagging cable channel operations.

Box office recovers, but only to a point

This will be a telling year for the movie business. After the writers’ and actors’ strikes hobbled an already slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, 2025 will finally feature a relatively normal slate of potential blockbusters, including three Marvel Studios movies and the big-screen return of Superman.

We’ll have to wait and see how well “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and James Gunn’s DC reboot actually perform, but the overall cadence of wide releases will be stronger overall. My prediction for the top three domestic grossers: “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” (counting spill-over into next year), “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good.”

Last year, ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada totaled $8.75 billion, down 3% from 2023. That’s not as bad as people were expecting given the weakness of the first half of the year, which was thinned out by the 2023 strikes. But it’s still pretty dire, down 23% from the “before times.” The actual number of tickets sold was 740 million according to EntTelligence, a big drop from the pre-pandemic average of more than 1 billion. This year is expected to cross the $9 billion mark, rising about 5%, according to analysts.

Film attendance was slowly declining well before the coronavirus shuttered theaters. Now more people have lost the moviegoing habit, and theater owners won’t be able to dig themselves out of that hole with price hikes.

AI deals get real

“John Wick” studio Lionsgate sent ripples throughout a nervous entertainment industry in September when it announced a partnership with New York-based artificial intelligence startup Runway for a new AI model to help with behind-the-scenes processes such as storyboarding. The following month, Facebook parent Meta said it was working with horror producer Blumhouse on a pilot program to get feedback from creatives on its AI tools.

Expect to see more AI-related deals in 2025 as the technology becomes more mainstream, even as many artists and workers push back (for good reason). Studios are looking to AI to save money and streamline processes, which will mean fewer jobs.

Besides Lionsgate, the major film studios haven’t yet announced big licensing agreements, in part due to the lack of legal clarity around the tech, general suspicion of Silicon Valley’s attitude toward intellectual property and sensitivity within Hollywood labor groups about the potential for job displacement. But this year will bring significant movement on this front. Music companies and news publishers are already putting content licensing deals in place.

Studios navigate political vibe shift

We’ve already witnessed the retreat of entertainment companies from political messaging, coming after Disney’s troubles in Florida and in anticipation of a possible Trump victory. Even before Trump won, it was clear that mainstream studios were getting increasingly gun shy about hitting left-coded topics too hard in movies and series. Not much talk of climate change in Universal’s summer heartland hit “Twisters.” With Trump in office, the ever-reactive entertainment business will internalize some of the culture’s rightward shift, mostly by focusing on producing nonpartisan escapism.

The entertainment industry is a liberal place, and that’s not going to change on a fundamental level. But there will be some examples of pro-Trump media getting a toehold outside of Fox News. Distributors didn’t want to touch the Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” but Amazon just acquired a Melania Trump documentary, on which the returning first lady served as executive producer. As it happens, this comes as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other tech big wigs are ingratiating themselves with the President-elect.

Meanwhile, explicitly political media operations such as the Daily Wire and Babylon Bee will continue to get attention, while niche producers like Angel Studios will keep feeding their audiences with conservative-leaning and faith-based material. A growing scene of MAGA-adjacent creators, especially comedians in the Joe Rogan-Tony Hinchcliffe sphere, will try to carve out space amid the anti-woke cultural backlash. My prediction is that some producers will try to capitalize on this market by starting a new conservative-focused production or film financing company.

Tech companies take stock of film strategies

What an unpredictable time to be in the theatrical distribution business. Last year, Apple ruffled creatives’ feathers by bailing on its planned wide theatrical release of the Brad Pitt-George Clooney vehicle “Wolfs.” Amazon MGM Studios, for its part, gave its Dwayne Johnson holiday bet “Red One” a window in theaters, but then took it to Prime Video after just a few weeks. What gives?

On one hand, Amazon wisely wanted to capitalize on the big-budget “Red One” by putting it on its streamer in time for Christmas. On the other hand, that decision has to be unnerving for theater operators, whose business model depends on big-screen exclusivity.

Also, having Apple back off its theatrical ambitions is a bad sign for any filmmakers counting on iPhone sales to help bankroll their $100 million rom-coms and adult-oriented dramas. The Cupertino tech titan has a big summer release coming up with “F1” in June (starring Pitt), which could be a pivotal moment for Apple’s film strategy.

Netflix does not want to be known as just a company for TV shows. But where the streamer has had the most success is by becoming young people’s No. 1 replacement for cable and satellite. While there have been some hits from Netflix’s film efforts (“Leave the World Behind,” “Rebel Ridge”), the movies haven’t broken through in the way series such as “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game” have. New film chief Dan Lin wants to change that.

The “It” and “Aladdin” producer developed a new structure for Netflix’s movie division, splitting up executive duties by genre. Will that lead to more and bigger hits? Netflix is also looking for ways to make its movies more event-worthy. But beyond social media-friendly holiday material like “Hot Frosty,” that may prove difficult to achieve without major theatrical releases.

To that end, the company has been talking with Greta Gerwig and Imax for a big-screen showcase of her upcoming “Narnia” adaptation. The shape and success of that deal could determine whether Netflix budges from its stance against theatrical windows, which it has resisted fulsomely.

Disney CEO succession intrigue goes supernova

Disney will extend CEO Bob Iger’s contract again. Just kidding. All signs indicate that Iger will actually depart as planned this time, with the company targeting early 2026 to pick a replacement. The question of who will take the seat — which Hollywood is treating as a “Conclave”-esque selection of a new pope — is a topic for another newsletter.

Stuff we wrote

An ‘industry behemoth.’ Inside the federal government’s efforts to break up Google. The Mountain View-based search and digital advertising giant is facing increasing scrutiny as the government has recommended it be broken up and its lucrative search index opened to rivals.

The top 6 highlights of the Golden Globes, according to those who were there. Our team on the ground at the Beverly Hilton reports on their favorite moments of the night from the red carpet, inside the ballroom, backstage and more.

FCC’s net neutrality rules struck down, in another blow to Biden administration. A federal appeals court in Ohio ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacked authority to reinstate open internet rules. This decision won’t change California’s law, though.

WWE begins its Netflix era after years of controversy, drama and ratings. On Monday, WWE “Raw” will stream exclusively on Netflix. The wrestling franchise is hoping for a huge global and multigenerational audience following years of success on TV and drama inside and outside the ring.

Finally …

I can’t remember who told me about the synth pop group Adult DVD, but its EP “Next Day Shipping” is super fun. Here’s a link (do not Google the phrase “Adult DVD”).

As a less obscure bonus, one of my favorite musical genres is other artists doing Bob Dylan songs. Here’s Jeff Buckley doing one of the best Dylan covers ever recorded.