$2.590
-0.105 (-4.07%)At close
AMC News
AMC Events
Paramount Meets Regulatory Clearances for Warner Bros. Acquisition
"Now Streaming" is The Fly's weekly recap of the stories surrounding the biggest content streamers.PLAYING THIS WEEKEND:This weekend's most notable streaming content is the fifth and final season of Netflixmystery teen drama "Outer Banks." Meanwhile, Hulusubscribers can catch the first episode of the new season of comedy series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," while HBO Maxusers can stream psychological drama film "Mother Mary," starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel.PARAMOUNT/WARNER BROS.:Last Friday, Paramount Skydancesaid it has satisfied all regulatory clearances required under the merger agreement to close its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The company said, "The eight-month review process has spanned 68 countries worldwide, including the European Union, UK, Australia, Canada, Brazil, China, COMESA, the U.S. Department of Justice and, most recently, Mexico, which announced its clearance today. These independent regulators from across the globe applied the law and market definitions that reflect how audiences consume entertainment and how media companies compete today - and have consistently found no basis to prevent the transaction from moving forward. Paramount and WBD could and would close today and begin delivering the benefits recognized by regulators around the world, theater owners and others across the industry but for the actions of just 12 state attorneys general." Paramount urges the 12 state attorney generals who brough litigation to "engage with us in good faith, as we have repeatedly sought to do, to resolve this litigation and clear the way to bring these two companies together."Meanwhile, Reuters' David Shepardson reported this week that Paramount has asked a U.S. judge to require states challenging the acquisition of Warner Bros. to post a $1.88B bond to address the costs caused by the delays. The company must pay $7M a day if the $110B merger does not close by September 30. Paramount noted trials with the states is scheduled for March and final legal briefs are in April, which would result in Paramount Skydance paying Warner Bros $1.3B in "ticking fees."Additionally, while a dozen state attorneys general argue the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery would hurt movie theaters, chains controlling 60% of the U.S. market now argue the opposite, Brooks Barnes of The New York Times reported. Cinemarkis the latest movie theater owner to support CEO David Ellison's deal, pointing to Ellison's "firm" commitment for at least 30 movies in theaters each year, waiting at least 45 days before making them available on streaming, and 90 days before being put on subscription streaming services. AMC Entertainmentendorsed the transaction in April after similar assurances from Ellison. Regal similarly followed suit this month.PEACOCK PRICE:Effective August 18, the prices of Peacocksubscription plans have changed. A Peacock Select monthly subscription is now $8.99/month up from $7.99. A Peacock Premium monthly subscription is now $12.99/month up from $10.99. A Peacock Premium Plus monthly subscription is now $19.99/month up from $16.99. A Peacock Select annual subscription is now $89.99/year up from $79.99. A Peacock Premium annual subscription is now $129.99/year up from $109.99. A Peacock Premium Plus annual subscription is now $199.99/year up from $169.99. The company said, "These price changes allow Peacock to continue to create the best experience for its viewers, remain competitive in the marketplace, and deliver unique content across all genres. Current annual subscribers, or any users on active promotional offers, will continue at their current prices until those plans or offers expire. Subscriptions will then renew at the new price."DISNEY/FCC:Disney's ABC is suing the FCC, arguing that its efforts to challenge ABC's broadcast licenses and regulate The View are unconstitutional attempts to suppress speech, The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint reported. ABC's current fight with the FCC stems from a broader dispute that began with Brendan Carr's investigation into Disney's DEI practices, while ABC executives viewed the probe as connected to criticism from programs including Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The View, Flint said. The FCC maintains the DEI review is focused on potential discrimination violations and is separate from programming, while ABC argues the investigations have become a means of pressuring the network over its speech.YOUTUBE/NETFLIX:YouTubeis offering millions of dollars to popular channels on its platform if they upload videos exclusively to the site for a period of time, Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. YouTube is hoping to halve Netflix's pursuit of its top stars. The company has not yet finalized any deals with creators but is close to an agreement with several partners, the sources added.STOCK PLAYS:Other publicly traded companies in the streaming space include Apple, Roku, Fox, Amazon, AMC Global Media, and Fubo.
AMC Entertainment Shares Rise 5.67% to $2.52
Moderately bullish activity in AMC Entertainment (AMC), with shares up 14c, or 5.67%, near $2.52. Options volume relatively light with 78k contracts traded and calls leading puts for a put/call ratio of 0.17, compared to a typical level near 0.28. Implied volatility (IV30) is higher by 2.2 points near 78.12,and below the 52wk median, suggesting an expected daily move of $0.12. Put-call skew steepened, indicating increased demand for downside protection.
Berkshire Hathaway Reports Q2 Revenue of $101.81B
Catch up on the weekend's top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1) Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) reports Q2 operating earnings $12.98B vs. $11.16B last year. Reports Q2 revenue $101.81B vs. $92.52B last year. Berkshire acquired approximately $4.5B in treasury shares during the second quarter of 2026, bringing the six-month total to about $4.8B. The fair value of Berkshire's five largest holdings at June 30, 2026 and December 31, 2025 represented 66% and 65%, respectively, of the aggregate fair value of its equity securities. 2) Nvidia (NVDA) plans to invest up to $3B in Lancium, a data center developer backed by Blackstone (BX), Ann Davis Vaughan, Valida Pau and Phoebe Liu of The Information reports. Nvidia will make an initial investment of $2B for a stake of 20% in Lancium and could invest an additional $1B if Lancium meets certain thresholds, according to people familiar with the matter. 3) Paramount Skydance (PSKY) has offered to sign three-year agreements to AMC Entertainment (AMC) and Cineworld's Regal Cinemas guaranteeing it will release 30 movies a year in cinemas if it acquires Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Lucas Shaw and Thomas Buckley of Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The agreements would require Paramount to release the films exclusively in theaters for at least 45 days and the films would not be available to stream online for at least 90 days, the sources added. 4) Apple (AAPL) published guidance explaining how eligible Mac users in mainland China can connect Alibaba's (BABA) Qwen AI to the company's Siri assistant and Writing Tools feature, Eduardo Baptista of Reuters reports. The arrangement could help Apple compete in China's AI PC market. 5) OpenAI said: "Cybersecurity is rapidly changing as models become more capable in ways that can both strengthen cyberdefenses and enable attacks at unprecedented speed and scale. Our latest internal evaluations of Astra, one of our upcoming models, over the past few days indicate significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity. These results, in addition to expert assessments, have led us to conclude last night that we cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities under our Preparedness Framework... Under our Preparedness Framework, a model reaches the Critical cybersecurity threshold if it can identify and develop functional zero-day exploits of all severity levels in many hardened real-world critical systems without human intervention, or can devise and execute end-to-end novel strategies for cyberattacks against hardened targets given only a high level desired goal. While we continue to benchmark and assess this model, our preliminary evaluations indicate strong enough performance that we cannot rule out Critical capability level at this time. Astra is an upcoming model, and was not involved in exploiting Hugging Face."
This page is for research only and is not investment advice. Models can be wrong. Past performance does not guarantee future results.