Paramount-Skydance Merger: 3 Things David Ellison Should Do Now, Including Double-Down on Horror

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Well, it’s the Monday after the 4th of July break, so welcome back to work… if you’re lucky enough to have a job, of course.

This weekend, I caught up with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F on Netflix, A24’s MaXXXine in theaters, and Chris Pine’s directorial debut Poolman on the plane ride home. I also watched the blood-soaked 1989 slasher movie Intruder, which features both Sam and Ted Raimi in supporting turns.

Axel F played like a lazy highlight reel of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, but I found it entertaining enough — for a Netflix movie. It didn’t feature the highs that MaXXXine did, but it was probably more satisfying overall, as the third act of Ti West’s horror movie is something of a goofy mess. In other words, I had low expectations for Axel F that the sequel surpassed, and high expectations for MaXXXine that the sequel failed to meet. As for Poolman, it’s every bit as bad as you’ve heard — just a true “WTF?” head-scratcher from Pine.

My flight was delayed an hour on the tarmac due to bad weather, so I had plenty of time to dive into Don Winslow’s final novel City in Ruins. 200 pages in, it’s shaping up to be a strong conclusion to Winslow’s Danny Ryan trilogy, which ends the author’s career on a high note. Reminder, Austin Butler is attached to star in that trilogy at Sony.

In tonight’s newsletter, you’ll read my thoughts on the Paramount-Skydance merger and three things that David Ellison should focus on now that the studio is within his grasp. Plus, items on a Devil Wears Prada sequel, Emma Stone’s new movie with her husband, Kim Kardashian’s new co-stars, the latest worrisome news out of AMPAS, a potential release date for Tom Hardy’s Netflix movie Havoc, the death of Avatar and Titanic producer Jon Landau, and my thoughts on WB and Apple’s trailer for Joseph Kosinski’s racing movie F1 starring Brad Pitt.

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