It’s not too early to start out excited about how 2025 will shake out for Hollywood. In some instances, the writing is already on the wall, the offers have been inked (however not but closed) and the indicators are pointing towards some predictable outcomes. Maybe. Surprises abound — suppose solely of the twists and turns that 2024 dropped at the information cycle: the good manufacturing slowdown, belt-tightening at practically each main studio and a field workplace downturn. Not to say the weirdest, wildest and mystifying moments of this yr. But, beneath, The Hollywood Reporter takes a couple of educated guesses, reads between-the-lines and makes some prognostications about what the following yr or so has in retailer for the leisure business.
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We’ve Reached Peak Taylor Sheridan
Last yr, Peak TV lastly peaked — with the variety of scripted exhibits throughout broadcast, cable and streaming dropping to 516. Roughly half of these have been produced by Taylor Sheridan — or it positive felt like that, at the very least. In 2025, we predict the Taylorverse output will even peak. The ultra-prolific chronicler of heartland heroes has 5 present exhibits, with extra within the works, and a film or two within the pipeline. Plus, he’s acquired his mega-ranch in Texas to run and the person has to find time for all his strip-poker pool events with supermodels (or so it seems, based mostly on what we’ve seen of Sheridan’s studly on-screen alter-ego Travis Wheatley on Yellowstone these days). Sheridan could not have paid off his ranch but, however certainly he’s getting shut. — James Hibberd
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Sundance Poised to Leave Park City
Image Credit: Adobe Stock Even if the fest is staying in Utah in 2027 — Boulder and Cincinnati are nonetheless reportedly in rivalry, too — Park City will likely be a back-burner location to the extra hospitable Salt Lake. Park City locals are much less enamored by the star energy (and the enterprise) Sundance brings in after its four-decade run within the location, and even pageant veterans are getting priced out, to not point out the indie filmmakers that the pageant is programming. — Mia Galuppo
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The Next James Bond Will Be…
Bond 26, the following iteration of 007, has been the supply of countless hypothesis — significantly which fortunate actor will subsequent play the key agent after Daniel Craig hung up the tuxedo for good in 2021’s No Time to Die. A free consensus fashioned round Kraven the Hunter star Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But Bond sequence producer Barbara Broccoli has all the time led from the intestine, not caved to in style opinion. Lest we overlook, the fair-haired Craig was thought-about a extremely controversial alternative when he was first introduced in 2005. 2025 will thus be the yr we lastly be taught the id of the brand new James Bond, and it’ll not be Taylor-Johnson. It will likely be an English actor poised on the cusp of superstardom — acquainted to audiences however not too acquainted, with a seductive smile, simple with a tossed-off one-liner and charisma to spare. The subsequent James Bond will likely be Josh O’Connor. – Seth Abramovitch
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Supreme Court Takes Up an Art vs. AI Case
Image Credit: Getty Images All eyes in Hollywood are on the courts to reply one query on the intersection of tech and leisure that can ripple throughout each industries: Is the coaching of AI methods on copyrighted materials authorized? There’s no simple reply to the novel challenge pushing the boundaries of truthful use and mental property legislation, at the very least in keeping with the courts. And at the very least one choose, who’s overseeing a lawsuit from music publishers towards Amazon’s Anthropic, has signaled her choice could not go creatives’ manner. Expect the Supreme Court to finally overview one of many lawsuits from artists, writers or newspapers. — Winston Cho
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Filmmakers Push for Theaters Over Money
“I not trusted them as a artistic associate,” mentioned director Jon Watts of pulling the sequel to his 2024 film Wolfs after the tech large reversed course on the movie’s theatrical plans on the final minute. Filmmakers, at the very least ones who’re within the place of choosing their studio, will more and more be going with companions that can make good on theatrical guarantees. Emerald Fennell and Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights adaptation landed at Warner Bros. over Netflix after the previous provided a sturdy launch. Expect others to push for related offers. — Mia Galuppo
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The Great TV Channel Roll Up Is Next
Image Credit: iStock/Getty Images NBCUniversal’s separated firm SpinCo (aka the place E!, MSNBC, CNBC and Oxygen will likely be housed) will transfer shortly to try to roll up the cable enterprise, and corporations AMC Networks, the Paramount cable channels and A&E Networks (at present collectively owned by Disney and Hearst) could possibly be ripe for offers. A supply acquainted says that SpinCo is positioned to be a purchaser, not a vendor, at the very least not for some time, and with cord-cutting nonetheless operating amok, they anticipate offers to maneuver shortly. And, on Dec. 12, Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled a company rework that could possibly be a step to spinning out its TV channels from its studios enterprise, too. — Alex Weprin
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Image Credit: Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery It’s exhausting to disregard the affect of podcasters throughout the 2024 election. But the silver lining for cable information channels like Fox News and CNN is that youthful shoppers appear to be consuming content material that’s related — or at the very least adjoining — to their programming. Expect the likes of Fox News to pursue offers with a number of the sizzling podcasters of the second (simply look to UFC CEO Dana White’s speech at Mar-A-Lago for a listing), and CNN and MSNBC to see what different up and coming podcasters is perhaps keen to chop a deal. In some methods, it could possibly be a throwback to the sooner days of cable information, when video variations of radio simulcasts have been commonplace. — Alex Weprin
Reality TV Will Rebound
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix After struggling a serious slowdown in improvement and manufacturing throughout and after the 2023 strikes, actuality tv will make a comeback of types subsequent yr as firms return to counting on their fast and low cost content material standby. Odds are that budgets will proceed to be miniscule and executives will nonetheless lean on secure bets, with work alternatives not returning to their pre-strikes glory days, however throughout a polarized subsequent Trump administration, viewers will likely be looking for consolation watches. What higher chaser for the inauguration than the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or Selling Sunset? — Katie Kilkenny
The NBA Takes a Bite Out of Entertainment
Image Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images When the NBA’s blockbuster new TV offers kick in subsequent fall, they are going to essentially reshape the TV panorama. Hundreds of hours of broadcast TV on NBC and ABC which might be at present occupied by leisure programming will shift towards NBA video games and ancillary exhibits like Inside the NBA. The end result will likely be a extra cautious broadcast leisure portfolio, seemingly with fewer swings, however safer ones. And concepts that may connect with that NBA viewers could get moved to the entrance of the road, whereas riskier bets should struggle for what they will get throughout a streaming panorama that can also be chopping again. – Alex Weprin
Shoppable Content (Finally) Goes Mainstream
Around the flip of the millennium, interactive TV pioneers predicted Americans would quickly watch Friends and purchase Jennifer Aniston’s sweater or different merchandise proven on display screen through their remotes. It didn’t play out that manner. But the streaming age, rise of advert tiers and use of cellular second screens give shoppable TV one other shot through telephones. NBCUniversal, Disney, and Amazon are amongst those who have experimented on this house. Expect some motion subsequent yr as Disney unveiled a beta program for its first streaming shoppable advert format in with Unilever. Shop the stream, anybody? — Georg Szalai
‘Family Guy’ Will Get a New Home
Image Credit: Everett All three of Fox’s legacy animated comedies (The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy) are coming to the top of two-season pickups within the spring. The first two have been airing as traditional this fall, however Family Guy hasn’t — neither is it scheduled to premiere within the first quarter of 2025. After the present was moved away from Sunday nights for a part of final season, it seems like a breakup is perhaps imminent — with Hulu as a logical touchdown level for Family Guy, the place its library is constantly one of the crucial streamed exhibits within the U.S. — Rick Porter
Box Office Will Fly Past $9B Once Again
Image Credit: Courtesy of twentieth Century Studios While that’s nonetheless properly beneath pre-pandemic ranges by $2 billion or so, it’s an enormous enchancment over a lean 2024 — income for this yr is predicted to come back in at $8.5 billion or extra, down from 2023’s $9 billion — attributable to an ongoing lack of product brought on by the strikes and the post-production visitors jam left over from the pandemic. The 2025 calendar actually has extra razzle-dazzle, together with the following Jurassic World and Mission: Impossible, Wicked and Avatar installments in summer time and winter, respectively, Wolfman in January and Captain America: Brave New World in February and Snow White in March, to call only a few. And analysts are already betting that 2026 will see income cross $10 billion. — Pamela McClintock
Vanity Media Billionaires Eye the Door
In 2018, biotech mogul Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong snapped up the Los Angeles Times from the regrettably named regional paper agency Tronc whereas Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff picked up Time journal from Meredith, ushering in an optimistic second for tech billionaire self-importance media house owners. That period could now be passing. Benioff, who wrote a Time essay in November touting the revolutionary potential of AI brokers to rework society, has reportedly held early talks with a suitor a few sale of the journal. Meanwhile, Soon-Shiong hasn’t acknowledged he’d wish to promote — however he seems more and more at odds with a section of his editorial staffers, whether or not in ousting revered information chief Kevin Merida or floating a “bias meter” to be added on articles. There’s a good likelihood he’s accomplished with the complications of operating a paper. — Erik Hayden
Trump DOJ Will Back Down on Live Nation Breakup
Image Credit: Ethan Miller through Getty Images Live Nation executives say they’re “hopeful” a few change in course on the Department of Justice underneath Trump in direction of a much less interventionist method, following the lawsuit filed towards the dwell leisure large in May 2024 over antitrust violations. The breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster was one of many proposed options within the Biden-era lawsuit. While there was bipartisan criticism of Live Nation’s practices, there may be additionally a way that there will likely be larger consolidation and fewer enforcement from the DOJ towards alleged monopolies. That could possibly be superb information for the ticketing large. — Caitlin Huston
This story first appeared within the Dec. 13 challenge of The Hollywood Reporter journal. To obtain the journal, click on right here to subscribe.
