Samwise Film & TV Marketing Newsletter
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Resident Evil Opens to Franchise-Record $60M With Viral Robot Marketing Campaign
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot delivered the franchise’s biggest opening weekend with $60.15 million domestically, well above tracking estimates for the Sony production. The film — starring Austin Abrams as a medical courier fighting a viral outbreak in Raccoon City — earned a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and a B+ CinemaScore. A pre-release partnership with delivery platform Coco branded 50 autonomous delivery robots with a custom social spot placing the bots inside a fictional Raccoon City outbreak, driving social engagement in the days before opening. Global opening reached $108 million across all markets.
Paramount-WBD Merger Consent Decree Mandates $300M U.S. Film Production Boost
A five-year consent decree finalizing the Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery merger, filed Tuesday with a federal judge for approval, requires the combined company to spend $300 million more on domestic U.S. film production than it spent in 2025. The decree also sets minimum annual film release requirements and ties additional production spending to any federal film tax credit that Congress may establish. Miramax divestiture is the designated breach remedy for production violations. The merged studio entity is also expected to consolidate marketing overhead and tech infrastructure across its combined operations.
WGA Settles Lawsuit Against Paramount-WBD Merger, Extracting Writer Protections
The Writers Guild of America has settled its federal lawsuit challenging the Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery merger after extracting concessions from the combined company. The settlement includes funding commitments for local news operations and diversity provisions protecting working writers, according to court filings released Tuesday. The WGA had argued the merger posed competitive threats to writers by consolidating buying power under a single conglomerate. The deal clears a key legal obstacle ahead of final judicial approval of the consent decree, which also separately settled challenges from state attorneys general and the Department of Justice.
Liz Murdoch Sister Group Takes Stake in Common Interest for Branded Entertainment Push
Liz Murdoch’s branded entertainment company Sister Group has taken a strategic stake in Common Interest, a deal that expands Sister Group’s capabilities in the branded content and entertainment marketing space. The move signals growing institutional investment in branded entertainment as major studios and streamers increasingly seek external creative and commercial partners to develop content around IP and brands. Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch and a veteran entertainment executive, has built Sister Group into a significant independent production and branded content player. Financial terms of the Common Interest stake were not disclosed.
Brothers Premieres on Apple TV+ With McConaughey and Harrelson Exploring Sibling Claim
Apple TV+ today launches Brothers, an eight-episode comedy series starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as fictionalized versions of themselves exploring the pair’s real-life claim that they may be biological brothers. Showrunner Lee Eisenberg’s series opens when Harrelson’s character’s daughter’s wedding falls apart and the family relocates to McConaughey’s Austin ranch, where a buried family secret about their parentage surfaces. Episodes one and two drop today, with subsequent episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays. Critical response has been mixed, with reviewers noting the stars’ considerable chemistry carries an otherwise formulaic sitcom.
Netflix Wonka Competition Series Triggers AI Ethics Debate With Recreated Gene Wilder Voice
Netflix today premieres Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, an unscripted competition series adapting Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory IP, featuring an AI-recreated voice of the late actor Gene Wilder. The series pits 12 contestants against Wonka-themed challenges, with Rusty Goffe—an original Oompa Loompa from the 1971 film—returning. Netflix fast-tracked the format as part of its strategy to build owned IP into scalable unscripted franchises. The AI voice recreation immediately drew criticism from critics who questioned the ethics of digitally reanimating a deceased performer for commercial entertainment without expressed consent.
Wall Street Cautiously Optimistic on Paramount Shares as WBD Merger Clears Final Hurdles
Paramount Skydance shares ticked higher Tuesday as the consent decree with the Department of Justice provided markets with the regulatory certainty they had been awaiting. Analysts noted the combined company can achieve meaningful savings by consolidating tech stacks, reducing duplicative real estate and trimming marketing overhead across the merged entity. Wall Street remains cautiously optimistic, with concerns centered on integration costs and the competitive streaming landscape. The merged studio will operate under the consent decree for five years, with divestiture of Miramax as a penalty for breach of the production investment requirements.
Weekend Box Office Top 20 — Sept. 18–20, 2026
| # | Title | Weekend | Total | Wk | Distributor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resident Evil | $60,152,878 | $60,152,878 | 1 | Columbia |
| 2 | Practical Magic 2 | $12,158,856 | $50,035,443 | 2 | Warner Bros. |
| 3 | Spider-Man: Brand New Day | $6,415,159 | $944,417,445 | 8 | Sony |
| 4 | The Odyssey | $4,953,955 | $609,811,695 | 10 | Universal |
| 5 | Coyote vs. Acme | $4,410,418 | $54,714,484 | 4 | Ketchup Ent. |
| 6 | Daniel and the Fiery Furnace | $3,303,548 | $3,303,548 | 1 | EKKL |
| 7 | Transformers: The Movie 40th Ann. | $3,103,922 | $4,156,531 | 1 | — |
| 8 | Runner | $3,007,648 | $11,814,476 | 2 | — |
| 9 | The Weight | $2,301,059 | $2,301,059 | 1 | Vertical |
| 10 | Buddy | $1,951,447 | $24,855,411 | 4 | Roadside |
| 11 | Insidious: Out of the Further | $1,852,614 | $63,757,218 | 5 | Sony |
| 12 | Shaun the Sheep: Beast of Mossy Bottom | $1,837,847 | $1,837,847 | 1 | GKIDS |
| 13 | The Uprising | $1,203,765 | $5,789,545 | 2 | Focus Features |
| 14 | Hope | $1,000,224 | $7,290,322 | 2 | Neon |
| 15 | By Any Means | $701,249 | $15,288,995 | 3 | Paramount |
| 16 | PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie | $685,016 | $52,467,338 | 6 | Paramount |
| 17 | Ghost in the Shell (Re-release) | $486,025 | $486,025 | 1 | Lionsgate |
| 18 | If I Go Will They Miss Me | $336,477 | $383,856 | 2 | — |
| 19 | The End of Oak Street | $323,652 | $54,012,346 | 6 | Warner Bros. |
| 20 | Tony | $218,793 | $15,194,788 | 7 | A24 |
Source: Box Office Mojo — Weekend of Sept. 18–20, 2026
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency