July 13, 2026

WHEN A STUDIO LOSES THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Should Disney Exit the Streaming Business?

The Wells Fargo analyst that, if Sony is getting $1 billion annually from Netflix for its pay-1 movie output deal, Disney could be in line for nearly $4 billion. When pay-2 and Disney’s unmatched library is factored in, licensing revenues could hit $15 billion.

“We don’t think the box office, Experiences, or brand value would suffer if the library were on a competing global streamer,” Cahall writes. “Investors would benefit from a de-risked biz model w/ DIS focused purely on content vs. distribution. Josh D’Amaro may be considering all options.”

The report was making waves Monday, with Disney stock rising by 1.75 percent in early trading.

Of course, such a move would be a stark reversal in strategy, especially given Disney’s relative success compared to its peers. But with tech giants like Amazon, Google and Netflix all secure in their space (though Netflix may be seeing pressure, as we’ve seen recently) and with a potential combined Paramount-Warner Bros. on the horizon, the competitive pressure may only ratchet up, potentially making Disney’s content more valuable as a licensed product than a streaming one.

Probably won’t happen, but Disney will likely look for ways to bilk additional fees out of their subscriber base:

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

41 YEARS AGO TODAY: ‘Greatest Concert in Rock History’ Was Held.

Monday marked a historic day in music history, as what many consider the greatest concert of all time took place exactly 41 years ago.

On July 13, 1985, Live Aid took place simultaneously at both Wembley Stadium (London) and JFK Stadium (Philadelphia). The 16-hour benefit concert, which featured over 70 of the world’s biggest artists, was created to raise funds and awareness for the devastating famine in Ethiopia at the time.

And the concert was a massive success, drawing more than 1 billion viewers across 110 countries, reaching over 40% of the world’s population. Live Aid also raised approximately $125 million for hunger relief in the African country.

Well, it raised that money, yes:  What Nobody Tells You About the African Famine that Led to the Most-Watched Concert in History.

If the cause of the Ethiopian famine had been a right-wing regime, it would probably be in every school curriculum alongside Live Aid.

The famine that produced the most-watched concert in history was caused by forced collectivization, forced grain seizures, and a deliberate policy of using hunger as a weapon against civilians. Four decades later, that half of the story still does not appear in most accounts of Live Aid.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:25 pm by Ed Driscoll

HEATHER MAC DONALD: The Scourge of Teen Takeovers.

Teen takeovers come in two varieties: pedestrian and vehicular. Pedestrian takeovers feature hordes of youths on foot commandeering roadways, sidewalks, beaches, and malls. Vehicular takeovers, also known as sideshows, involve cars performing daredevil stunts at intersections, on freeways and bridges, and in parking lots. Vehicular sideshows originated in Oakland, California; they are distinct from Chicano lowrider culture. Spectating, inevitably accompanied by filming, is risky: a woman was killed by an out-of-control car in Los Angeles in 2022; this June, a man was fatally shot at a sideshow in a southwest Chicago mall parking lot.

The distinction between pedestrian and car takeovers is not absolute. Pedestrian takeovers attract reckless drivers. And vehicular takeovers sometimes end with participants rushing to the nearest convenience store, stripping the shelves, and assaulting the cashier.

Takeovers are organized on social media, with anonymous flyers summoning mass gatherings. The exact location may remain undisclosed until the last minute. The notices sometimes draw on gangster rap and Black Power imagery, featuring masked men and raised fists. Others are less ominous. A flyer for a teen “trend” (another label for the phenomenon) on a South Shore Chicago beach this spring called for “no drama” and showed a cartoon figure with its naked butt thrust out in twerking stance.

Not all takeovers devolve into violence, but when they do, social media again snaps into play. Dozens of phones are held aloft in the hope of making a viral video. Violence has acquired a performative, specular quality, as though staged for maximum circulation online.

I’d start with big fines on social media for monetizing these acts.

Posted at 6:54 pm by Stephen Green

VIDEO: ‘A Culture of Courage’: A German Celebrates American Freedom. “Europe lied to me about America, but not in the way you think. Because I didn’t move here because I hated Germany. I moved here because I fell in love with an American. And two years later, I have to admit something that makes many of my old friends angry. Because the country I was taught to look down on made me more hopeful, more ambitious, and more free than I ever imagined. And that is uncomfortable because it means America was not the country I misunderstood.”

Posted at 6:23 pm by Stephen Green

IT’S COMPLICATED: When Florida Cops Act Like They’re Operating in California. “Things changed when the officers found Smith’s AR pistol. They measured the weapon and the barrel with a tape measure. They opened it up, which Smith believes was to make sure it had not been converted to full-auto. It hadn’t.”

Posted at 5:21 pm by Stephen Green

THEY’RE ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Archaeologists uncover 3,000-year-old tomb near Egypt’s Luxor. “The tomb, identified as belonging to a man named Paser, was found by a Dutch archaeological mission from Leiden University in the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna necropolis on Luxor’s West Bank, according to Egypt’s tourism and antiquities ministry. The team of archeologists will work to identify people buried there and learn more about them.”

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

YOUR TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE:

When they tell you how they win, believe them.

Posted at 4:34 pm by Stephen Green

ICYMI: Paramount Plays Hardball Against Newsom’s Regulatory Goons “It’s official. ‘A coalition of state attorneys general have sued Paramount to stop its $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery,’ the Hollywood Reporter just said, calling it ‘a sweeping legal challenge to a merger that threatens to reshape Hollywood amid the absence of the Trump administration’s intervention in big deals.'”

Posted at 4:19 pm by Stephen Green

MAMDANI’S NYC: Homeless encampment with drug trafficking, prostitution reaches 12 blocks.

“Definitely getting worse,” she added. “People stopped parking here. People are scared to park here.”

Nearby workers have said that open drug dealing and prostitution have become commonplace, with one tent reportedly serving as a gathering place for sex work, drug transactions, or both.

“This is crazy,” said one supervisor at the Jacob Javits Center nearby. “The cops and the sanitation guys and the outreach guys, they clean up one spot and after that day, the next day they’re over here. Then they’re over there. They’re kind of just spreading around.”

The supervisor explained that the worst parts are on 36th and 37th, where it is filled with heroin addicts.

Meanwhile, one vagrant there called socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani “awesome” for allowing the encampment to continue and halting police raids. This comes as city records show that 311 calls complaining about the vagrants increased to 48 this year from 40 in 2025.

Gooder and harder.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

ANALYSIS: TRUE. US ambassador to NATO says Iran ‘controlled by a bunch of crazy people.’

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said Sunday that Iran is “controlled by a bunch of crazy people” after escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.

“President Trump’s a peacemaker, Jake, and he wants a deal with Iran. He wants to make sure that they never have a nuclear weapon, that they join the world as a contributor and a normalized country,” Whitaker told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

“But right now it’s, you know, as President Trump has said, and Marco Rubio has also stated, you know, this country is controlled by a bunch of crazy people,” he added.

That’s “murderously crazy people” to you, bub.

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green