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MILWAUKEE — It was an evening for pomp and pageantry, for celebrating a World Series between two of the five major league teams never to win one. But, before the first pitch of the first game, the commissioner of baseball and the head of the players’ union held separate media gatherings that only served to reinforce the notion that a lockout in December is a virtual certainty and Opening Day next March is in serious jeopardy.

Of all the major North American sports, baseball is the only one without a salary cap. The players and their union vow to keep it that way, and union chief Bruce Meyer said every proposal the owners make on every issue is contingent upon a salary cap. How, someone asked commissioner Rob Manfred, can the owners strike a deal if the union is entrenched against a cap?

“Re-thinking where you are is a really important part of trying to make a deal,” Manfred said. “It’s actually a skill in collective bargaining. It’s easy to say, ‘I’m here and I’m never moving.’ That’s not a particularly skilled approach to the process.”

That is perilously close to telling the other guy at the negotiating table how to negotiate. It’s also something you might say when you’re feeling pretty darn good that you’re going to win the negotiation.

“We have an unprecedented level of unanimity among ownership that it is something that we need to do,” Manfred said.

He wouldn’t say otherwise at this point, of course. The owners were unified in 1994, when they last demanded a salary cap. They didn’t win, and fans lost the final two months of the 1994 season and the first month of the 1995 season.

When the NHL got its salary cap, owners shut down the league for a full year. Would MLB owners forgo a year — or at least several months — of ticket sales and media revenue to get their cap? Would MLB players forgo a year — or at least several months — of their salaries to stave off a cap?

We won’t know the answer to either question until the spring, and until then a new collective bargaining agreement would require one side or the other to abandon its position.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred speaks with the media before Game 1 of the World Series in Milwaukee on Friday.

(John Fisher / Getty Images)

That makes this year’s World Series something of a Rorschach test: Is a Brewers-Rays series proof that the system actually works just fine the way it is?

To Manfred, the answer is no. A series featuring two of baseball’s smaller markets is an anomaly when history shows a correlation between payroll and success, not only in the regular season but in advancing through the playoffs.

“It’s not that no small market can win,” Manfred said. “It’s just that it’s pretty rare.”

To Meyer, the answer is yes.

“It has nothing to do with what the Dodgers are doing,” Meyer said. “There is no reason whatsoever that the Pirates can’t do what the Brewers have done, or what the Rays have done.”

The Pirates, Meyer said, do not spend all the money they are allotted to sign draft picks. The Brewers, playing in baseball’s smallest market, might not routinely hand out free-agent riches, but owner Mark Attanasio said his team ranks “right in the middle” of the 30 teams in spending on baseball operations.

Attanasio publicly stumped for a salary cap here Friday, saying it would “help us compete but more importantly all of the other teams with lower payrolls too.” He said Brewers fans already fear it might take another 44 years to return to the World Series.

Said Meyer: “That doesn’t seem like a great way, with all due respect, to try and generate excitement among your fans.”

Meyer said this year’s series “undermines their argument” for what he called “the nuclear bomb of a salary cap.” He said the owners are uninterested in the union’s proposals for addressing competitive balance, including increased revenue sharing among owners and a tax against teams that fail to win consistently, and he alleged the league’s argument is “a charade” for what the owners really want: “to suppress salaries and gut player rights.”

The takeaway: Don’t book non-refundable airline tickets and hotel rooms for spring training.

On other topics:

— As The Times has reported, MLB is keeping an eye on federal investigations into Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his insurance empire, which is under scrutiny for allegedly violating laws designed to protect investors. Walter also is a defendant in multiple civil lawsuits filed by investors alleging fraud and breach of contract.

“As always when we have an investigation — external, law enforcement, whatever — we monitor that,” Manfred said. “That’s where we are right now. We’re just watching what’s going on right now.”

Over the past two months, amid efforts to find what could be more than $20 billion to recapitalize insurance funds, Walter has sold his controlling interest in the Lakers and a minority share of Chelsea, the English Premier League club. On Friday, Bloomberg reported he is seeking to sell the Sparks. He has no plan to sell the Dodgers, team president Stan Kasten has said.

— Meyer said the MLBPA continues negotiations with LA28 over how major league players would be accommodated in the 2028 Olympics. “As of now, we’re not getting satisfaction on those things,” Meyer said.

Both the league and the union say they want to participate in the Games, but Manfred said MLB would normally start preparing its 2028 schedule early in 2027. The league has agreed to an extended All-Star break to accommodate the Olympics, but MLB also could tire of waiting for the union to agree with LA28, which badly wants MLB players to participate.

Catapult Books, an indie publisher that has supported authors across Southern California and beyond, has been sold.

Launched by Elizabeth Koch and Andy Hunter more than a decade ago, the independent publisher will shutter operations in just over a week, per Publisher’s Weekly, which spoke with members of the publisher’s union. The Catapult Workers Collective said the company’s sale included the assets only and that the union was notified their employment would not be rolled over to the new buyer.

According to union reps, the publisher announced plans to sell the business while staff were in the midst of a union vote. The union, which includes roughly 20 staff members across various publishing departments, told the outlet that they had filed for an election earlier in the year seeking better pay, job stability, and clearer communication from executives.

The union is now hashing out a severance package, according to Publisher’s Weekly, and it’s unclear what will happen to the 16 upcoming book titles scheduled through spring 2027.

“Catapult is intrinsic to L.A. culture and L.A. literature. So many of their writers are in this area,” Gina Frangello told The Times on Thursday. The author penned “Blow Your House Down,” published by Counterpoint Press, an imprint of Catapult.

“It’s a huge loss for L.A.,” she said. “It’s a huge loss for the West Coast.”

Frangello has been publishing books for more than 20 years, and she said she’d never had the intimate publishing experience she had with Counterpoint, specifically with Dan Smetanka. The editorial director and senior vice president of Catapult is widely known in literary circles for his meticulous and thoughtful approach to editing and for his support of the authors he works with.

“As someone who has been in indie publishing culture since the ’90s, Catapult was a holdout of an old world,” Frangello said. “Dan ran things the way they used to, in the storied, fabled days of publishing before everything went corporate.”

Susan Straight, author of “Sacrament” and winner of the L.A. Times Book Prizes’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, emailed The Times a missive on the Catapult news. She wrote that on Wednesday she attended the grand opening of Barnes & Noble’s new location in Ontario, “where more than a hundred readers were lined up outside, some having brought chairs to wait.”

“We keep hearing that Americans aren’t reading — for two hours I saw people of all ages browsing, buying books, and talking to each other,” she continued. “About fifty people came and talked to me, and bought copies ‘In the Country of Women,’ my memoir published by Catapult, and ‘Sacrament,’ my latest novel, published by Counterpoint. Both are indelibly So Cal Books, filled with Fontana, East Hollywood, Santa Ana, Los Feliz, and San Bernardino, and the readers were from all these places. …

“I lit a veladora last night, the Virgen de Guadalupe, set it next to a bouquet of California sage from my yard, because I’m a So Cal native, and whatever happens, I wanted to thank the universe for the editors like Dan Smetanka who’ve brought our stories to the rest of the world.

“Wednesday morning, I spent time talking about narrative with nurses, teachers, students, mothers, and nascent writers from all over So Cal. Americans are still reading — I see it every day in my community, which needs books by presses like Counterpoint and Catapult.”

Since Catapult’s debut in 2015, the indie outfit and its authors have been a force on the awards circuit, landing the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E. M. Forster Award in Literature, a PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, the Maine Literary Award, the Costa Novel Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Meredith Maran, the author of more than a dozen books including a novel published by Counterpoint in 2012, “A Theory of Small Earthquakes,” also mourned the publisher in a note to The Times, writing, “Counterpoint, its imprints, and its beating heart, Dan Smetanka, have been (I cannot bring myself to say ‘were’) the stuff of legends. True legends. I’ve published books with all of the big 5 houses and comparing those experiences to the Counterpoint experience, the Dan experience, is like comparing an AI-generated metaphor, to, well, this one. Counterpoint humanized publishing, revered its authors, honored and will live on in its books.”

Over the last decade, Catapult included a publishing imprint, digital magazine, and courses for budding and established writers. (The latter two were nixed in 2023.) In 2016, it merged with Counterpoint Press, which brought into the fold its own imprint, Soft Skull Press. Last fall, Catapult also acquired Hawthorne Books. In 2023, Catapult Chief Executive Koch — the daughter of billionaire industrialist and businessman Charles Koch — launched another pet project in 2021, Unlikely Collaborators, a nonprofit storytelling and experiential organization.

Bestselling author Tod Goldberg, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction this year for his novel “Only Way Out,” posted a tribute to the publisher on social media Wednesday night, crediting Smetanka and Counterpoint with taking a chance on “a book others wouldn’t touch” and with that book’s subsequent success, which changed Goldberg’s life.

“Since their founding, Counterpoint has published books that matter, has taken chances on authors and topics that others wouldn’t, and have been celebrated for this strident independence with wide critical acclaim and commercial success. From their roots in the Bay Area — where they published the likes of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Anne Lamott, Mary Robison early on — to their move south into Los Angeles, where they took on writers like myself, Natashia Deon, Karen Bender, Gina Frangello, Elizabeth Crane, Ben Ehrenreich, Dana Johnson, Vanessa Hua, Joan Silber, to name just a few, plus the late Eve Babitz.”

“Counterpoint took big risks and found big rewards. I’m confident that whomever the buyer is (and I’ve not been told, so y’all can stop texting me…) will keep these great writers in print while also continuing to publish new work from them, but what’s lost here is not merely a publishing house, but a culture of excellence, of risk taking, plus a dash of punk rock.”

The new strategy shifts the bloc’s focus from long-term climate concerns to urgent security measures.

The European Commission has unveiled a new Arctic strategy for the European Union that lists security and resilience first among four priorities, alongside climate change, economic prosperity and opportunities for Arctic communities.

The strategy calls for a new maritime security hub to help member states and partners share information and monitor maritime activity in the Arctic, the Commission said on Tuesday.

The hub would later expand to track shadow fleet vessels, detect illegal fishing and pollution, and improve search and rescue coordination.

The Commission also said the EU will work to expand European icebreaker capacity. Icebreakers are specialised vessels designed to navigate ice-covered waters by breaking up sea ice and maintaining safe shipping routes.

“The Arctic is one place where the tectonic plates of geopolitics are colliding,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, adding that sovereignty and territorial integrity can no longer be taken for granted.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia is expanding its military footprint in the high north, citing drone incursions, GPS jamming and cable sabotage, the AFP news agency reported.

Cutting reliance on Washington

Several measures appear aimed at reducing dependence on the United States. The Commission said the EU will back a strategic pan-Arctic fibre-optic telecommunications cable project linking Greenland directly to Europe. It is part of a wider plan that would also connect Canada, Japan and South Korea.

The EU will also provide secure satellite connectivity for government communications through the IRIS² constellation, a constellation AFP said is meant to rival US tech mogul Elon Musk’s Starlink.

The shift follows US President Donald Trump’s repeated demands to take control of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory. Although his tone has softened this year, with a security deal signed with Greenland and Denmark, many in Europe remain wary, AFP said.

Member states press for action

The strategy follows last month’s meeting of leaders from 12 countries, including Germany, France, Finland and Denmark. Member states urged the EU to take a more strategic and proactive role, according to a joint statement.

Participants identified Russia as the largest threat while noting the ambitions of China and the US.

At the meeting, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the era of “high north, low attention” was over. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo called Russia the most significant long-term threat and said the EU must treat the Arctic as a strategic frontier.

The Commission reiterated the EU’s position remains that oil, coal and gas should stay in the ground, including in the Arctic.

To combat increasing climate concerns, the Commission pledged to “strengthen climate research, observation and monitoring to better understand these changes and support effective responses”, while working in tandem with the people who live and work in the Arctic.

It’s been nearly 40 years since the dread-filled tones of the “Unsolved Mysteries” theme song first hit network TV airwaves.

In that time, the celebrated documentary series has been through nearly every iteration of the TV business — and is about to embark on a new one.

Next week, “Unsolved Mysteries” will launch a video podcast in partnership with the audio and entertainment firm Audacy. The weekly podcast, which will be available on YouTube and on all podcast platforms, will release new episodes starting Oct. 29 that explore cases such as mysterious deaths and unexplained disappearances.

The podcast will be hosted by actor and TV host Jordan Murphy and will include interviews with the people involved in the case, “Unsolved Mysteries” co-creator Terry Dunn Meurer told me in a recent interview.

“We’re still trying to expand the brand and pivot,” she said. “It just feels like that’s where the industry is heading. The YouTube audience is the biggest audience out there, and we are looking for the biggest audience because we’re trying to help solve these cases. So the more viewers we can get with these episodes, the better.”

“Unsolved Mysteries” isn’t the only Hollywood player to bet on video podcasts. Spotify has bet big on video podcasts, and Netflix has added them to its platform, both of which are attempts to compete with YouTube, diversify their offerings and keep consumers tuned in.

For “Unsolved Mysteries,” the move is just the latest way the show has tried to evolve with the TV industry’s ups and downs.

The show debuted in 1987 as a series of specials NBC used to fill holes in its lineup, Dunn Meurer said. That kind of pinch-hitting meant there was no marketing or publicity to get audiences excited about the show, but viewers started tuning in anyway.

Eventually, the specials became a weekly show that aired on NBC for nine seasons before moving to CBS. “Unsolved Mysteries” also had a syndication run on cable channels Lifetime and Spike TV.

Throughout its TV lifetime, the show would highlight stories of mysterious disappearances, escaped fugitives, lost connections and even the occasional paranormal story. “Unsolved Mysteries” made appeals to viewers, urging them that someone out there “knows the truth” and encouraged them to write in with tips or new suggestions for investigation, which has resulted in tens of thousands of submissions over the years.

More recently, “Unsolved Mysteries” was revived on Netflix for three seasons, with a format focused on a single story. The series also previously had an audio-only podcast.

In addition to the video podcast, “Unsolved Mysteries” also recently produced a full-length documentary on new evidence surrounding the so-called Tylenol Killer, a 1982 case in which seven people died after unknowingly taking cyanide-filled pill capsules.

Though the method of delivery has changed, Dunn Meurer said the show’s mission remains the same. Over the years, the series has helped to directly solve more than 260 cases, she said, though many are so-called lost love cases of missed connections, as well as fugitive whereabouts and some murders.

“There’s so many mysteries out there that need attention, cases that have gone cold,” she said. “For me personally, it’s hard to not keep putting those stories out there and helping these families and law enforcement that need the help to solve these cases.”

‘Musk’ advertising controversy

In notable media news, the TikTok ad account for Bleecker Street’s documentary “Musk” was “permanently suspended” Friday, the day the film opened nationwide, a spokesperson for the indie studio confirmed.

But on Sunday, a spokesperson for TikTok said the account was restored “after an error.”

The documentary, directed by Alex Gibney, follows billionaire Elon Musk and the effect he has had on politics and his support for the GOP and President Trump.

The ban raised suspicions in Hollywood as TikTok is now partially owned by Oracle, which was co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison. Ellison, who still serves as executive chairman of the tech company, is briefly mentioned in the documentary when he offers to help Musk finance his acquisition of Twitter, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The documentary will make its streaming debut on HBO Max, which is owned by Ellison’s son, David.

In its second weekend in theaters, “Musk” grossed about $306,700 across 472 screens in the U.S. and Canada, for a $650 per-screen average. The film has notched a 97% critics rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Stuff We Wrote

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Number of the week

A24’s “You Can See Everything” brought in $15 million at the domestic box office over the weekend, a huge feat for the nearly three-hour documentary that delves into the life of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes shortly before she reported to federal prison for defrauding investors.

The documentary, directed by deadpan comic Nathan Fielder and “Primetime” filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, got a ton of buzz after its surprise debut at the Telluride Film Festival last month. The $15-million opening is even more impressive given that it was available only on 855 screens.

That was good enough for second place at the weekend box office. In first was Skydance-owned Paramount Pictures’ “Street Fighter,” which scored $31 million domestically for a worldwide gross of $51.1 million.

What I’m watching

During a busy (news) week like last week, sometimes you just need a comfort watch. For me, that’s HGTV.

There’s nothing more calming than watching people try to redo their houses into the home of their dreams. But because it’s spooky season, I ended up watching “Scariest House in America,” a hilarious home makeover competition hosted by “Parks and Recreation” comedian Retta, where homeowners show off their creepy, strange or wildly dilapidated houses in hopes of winning a renovation. After watching the travails of people who chose to live in a former jail or a self-constructed giant gingerbread house with a rickety single-person elevator, I was oddly soothed.

Hundreds of thousands of Europeans took to the streets for separate demonstrations putting pressure on governments across the EU.

Hundreds of thousands of Europeans have taken to the streets in separate, uncoordinated demonstrations to protest against the rising cost of living in their countries.

Saturday’s protests were in Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal in a wave of unrest that has put pressure on national governments across the European Union.

France experienced one of its most turbulent days of protests in decades, with over 550,000 people joining demonstrations and police facing off with protesters across the country – but it was not the only country to see significant demonstrations.

In Belgium’s capital Brussels – which has already seen weeks of protests by students against university registration fees – police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters, who they accused of launching missiles at them and setting fires.

In Liege, a smaller city east of Brussels, police also deployed water cannon to break up demonstrations. Police did not say how many people attended.

An estimated tens of thousands of protesters marched in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, against the cost of living crisis, low wages and an inability to access housing in major cities. House prices in Portugal have more than doubled ⁠⁠since 2017, while rents for new leases have increased nearly as much.

Portuguese Parliamentary Affairs Minister Carlos ‌‌Abreu ‌‌Amorim said on Friday that the “government will not yield to shouts from the street”.Protesters said their leaders are “out of touch” with the problem.

In Milan and Bologna, Italian police reported that, alongside peaceful cost of living rallies, protesters threw stones and clashed with officers.

Italian media reported several injuries and arrests.

French protests spill over

None of the protests reached the same scale as the nationwide rallies in France but they may be a sign of spilling over into other European nations, according to Alberto Alemanno, Professor of EU Law & Policy at HEC Paris business school.

“France is the epicentre of this movement … and there are signs now that this is spreading beyond France,” Alemanno told Al Jazeera.

He said Saturday’s protests may not be the last in many of these countries and new hotspots could emerge.

In Greece, Germany, and Austria, the “early stages” of a movement is emerging, with mobilisation expected “in the coming week”, he said.

They are not a single movement, he explained, but several protests happening at the same time, with some “shared grievances”: underfunded education, rising costs and, for students, uncertain prospects after graduation.

The unrest comes at a crucial time for Europe, as the continent prepares for what Alemanno called an “unprecedented super-cycle of national elections” in the coming 12 months, with votes scheduled in Spain, France, Italy and Poland.

“Inevitably, all these protests, all these mobilisations, are going to be at the centre of the political conversation,” Alemanno said.

Talks will focus on the €1 billion daily deficit and rare earth export restrictions.

European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic has arrived in Beijing for talks on the European Union’s (EU) growing trade deficit with China.

Sefcovic will meet Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on Thursday and Friday after months of discussions over the EU’s trade deficit of more than €1bn ($1.12bn) daily, as well as Chinese curbs on exports of rare earths and other critical minerals.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies are increasingly challenging Europe’s top car brands. China rejected the EU request for voluntary curbs on Chinese hybrid car exports as the two sides enter negotiations, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The European Commission now hopes to get Beijing to accept a unilateral EU measure to cap hybrid imports instead, the outlet said, citing two diplomats briefed on the plan.

The two days of discussions come just as a majority of EU lawmakers called for a more assertive trade policy towards Beijing in a non-binding resolution on Wednesday. China vowed a “resolute response” to safeguard its industries if the European Union goes ahead with restrictions against Chinese companies or products, according to its commerce ministry.

Germany and France propose rapid EU measure

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leaders of the bloc’s two biggest powers, on Tuesday urged the EU to prepare a “credible instrument” that could be quickly activated to strike back against countries that harm the bloc economically.

The new measure would not target any specific country. German officials said the EU needed a tool as powerful as the Section 301 tariffs imposed by the United States or China’s restrictions on critical-mineral exports.

The proposed weapon – to be discussed at an EU leaders’ summit next week – would give the European Commission the power to respond to a trade aggression within days.

China responded to the letter by urging Paris and Berlin to steer clear of “protectionist” measures.

“We hope that France and Germany, as major economies in the world, will uphold openness, cooperation and free trade,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.

“They should avoid going down the wrong path in the wrong way, only to ultimately suffer the consequences themselves.”

G20 finance leaders, except China’s, agreed in September to act against “non-market” distortions that exacerbate imbalances. Beijing says that hyping up issues such as economic imbalances and overcapacity is a form of protectionism designed to exert pressure on and restrict China.

Ongoing trade talks

EU and Chinese officials have been discussing trade imbalances since June. Sefcovic said he wanted “tangible results by October” as well as some form of commitment that can be put to EU leaders meeting in Brussels.

Trade relations with China top the summit’s agenda next week, as ballooning debt has prompted auditors to warn about the next seven-year EU budget and has spurred protests in France.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament last month that the trade imbalance had reached a tipping point and that Europe would use every tool at its disposal to rebalance the relationship.

Several years ago, DreamWorks Animation veterans Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado pitched the studio an original story centered on friendship and steeped in Filipino culture.

That draft became the animated film “Forgotten Island,” which opened in late September and counts singer H.E.R., Liza Soberano and Dave Franco among its voice cast. The movie focuses on best friends Raissa and Jo, who will soon be separated when Raissa goes to college in the U.S., and the final adventure they take to the fantastical island of Nakali.

The movie opened to a softer $13 million in the U.S. and Canada and has so far made $23.6 million at the domestic box office over two weekends. Globally, “Forgotten Island” has brought in $38.5 million on an $80-million production budget.

That opening haul is lower than the average for original animated films from a major studio, which is about $14.6 million, according to the FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter. But the studio is hoping the movie — which has garnered a strong 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — will pick up steam and benefit from the relative lack of animated competition at the box office until the early November debut of “The Cat in the Hat,” developed by Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.

“Forgotten Island” is a big bet for Glendale-based DreamWorks Animation, which like many studios, has largely depended on sequels to drive box office success.

Original animated stories — or original movies at all — have become rarer gambles in Hollywood these days, when sequels and reboots feel like safer options. But Crawford and Mercado knew they wanted to develop a new story together.

The pair, who wrote and directed the film, have been friends for nearly two decades after they met at DreamWorks Animation as storyboard artists. Together, they’ve worked on 2011’s “Kung Fu Panda 2,” 2013’s “The Croods” and 2022’s “Puss in Boots: The Final Wish.” The two bonded over their similar sense of humor and their love for movies, and their longtime friendship was apparent in their easy banter during a joint interview shortly after the “Forgotten Island” premiere last month.

Early on, Crawford and Mercado knew they wanted to tell a story set in the Philippines that celebrated Filipino culture. Mercado is Filipino American and Crawford’s wife is Filipino, so a movie that authentically represented Filipino culture was important to them. In the film, the island of Nakali has many creatures inspired by Filipino folklore, and the characters casually use Tagalog words alongside English.

“There’s a sophistication in terms of respecting that the audience is smart, and doing our part as filmmakers to make sure that the visual storytelling and the context gives everything the audience needs to know,” Mercado told me.

Audiences, too, are more comfortable with content in other languages these days, as I wrote last week about Neon’s Korean-language thriller “Hope.” After all, kids will sing Korean lyrics in K-pop songs, and even “Puss in Boots: The Final Wish” interspersed Spanglish into the story.

“It feels timely to update the way we tell stories, to not treat the audience like, ‘They won’t understand this,’ but really treat them with respect,” Crawford said. “It just felt right to chase authenticity and let go of expectations, especially of what an animated movie should be and has been, and really do something fresh because it’s just coming from who we are.”

In the last few years, animation has been a powerhouse at the box office. Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” and Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” have each crossed $1 billion at the global box office, two of only five movies to do so this year. In 2024, Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” was the highest grossing movie in the U.S. and Canadian markets.

Original stories have been tougher. Pixar has recently struggled to match the theatrical success of its prior original films and the slower start for “Forgotten Island” may be a sign of similar hurdles for new stories. But culturally accurate storytelling has paid recent dividends — just look at the success of Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters,” which won two Oscars, broke streaming records and sold out theatrical singalongs.

“We believe that there is a platform and space for everyone’s story, for people to feel seen and to know they matter,” Mercado said. “Even when they see a story that is specifically Filipino, if we’ve done our job right, we’ve shown you that you could connect to the story, whether or not you have this experience with the Filipino community or the culture.”

With “Forgotten Island,” Mercado and Crawford also want to push the boundaries of animation beyond its perception as films just for kids. Later this year, films such as Laika’s PG-13 rated “Wildwood” and Brad Bird’s noir film “Ray Gunn” will test the audience appetite for more adult animated and original fare.

“We’re in a time of massive sequels,” Crawford said of stories today. “When you expand where you’re telling them and who is telling them, you naturally get originality. This year has been really exciting for original stories in both animation and live action. You are taking a chance on originality, but it pays off.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

The Tom Cruise-led “Digger” tanked at the box office last weekend with a domestic debut of $8 million, good enough for fifth place.

The Warner Bros. film was plagued by very mixed reviews from critics, as well as a challenging marketing campaign. The film stars Cruise as an aging oil tycoon whose drilling operations trigger a catastrophic climate change disaster. Worldwide, the film brought in $20 million on a production budget of $125 million.

It’s been a tough theatrical year for Warner Bros., which has seen a string of disappointments before “Digger.” Beyond the cinema, the company is now in the process of being absorbed by Paramount Skydance, with the merger set to finalize Tuesday.

What I’m watching

It’s been yet another busy week, so about the only thing I was able to watch was a few WNBA playoff games. Since the Sparks were left out of the playoff picture again, I’ve sort of adopted the Golden State Valkyries as the next best California team to root for, and what a wild game that was over the weekend against the Las Vegas Aces.

New Saracens chief executive Ed Coetzee confirmed on Friday that Venter’s job title, which differs to the one he was said to have when appointed to succeed Mark McCall, includes “significant media duties”.

Venter duly spoke to TNT Sports before the match with Sale and said he refused the director of rugby job title because he had “absolutely nothing” to do with other departments of the club, such as the academy and women’s section.

The 56-year-old also insisted the wine consultant reference was not a joke aimed at the media.

“Our whole theme this year was all about wine,” Venter said. “Everything in our theme was about a blend and getting the blend right.”

But Care said the stories around Venter’s role looked to have had a negative impact on the pitch.

“Sarries have done some amazing things in the last year or so, bringing a new energy, a new vibe,” he said.

“But then it just feels like they’re taking the mickey out of everyone by [saying] ‘he’s not doing interviews today’ and taking fines and changing his job title.

“You can only do that when you are so much better at rugby than everyone else and at the moment, they’re not.

“[The performance against Sale] looked flat. It looked quiet. I don’t blame the players. I blame the management for that.”

Siegfried Muresan’s loss of the confidence motion increases the prospect for snap elections.

Romania’s pro-European Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Muresan has failed to win a parliamentary vote of confidence, prolonging a political crisis seen as a boost for the rising far right.

Muresan, a liberal European Parliament member who was the latest of three designated prime ministers, secured only 182 votes out of the 233 required to secure the confidence motion on Wednesday, according to the official count.

The far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) largely boycotted the vote.

The 45-year-old had proposed what he described as a “reform-oriented” governing programme under his centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), which teamed up with the Save Romania Union party, or USR, and the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party.

President Nicusor Dan said he would nominate a new prime minister candidate on Monday afternoon, after holding talks with the leaders of the parliamentary parties, to avoid snap elections.

Romania saw the collapse of a pro-European coalition government in May, when governing social democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a no-confidence motion at that time.

The far right, which comprises about a third of Parliament, threatened to impeach the president if he does not call early elections once the conditions are met.

Romania, a member of the EU and NATO that borders Ukraine, has not held snap elections since the fall of communism in 1989.

Political analyst Cristian Pirvulescu told the AFP news agency that snap elections would lead to another fragmented Parliament, but with an emboldened far right.

“Early elections mean that, from the moment they are called, it would take four months before a new government could be formed,” Pirvulescu told AFP. “Due to political instability, Romania finds itself in a very complicated economic situation. Four months is already a very long time.”

The country of 19 million has been struggling for months with the highest public deficit and inflation in the European Union.

Director Na Hong-jin’s action movie “Hope” opened in 1,500 U.S. cinemas this month, marking the biggest domestic theatrical footprint for a Korean-language film since the Academy Award-winning “Parasite.”

That’s a big bet, particularly for a foreign film. But after the success of “Parasite,” the growth of Korean shows such as Netflix’s “Squid Game” on streaming and the broader acceptance of subtitles in film and television, it was a bet Neon was willing to make.

The indie studio snapped up North American and English language rights to “Hope” for an undisclosed price before the film’s world premiere in the spring at the Cannes Film Festival.

Right off the bat, Neon knew the film would be positioned in South Korea as a big action thriller and massive event film for director Na, and wanted to match that.

In the film, which includes Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender in its cast, a group of people fight back against a creature that rampages through a Korean village.

“The reality is that just because a movie has subtitles, doesn’t make it an art film or a niche film,” Elissa Federoff, Neon’s chief distribution officer, told me this month. “And this, to us, felt like a big action blockbuster.”

She continued, “To me, it was this movie that certainly cinephiles were going to be curious about. But I also knew that we could cross over to a broader audience if we gave it a shot.”

So far, “Hope” has grossed more than $8 million domestically and $45.6 million worldwide on a reported production budget of at least $45 million.

Neon expected to reach Korean and Korean American audiences with “Hope,” but the film also over-indexed with Latinos, who represented 27% of the audience, according to PostTrak theatrical data.

Such a wide national release is unusual for foreign films, which typically play in specialty theaters on fewer than 100 screens. Though its domestic box office total doesn’t indicate that the film fully crossed over to mainstream audiences, “for a foreign film, it’s very successful” and has done “solid business,” said David A. Gross, who writes the FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter.

Neon, of course, has experience with Korean cinema. It distributed 2019’s “Parasite,” which became the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture. After “Parasite” won the Oscar, it was shown on 2,000 screens, about 17 weeks after its release. The Bong Joon Ho-directed film ended up grossing more than $53 million domestically and brought in more than $263 million worldwide.

The film put Neon on the map in many ways, Federoff said, and also pushed the boundaries for what the industry considered a best picture nominee. Films such as “Parasite” and “Hope” should also expand what studios consider to be mainstream fare.

“Studios and distributors are still boxing things out a little bit and thinking of these as not as accessible or not for a general commercial audience,” Federoff said. “And I would totally disagree with it.”

Though “Hope” is a long way from the domestic box-office success of “Parasite,” these kinds of swings are important to keep the pipeline of original films humming and to vary the types of fare mainstream audiences can see at their local theaters.

Although art house films once skewed toward older audiences, indie films are now popular with younger generations, who have also become accustomed to reading subtitles.

That could bode well for future foreign language films looking to make inroads with mainstream audiences. While giving a wide release to a foreign language film could be seen as risky, it’s a move Federoff believes can help bolster creative filmmaking and keep people engaged at cinemas.

“My hope is that studios start to trust their audience and respect their audiences a little bit more,” she said. “I think we can all do this. I think we can all say that we just have to have more risk taking involved with what we do. There’s a lot of incredible international cinema out there that should be seen by everybody.”

Paramount and the states fight back

Paramount Skydance and the state attorneys general are defending their proposed settlement in the face of skeptical questions from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), arguing that the judge overseeing the case should approve the agreement without the deeper review the senator has requested.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín told both sides to answer Booker’s questions before she ruled on whether to approve the proposed consent decree. She said at the time that she would issue a ruling “in due course.”

On Monday, both sides issued separate filings that argued the terms of the settlement were adequate. In particular, the states pushed back on assertions that the consent decree was too weak, saying it “reflects a reasonable compromise that addresses the competitive issues posed by the proposed merger in the markets alleged in the complaint.”

“The decree’s enforcement provisions have teeth,” the states wrote in their filing.

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

A bipartisan group of lawmakers formally introduced a bill last week to create a federal film and television tax credit.

The proposed legislation would provide a 20% credit on above-the-line and below-the-line U.S. labor costs for eligible productions, including postproduction and visual effects work — two industries that have increasingly moved overseas.

The uncapped credit could increase to 30% with several uplifts, including for independent productions or filming in a federally declared disaster area, such as Los Angeles County.

What I’m watching

It’s fall, which means I’m all in on “Dancing with the Stars,” as I have been since Season 2, when Drew Lachey won with pro partner Cheryl Burke back in 2006.

This season feels like it was made for millennials like me, with contestants such as Julia Stiles, Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Dewan. But my favorite dance last week was actually Guillermo Rodriguez’s paso doble.