APRIL 23, 2026

Happy Thursday and welcome back to Buffering, where we’re not so convinced this weekend’s big Michael Jackson movie will be as big as the tracking suggests, at least not in the U.S. (On the other hand, Bohemian Rhapsody did a lot better than we thought, so definitely don’t go placing any Kalshi wagers based on our forecasting abilities.) I’m still on assignment, but in this week’s newsletter, we’ve got a more analytical look at how Michael might fare at the box office, plus a review from Alison Willmore that suggests you’d be better off skipping it. First up, though, my colleague Eric Vilas-Boas has some thoughts on Tim Cook’s big announcement (and the slew of recent high-profile CEO exits), while Irin Carmon has a riveting report that suggests MrBeast’s company could benefit from some leadership changes as well. Thanks for reading. 

— Joe Adalian, West Coast editor

In this edition: John Ternus, Tim Cook, David Ellison, Michael Jackson, Antoine Fuqua, Graham King, David Zaslav, Bob Iger, Reed Hastings, and MrBeast …

Tim Cook is powering down, and now it’s John Ternus’s turn at the top of the Apple, Inc., org chart. Here’s what we know: He has never posted on LinkedIn. (Promising.) He is an F1 fan. (He was at the movie’s premiere.) He is not a film or TV guy, let alone a “Hollywood” guy. (Interesting!) Apple is a sprawling and complex entity, but his appointment has us wondering what the Ternus tenure signals for the trillion-dollar company and its adventures in film, TV, and streaming going forward. Below, our biggest questions as he gears up to take the reins September 1: 

Will he make serious changes to the Apple TV streaming service?

Almost certainly not immediately. By all accounts, Ternus is the safe choice in the same way Tim Cook was a safe choice when he was appointed to carry the torch Steve Jobs left behind. He’s also the guy shareholders hope will shepherd the company to its AI future. In other words: Ternus has bigger, more profitable fish to fry. Apple’s streamer is also an arm of Services, the division run by SVP Eddy Cue that encompasses various subscription products including its Fitness and Music plans. Cue found success and a good rapport with Cook in that role and presumably looks to foster the same with his new boss. Is there a chance a new CEO could put his thumb on the scale of a relatively small piece of the overall business or decide that Apple doesn’t need to be in movies and TV anymore? Sure, but it’d be a foolish thing to do and would risk talent and reputational relationships along the way, all before getting his sea legs. 

Deadline quoted an Apple insider as saying Ternus wants to make the small streaming service “more competitive,” but it’s not clear what that really means: The streaming service and its film and TV business have always been secondary or even tertiary priorities compared to Apple’s significant hardware sales. 

Will he make serious changes to the Apple TV streaming service?

Well, he is an F1 fan, and more F1 is coming to Apple. It’s also worth noting that Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, who report to Cue, are still running Apple TV’s business on a day-to-day basis. It would simply not be a wise use of his time to micromanage multiple layers of executives or immediately unwind the work of his predecessor, who built the division in the first place, now that it has cultivated a niche appeal and breakout hits like Severance, Ted Lasso, and F1.

Could he have anything in mind for Apple TV devices?

The Apple TV devices pose a separate question, however. Though they remain some of the best-designed units in the connected-TV market, competitors like Roku widely outpace them in popularity, and Apple hasn’t significantly updated them in nearly four years. Ternus climbed the ranks of Apple as a “hardware savant” at a company known for producing user-friendly, best-in-class, highly profitable consumer products. Of all the devices Apple sells, TV seems most due for an upgrade — or conversely most vulnerable to weighing the pros and cons of sunsetting. But as with the other questions, we shouldn’t expect an answer to this one overnight.

Let me count the names. The aforementioned Tim Cook is out, of course. And so is Bob Iger. We’ve all heard about David Zaslav and his obscene exit package of “at least $550 million from the Paramount deal, in addition to $116 million in vested stock.” Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings hadn’t actually held a CEO title for years, so he hardly counts, but is he invited to this good-bye party? Sure. For one reason or another, winds of change are wafting through the C-suite air-conditioning. Could there be a creeping dread among the executive class that their jobs — or at least the nature of them — are about to be transformed by AI? Whatever the case may be, it’s quitting season for entertainment CEOs. Even Best Buy’s boss is out! Maybe they can field a softball team.

Hollywood petitions and Zohran Mamdani tweets be damned, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to accept the Paramount Skydance offer to swallow their company whole. This doesn’t quite end the saga, of course — state AGs could still assemble their powers to attempt to block the merger. But though expected, the successful vote clears yet another hurdle on David Ellison’s path to world media domination and a staggering number of layoffs. (Anyway, who else is stoked for the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday? Paramount-owned CBS News apparently invited Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller to sit with them. That’ll come after a private dinner tonight that Ellison is reportedly throwing for Trump himself, which Bari Weiss is also attending.)

By Jason P. Frank

Photo: Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

Michael may be Bad, but it could still be a Thriller at the box office. The Michael Jackson biopic is set to come out this weekend. Starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson as the titular pop superstar, the movie has been ravaged by critics (including our own Alison Willmore, whose review is excerpted below). Still, the box office will be a different measure of success. The film reportedly cost $170 million to make — including $15 million reshoots after director Antoine Fuqua had to rework the back half because the Jackson estate realized they could not legally depict M.J.’s child-molestation accusations. That means the Lionsgate film needs to make at least $340 million to break even, and the opening weekend box office will set the tone.

Currently, the film is tracking to open at $65 to $70 million, per The Hollywood Reporter. That would be something to moonwalk about. Below, find a list of potential milestones that this movie could meet.

To find the most recent piece of Michael Jackson hagiography to hit theaters, you have to go all the way back to 2009 when the documentary This Is It premiered. Released just months after the pop star died, it made $23 million domestically in its opening weekend. If Michael makes more than that, it would score the best opening weekend for a Michael Jackson movie of all time.

The most direct comparison for Michael at the box office is probably 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Like Michael, that movie focused on one enigmatic superstar (Freddie Mercury), and like Michael it was marred with production difficulties — Bohemian Rhapsody’s original director, Bryan Singer, was Me Too–ed and had to be replaced partway through shooting. It still made $55 million in its opening-weekend box office. Michael is now hoping that audiences won’t care about its problems, either, and that it soars past Bohemian Rhapsody.

Though Bohemian Rhapsody did well, it doesn’t hold the record for highest opening-weekend box office for a musical biopic. That honor belongs to Straight Outta Compton, which made $60.2 million. If it simply performs to expectations, Michael will win that title.

For Michael to perform better than tracking, it would need to score above $70 million in its opening weekend domestically. Is it doable? That will depend on walk-up traffic. It’s hard to say if a moviegoer who isn’t an M.J. superfan will be excited about the idea of attending a Michael Jackson biopic right now or not. It’ll be up to “Human Nature.”