Entertainment Lawyers

  Audiences have spoken: You Can See Everything is a hot property for A24. Bringing in a remarkable second-weekend total for what is, essentially, a drama-packed documentary, they certainly have reason to celebrate, as Blake & Wang P.A. a seasoned entertainment attorney in Los Angeles USA, Brandon Blake, is here to share.                                                                         Brandon Blake Impressive Weekend You Can See Everything brought in $19.5M over its second weekend, a 25% uptick from its $15.6 first weekend. That alone is quite a rarity, although admittedly the film also expanded the number of screens it was playing on, moving from 855 screens to 2,655 theaters. However, we are talking about a 3-hour documentary playing at the general box office. For that, A24 can likel...

  After six long years of trimming budgets and doing its best to compete with its larger streaming peers, Peacock may finally be coming into its own. With a second consecutive profitable quarter now under its belt, entertainment attorney Brandon Blake, at Blake & Wang P.A., looks at what Peacock is finally doing right.                                                                        Brandon Blake   Subscriber and Profit Uptick Peacock posted a pre-tax profit of $261M for this year’s Q3, with total revenue reaching $1.8B, up from $1.4B last year. That’s quite a change from the $217M loss it faced in the same period last year, and follows on from its Q2 profit of $189M. It has also seen subscriber numbers grow to 48M, up from 41M in the same period last year, although it is flat from Q2....

  Launch Financing, a film finance specialist, will be expanding its gap loan services for the indie market domestically and in both Canada and the UK in the wake of a new institutional senior credit facility. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., shares the news.                                                                           Brandon Blake Loan Expansion Launch Financing has already helped with more than 60 loans for smaller productions, offsetting the loan amount against committed production receivables such as tax credits and pre-sales. This new $15M senior credit facility, which will extend to $25M over time, will now be on offer through an agreement with Pier Asset Management, a specialty lender. Cash flow issues are common for smaller productions, with extende...

  Sony is taking a bet on Japanese Anime as a growth vector with the launch of Crunchyroll Storyworks, its new division. Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A., shares the news.                                                                   Brandon Blake   New Unit The new unit will be headed by Tohru Iokibe, a veteran at Sony Corp., and hopes to extend the platform’s influence among the Japanese anime community as well as boost its global profile. They will report to Crunchyroll’s Chief Content Officer, Asa Suehira. The new division was announced last week at Crunchyroll’s own Anime Future Forum and ahead of the New York Comic Con.  Storyworks will primarily focus on adapting global stories into anime, and, conversely, bringing Japanese anime titles into the live-action arena....

  With this year’s stellar box office performance only highlighting the enduring interest in the cinema experience, there’s a lot for the cinema industry to celebrate. However, that doesn’t mean the woes that have followed the industry since the pandemic are fully put to bed. Industry insiders argue that passing the SCREEN Act could do a lot to support those remaining struggles. Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, at Blake & Wang P.A., looks at what’s at stake.                                                                Brandon Blake   Ongoing Struggles Fundamentally, one strong year does not a full recovery make. At least not when it comes to the capital the post-pandemic years have slowly eroded. That’s partly what the bipartisan Supporting Cinema Renewal, Enhancement, and Enriching Neighborhoods, or SCREEN, A...

  With this year’s stellar box office performance only highlighting the enduring interest in the cinema experience, there’s a lot for the cinema industry to celebrate. However, that doesn’t mean the woes that have followed the industry since the pandemic are fully put to bed. Industry insiders argue that passing the SCREEN Act could do a lot to support those remaining struggles. Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, at Blake & Wang P.A., looks at what’s at stake.                                                                     Brandon Blake   Ongoing Struggles Fundamentally, one strong year does not a full recovery make. At least not when it comes to the capital the post-pandemic years have slowly eroded. That’s partly what the bipartisan Supporting Cinema Renewal, Enhancement, and Enriching Neighborhood...

  With the general optimism around this year’s box office, it’s always great to see a strong week, even if it's free of the splashy record-breakers this year has delivered. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., dives into this past week’s releases.                                                                          Brandon Blake Resident Winners The rebooted Resident Evil franchise, now under Zach Creggar, has turned in a surprisingly strong start, at $108.3M worldwide. It’s the best start for the franchise, and for Creggar as a filmmaker. Notably, it replaces Resident Evil: Retribution , and that film only took a total of $240M worldwide, something this iteration may well surpass and should at least repeat. It also managed to bring in an extended audience, instead of o...

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...