Weekly Lab Notes

CinemaCon Pledge, Now a Contract

David Ellison Promised 30-Plus Movies a Year. History Says No Studio Has Pulled That Off.

Paramount CEO David Ellison has told exhibitors at CinemaCon, on earnings calls, and now in writing that a combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will release at least 30 films theatrically every year, 15 from each studio, with a 45-day exclusive theatrical window and a 90-day wait before streaming. In August, Paramount's outside counsel confirmed the company is prepared to make that commitment contractually binding with AMC and Regal for at least three years, with financial penalties attached if it falls short. Tom Cruise has publicly backed the promise, telling The Pat McAfee Show he believes "those 30 movies are going to turn into 40 movies."

The skepticism is not about ambition, it's about math. Paramount released 8 films in 2025 and is targeting 15 to 16 in 2026. Warner Bros. released 11 in 2025. Even combined, that is well short of 30, and no other major studio currently commits to anything close to that volume: Universal's slate runs roughly 20 to 25 films a year, the largest of the majors; Disney and Sony each release somewhere in the 15 to 20 range. DVD revenue has collapsed, streaming pays a fraction of what theatrical once did, and marketing costs for a single event movie now regularly exceed $100 million. The 30-movie promise is either a genuine bet that consolidation creates efficiencies other studios haven't found, or a contractual sweetener designed to keep exhibitors, and by extension public opinion, on Paramount's side while 12 state attorneys general try to block the deal in court.

Turning 20 on September 1

Roblox Launched as a Physics Toy. It's Closing Out Its Teens With a Bookings Crisis.

Roblox the platform turns 20 on September 1, twenty years after David Baszucki and Erik Cassel, who had previously built a physics simulator called Interactive Physics at their company Knowledge Revolution, launched an early prototype under the working titles "eBlocks" and "DynaBlocks" before settling on Roblox, a blend of "robots" and "blocks," in January 2004. The game itself didn't go live until September 1, 2006. Cassel died of cancer in 2013 and never saw the platform reach a fraction of its current scale; Roblox went public on the NYSE in 2021 and now employs roughly 2,500 people.

The anniversary lands during the roughest financial stretch in the company's public life. Second quarter revenue rose 36 percent to $1.47 billion, but bookings, the figure that predicts future revenue, rose just 8 percent to $1.56 billion, and management withdrew its full year outlook entirely. The stock touched a 52 week low of $33.88 on August 1, down roughly 74 percent from its all time high near $142. Daily active users have fallen every quarter since peaking at 152 million in the third quarter of 2025. Roblox held $6.1 billion in cash as of June 30, so the balance sheet isn't the immediate worry; the open question is whether new safety reforms have structurally dented the under-13 US and Canada cohort that has always powered the platform's growth, or whether the dip is temporary.

Since July 6

Two Studios Go Independent, Two Are Sold, One Waits in France

Xbox's restructuring under CEO Asha Sharma cut roughly 3,200 jobs, about 20 percent of the gaming division, and reshaped its studio portfolio. Double Fine Productions, founded by Tim Schafer and acquired by Microsoft in 2019, is independent again, keeping full publishing rights to Psychonauts, Keeper and Kiln; the transition still forced the studio to lay off 23 staff to reach a size it can sustain. Compulsion Games returned to independence under founder Guillaume Provost, retaining We Happy Few and South of Midnight. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs were sold to unspecified buyers rather than spun off. Arkane Lyon's fate remains unresolved, tied up in a mandatory labor consultation process in France.

Forbes 2026 Top Creators vs. Highest-Paid Actors

MrBeast Made $300M Last Year. Adam Sandler, the Highest-Paid Movie Star on the Planet, Made $60M.

Five to one. Last year the prediction was that creators would close this gap. That was too conservative. It didn't close. It flipped. Forbes' 2026 Top Creators list puts Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, at $300 million in estimated earnings, his fifth straight year atop the ranking, built on YouTube, a production studio, Feastables, Lunchly and Amazon Prime's Beast Games. Forbes' highest-paid actor of 2025 was Adam Sandler at $60 million gross, on the strength of a rich Netflix output deal plus Happy Gilmore 2 and Jay Kelly, itself down from the prior year's leader.

Hollywood had the best job in media for 100 years. It controlled the talent, the distribution, the production and the money. Then a kid with a camera and no respect for any of it showed up. The old model was built on scarcity: limited shelf space, limited channels, limited stars, limited shots on goal. The creator model is built on abundance: more content, more testing, more data, direct relationships, lower overhead. Hollywood still has the red carpets. Creators have the margins, and for the first time, Forbes' top 50 creators collectively cleared $1 billion in a single year.