Entertainment Lawyers

There have been some significant recent changes in Disney’s senior leadership, especially in its direct-to-consumer division. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer with Blake & Wang P.A., has the full story.                                                                               Brandon Blake New Streaming Head Joe Earley, the exiting president for Disney’s D2C interests, will now move to a new role as President of the Disney Entertainment TV Franchise and Content Strategy. Adam Smith will step into his shoes as chairman. This will leave him overseeing pretty much everything that falls under Disney’s D2C banner, including their products and engineering, ad technology, programming, partnerships, viewer experience, and the ever-more-important data and analytics. That’s across both Di...

  As Avengers: Doomsday sees strong ticket sales three months ahead of its actual release date, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues to see box office success, are we headed for another superhero wave? Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A., takes a look.                                                                          Brandon Blake $50M With Three Months to Go Domestic pre-sales have now passed the $50M threshold for Avengers: Doomsday . The film only releases in three months. It’s certainly an excellent start for the next Marvel installment, which will be competing for screen space with the third installment in the Dune franchise when it opens in December this year. Especially given that Dune is set to dominate IMAX screens, at least for its first weekend in ...

  Despite a flurry of price hikes earlier this year, new data from Ampere Analysis suggests that we’re reaching the bounds of what customers are willing to spend on an individual platform. Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A., has all the details.                                                                   Brandon Blake     Reaching the Limit We’ve already seen the big three of streaming, Disney, Netflix, and Prime Video, scale down the ambition in their price hikes. In the 2024/2024 period, pricing increases averaged 24% per subscription type, which has slid to 14% in 2025/2026. We’ve also seen significant uptake for ad-supported tiers to reduce the cost burden on households, although average increases at this tier have been $1.61, versus $1.21 for more premium tiers.  No...

  Knocking Deadpool & Wolverine off its number 1 spot, The Odyssey is now officially the best-earning R-rated movie on record, as Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A., is here to share.                                                                   Brandon Blake Beating Deadpool & Wolverine It’s certainly been a year for setting and re-setting box office records, that’s for sure. As of Thursday last week, Universal Pictures confirmed that the Nolan-directed retelling of Greek legend had brought in $1.352B globally, stealing the title from its previous holder, Deadpool & Wolverine, which totaled $1.338B across its 2024 run. The Odyssey has had something of a historic run at the box office, and now claims a domestic cume of $516.3M, making it Nolan’s highest-grossing movie...

  With Spider-Man already performing fantastically for Chinese audiences, it seems The Odyssey is keen to make its mark on the Chinese box office as well, especially with a splashy IMAX release to back it. Brandon Blake, Entertainment lawyer with Blake & Wang P.A., has the full story.                                                                       Brandon Blake   Fantastic Previews With almost $7M in the kitty before the film was released, The Odyssey looks set for a strong Chinese run. The film was, of course, shot specifically for IMAX, but seeing such a strong surge of interest before the film’s official opening was probably one of the biggest surprises ahead of its first weekend.  Overall, the film accounted for roughly 7% of this past weekend’s business, an impressive feat in...

  With a new edition of Nielsen’s Gauge report recently released, one thing is crystal clear: domestic audiences are still in love with both Stranger Things and The Pitt. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A, breaks down the current state of streaming for us.                                                                           Brandon Blake A 2025 Premier (Technically) Regarding Stranger Things , it’s technically a 2025 release. But given it aired on the last day of the year, that’s splitting hairs. It was Nielsen’s most-streamed title so far for the year, beating out not just fellow TV titles, but also movies.  It managed 23.26B viewing minutes across the period, also setting a single-week record of 8.65B minutes for its first week. While it fell off the top 10 cha...

  Building on the deal inked last year, Peacock and YouTube will now be expanding, adding Peacock bundling to YouTube Premium as well as some livestreams for sports events on YouTube channels. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer with Blake & Wang P.A., shares the news.                                                                           Brandon Blake YouTube and Bundling May Be the Next Hit It certainly seems like YouTube Premium is keen to make itself the next major entertainment bundler. Peacock will now be included with the $15.99 YouTube Premium service, beginning next year. With NBCUniversal itself preparing for a split from its parent company, Comcast, this could be a lucrative source of new subscribers for the streaming platform, which has only just managed to break even in the ...

  We’ve seen another glum quarter for shoot days in LA, but with the bulk of the projects that benefited from the expanded and refreshed tax credit program only set to show in the next quarter, there’s still a lot to hope for. Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A., walks us through it all.                                                                          Brandon Blake Shoot Days Down for Q2 Compared with the same quarter in 2025, shoot days were down 12.7%. However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the expansion to California’s tax credit incentive program will only really show in the next quarter, before anyone gets too gloomy. Of the 170 projects that have been granted credits under the new plan, most will only show their impact from Q3. 41 new feature films ha...

  We’ve seen a lot of shifts in the entertainment industry over the last decade. As everything has moved towards digital access and monetization, the role of the audience is now more important than ever. No longer are they just viewers, but an active asset that young filmmakers are using to sell their pitches, as we saw recently with Backrooms . Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., looks a little deeper.                                                                          Brandon Blake Part of the Pitch Film financing has always been a complicated thing. However, in an era where every variable is expected to be measurable, that moves the eyes on the screen into an asset of their own. Being able to arrive with a built-in audience may well be the leverage between a success...

  If you were hoping to access Peacock’s Ad-Free tier through YouTube, you’re in luck, as YouTube honors part of its 2025 distribution deal with NBCUniversal with a new launch. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer with Blake & Wang P.A., has the full story.                                                                       Brandon Blake Peacock Premium Plus Now Available on YouTube The deal will now see Peacock Premium Plus available as part of YouTube’s Primetime Channels, the culmination of last October's deal between the two companies. It came on the heels of a rather contentious renegotiation battle that could have ended in a potential blackout.  This was one of several clashes YouTube faced last year, with Disney’s 15-day impasse possibly the most notable. Perhaps we can write them off as...

  One year after Netflix announced a major new carriage deal with TF1, the French broadcaster, to fill out its live and on-demand libraries, we’re finally seeing it all go live. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., is here to fill us in.                                                                        Brandon Blake   More to Watch, All in One Place At least, that’s what the campaign slogan for the launch wants to reassure us. Netflix is in the middle of an aggregation strategy at present (one that looks, honestly, a little like traditional pay TV), as its own way to broaden both the content on offer and its presence in its overseas territories. The idea being that viewers can watch TF1+ programs and live channels integrated directly into the standard Netflix environmen...

  Since its failed bid for Paramount, it seems that Hollywood news is desperate to tie Netflix to another merger deal. First there were rumors about Roku, and now it’s Lionsgate. Netflix, however, isn’t interested, as Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., confirms.                                                                         Brandon Blake Stocks Surge on Merger Rumor Lionsgate shares certainly benefited from the rumors, seeing a 14% uptick until Netflix shot down the speculation in a rather blunt release. Ironically, since its early 2025 separation from Starz, Lionsgate has been struggling to recover its momentum. That said, however, it has performed well as an independent studio on the stock market since the split. However, despite some big franchises and valuable IPs ...