saidi’s take – 7/14/2026

Hello everyone,

This email is dedicated to the great Sam Niell who starred in the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movies, The Hunt for Red October, and The Piano, and other films plus the TV show “Peaky Blinders”.

BOX OFFICE: For the second weekend in a row, the big summer movie underperformed.  This time it was the live action “Moana” which only made $43.1 million domestically.  “Minions vs Monsters” slipped past $100 million domestic total coming in at #2 with $21 million.  “Toy Story 5” is still going strong with a domestic total now over $400 million.  It came in at #3 with $19 million.  The other new release “Evil Dead Burn” made $13.7 million for #4. 

Total domestic weekend rose slightly (7%) to $125.7 million.

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: Unlike last weeks “Minions vs Monsters” which did well internationally, “Moana” also underperformed making a worldwide total of $95 million.  Meanwhile, “Toy Story 5” is quickly approaching $900 million and is currently at $880 million.  “Michael” FINALLY crossed $1 BILLION.  The second movie of 2026 to do it so far and the VERY FIRST Lionsgate release to make that much.

OTHER NEWS:

Paramount just acquired the “original script” to “Nightmare on Elm Street” thanks to the rights to the screenplay going back to the estate of Wes Craven back in 2019.

Also, a group of a dozen states including California are now suing to block the Paramount/Warner Bros merger from happening despite the OK for the US government.  Several groups including the WGA and the Cinema United movie theater groups support the block on the merger.  Blocking the merger supposedly has also led Paramount to consider moving EVERYTHING out of California.

RIP SAM NIELL

The above is a REAL TWITTER POST from him from 7 years ago (see the video at this link).  It means as much today as it did then and A LOT OF PEOPLE are re-tweeting it today.

I bet he’s cuddling a duck right now.