Marvelous: The Marvel franchise marches on

11/10/22 7:00PM

Marvel forever

‍The latest Marvel offering, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, could administer a much-needed shot in the arm for the box office business this weekend, as fans flock to watch the sequel following the tragic death of original titular star Chadwick Boseman in 2020.

The film is expected to smash through this year’s domestic opening weekend record, held — unsurprisingly — by another Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which took in a whopping $187m back in May.

‍Hero’s journey

‍Launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the star-studded superhero stable of the MCU has been expanding ever since. Indeed, with each year that passes, Disney’s $4.2bn acquisition of Marvel in 2009 looks better and better, even by the House of Mouse’s high standards.

Since the deal, Marvel have been relentlessly prolific, racking up more than $10bn at the US box office in a meteoric rise to the top. Long-standing classic movie franchises like Star Wars (also now Disney-owned) and the James Bond films now pale in comparison, despite getting a multi-decade headstart on the world of Marvel.

The scariest news for Marvel’s franchise foes? The MCU is only in its 4th ‘phase’ of 6 and, with the company’s ability to endlessly world-build under Disney, there could be many more installments to come in the super series.

Tom Jones

big deal

18m

Lionsgate persists with decade-long effort to make a Monopoly movie

America’s favorite board game is proving a tricky subject for a feature film.

Daily Life in New York City Around The One-year Anniversary of The COVID-19 Shut Down

Tom Jones6/9/26

The BBC has become the world’s top news website... by collapsing a little less than its competition

Press Gazette just published its annual look at the biggest news sites in the world across all languages; for the most part, it doesn’t make for particularly pretty reading.

The journalism industry publication’s latest update, which is based on estimates provided by Similarweb for May, found that 37 of the world’s 50 most visited news sites saw their reach shrink. Press Gazette highlighted that American outlets have been hit particularly hard by declining Google traffic compared to European counterparts, owing to the platform’s AI features rolling out earlier in the US.

Even the BBC, having climbed the rankings from last year to top the 2026 chart — reportedly in part thanks to Similarweb’s decision to combine the “.co.uk” and “.com” versions of the URL, given that the sites redirect to each other depending on the user’s location — showed a 1.9% decline from last year.

Millie Giles

PLAY THE BILLS

6/8/26

Last night’s Tony Awards were a curtain call for a record-smashing season on Broadway

This year’s star-studded theater awards wrapped up the highest-grossing season Broadway’s ever seen.

Millie Giles

SOUND FAMILIAR?

6/5/26

Kids these days are listening to more songs from the good old days

Music nostalgia is in full swing, and the younger listeners of today appear to be partying like it’s pre-1999.

Saleah Blancaflor6/4/26

Drake whiffs on an expected No. 1 on Spotify

Drake started at the bottom and he’s here, but not quite at the top... of Spotify, at least.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Drake dropped his three surprise albums — “Iceman,” “Habibti,” and “Maid of Honour.” Heading into the month, prediction markets were rating it a near certainty, a 98% chance, that Drake’s sonic onslaught was enough to snag the No. 1 slot on Spotify at least once in June.

But, while he surpassed the late Michael Jackson and took up three slots on the Billboard album chart at once, his newly released songs haven’t quite cracked the popular music-streaming platform’s top charts, and market seem to think the moment has passed.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Spotify’s “Top Songs - Global” chart currently show that Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which is more than four decades old, Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat,” which climbed back to the top of Spotify charts following his Coachella set in the spring, Olivia Rodrigo’s new angsty love song “The Cure,” and BTS’s “Swim” are all ahead of Drake’s “STFU Janice” from his “Iceman” album.

While Spotify previously reported last month that Drake’s “Make Them Cry” was the most streamed album in a single day this year, that was later revealed to be a data error.

Prediction markets currently show traders are betting there’s only a 15% chance Drake will have a No. 1 song on Spotify in June.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is in the lead at 98% — a day before the release of her new original song “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she wrote and performed for Disney and Pixar’s upcoming “Toy Story 5” — followed by Olivia Rodrigo, whose highly anticipated album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” comes out next Friday.