Trend: Famous & Familiar. Topic: The Exorcist’s Franchise Reinvention. The Exorcist: Martyrs brings a recognizable horror property together with Mike Flanagan and Scarlett Johansson in a new investigative story. Following the disappointing performance of the previous revival, the project illustrates how familiar entertainment can attract renewed interest when it offers a clearly different experience. ➡️ Trend Insight: Familiarity creates an entry point, while a distinctive au

Trend: Experiences. Topic: Audience Expectations. Digger presents an unusual audience paradox: Tom Cruise remains one of cinema’s most recognizable stars, yet his presence did not translate into a blockbuster opening. The film debuted with just $8 million in North America and $20 million globally, suggesting that audiences were not simply choosing whether they wanted to see Tom Cruise—they were deciding whether this particular Tom Cruise experience was worth a theatrical visi

Trend: Creator Economy. Topic: AI Cinema. Gods Don’t Give Gifts, created by popular YouTuber Gossip Goblin, aka Zack London, shows how the Creator Economy is expanding beyond social platforms into traditional entertainment. Made entirely with artificial intelligence and heading for a limited U.S. and UK theatrical release, the film combines something creators already possess—audience recognition and fandom—with technology capable of lowering traditional barriers to feature fi

Trend: Experiences. Topic: Immersive Storytelling. East of Eden reached No. 1 on Netflix’s weekly TV chart with 6.5 million views, despite what Deadline describes as a relatively soft opening. Its success points toward a broader shift in streaming: amid an overwhelming supply of content, audiences can gravitate toward entertainment that feels like somewhere to go rather than simply something to watch. Zoe Kazan’s adaptation combines John Steinbeck’s familiar story, Florence P

Trend: Living Crisis. Topic: Second-Chance Stories. Doing Life reaching the top of Netflix’s U.S. movie chart points toward an important entertainment response to the Living Crisis: when everyday life already carries financial, social and personal pressures, audiences may seek stories that temporarily take them somewhere emotionally different. Doing Life does this without abandoning reality—it begins with struggle but moves toward possibility, connection and another chance. ➡

Trend: Famous & Familiar. Topic: Celebrity Crossover. Celebrities are becoming increasingly portable across entertainment and consumer culture. A personality discovered through reality TV, social media, music or a podcast can become a reason to watch a movie, try a series, follow a fashion brand or buy a product. Kylie Jenner's move into scripted television illustrates how familiarity itself has become valuable: audiences do not necessarily encounter every new show, product o

Trend: Fandom. Entertainment audiences increasingly want deeper relationships with the fictional worlds they already care about, encouraging studios to expand successful franchises beyond individual films. Fast & Furious, which has generated more than $7 billion globally across 25 years, is moving further into television with a Peacock series planned for 2028. Rather than treating a successful franchise as a sequence of releases, Hollywood can increasingly treat it as a story

Trend: Familiarity. Familiar entertainment remains powerful, but recognition alone is no longer enough to guarantee audience excitement. Minions & Monsters still earned $523 million worldwide, yet its box office was 44% below Minions: The Rise of Gru, showing how mature franchises can retain enormous awareness while losing some of their ability to turn that familiarity into urgency. The emerging challenge is Franchise Fatigue: audiences may still like familiar properties, but

Trend: Familiarity. In an entertainment market overflowing with choice, familiarity is becoming a powerful shortcut to attention. Hollywood is increasingly turning to existing intellectual property, particularly books, because recognizable stories give audiences an immediate reason to care while still allowing studios to create something new. Adapted films represented only 11.5% of new movie premieres in 2025 but captured 47.1% of total audience demand, suggesting that famili

Trend: Influencer Inspired. Influencer culture is moving beyond social platforms and increasingly providing inspiration for entertainment, fashion, marketing and storytelling. The Influencer Project reflects this shift by placing a real social media personality at the centre of a fictional horror story built around virality, followers, brand partnerships and constant visibility, showing how the creator economy is generating characters and narratives that audiences immediately

Trend: Imperfection. Gen Z style is creating more space for aesthetics that feel handmade, raw and intentionally unfinished rather than flawlessly polished. K-pop group KiiiKiii captures this shift through a visual world combining DIY craft, clashing pastels, Y2K and Y3K references and deliberate irregularity, turning Imperfection into both an aesthetic and an invitation for fans to participate. Eighteen months after the group's debut, its style has become recognizable enough

Trend: Privacy. A generation raised with smartphones, social media, digital footprints and constant online visibility is looking backward to understand how surveillance became an ordinary part of everyday life. The strong Gen Z response to A24’s Primetime signals a wider Surveillance Culture trend in which entertainment is helping younger audiences reconsider the origins and consequences of a world where watching — and being watched — feels increasingly normal. Why Everyone I

Trend: Bold. Horror already gives audiences controlled access to fear, violence, death and psychological darkness; Dark Crime Horror intensifies that established attraction by grounding the experience in real crimes. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story shows the commercial strength of this combination, reaching Netflix’s No. 1 position with 12.2 million views in its first four days — almost exactly matching the openings of the anthology’s previous two installments. Why Everyone

Trend: Fandom. Gen Z wants to do more than discover new music — audiences want to follow emerging artists and experience their journey toward mainstream success. Adéla’s rise from TikTok hits to debut album reflects the growth of Fan-Built Pop Stars, where fans increasingly want to Be Part of the Rise. Why Everyone Is Talking About It: Gen Z Has a New Pop Princess YPulse describes Adéla as “Gen Z’s next pop girl,” highlighting the momentum created by her TikTok hits and debut

Life Unfiltered is moving into more extraordinary worlds as young audiences look for stories that recognize the emotional reality of growing up while offering an escape from ordinary life. Supernatural Coming-of-Age stories are turning familiar experiences — identity, attraction, friendship, belonging and self-discovery — into bigger adventures filled with witches, vampires, magical abilities and dangerous worlds. Coven Academy captures this shift by placing recognizable teen

Life Under Pressure is changing what audiences want from entertainment: when everyday life already feels filled with anxiety, distraction and mental noise, consumers are increasingly drawn to experiences intense enough to pull them completely out of it. Horror is benefiting because fear, suspense, shock and adrenaline demand attention in ways passive entertainment often cannot. The strong response to Resident Evil — alongside the wider success of films such as Backrooms and O

Famous & Familiar is becoming a powerful entertainment proposition as audiences surrounded by choice look for movies that feel easy to understand and safer to invest their limited time in. Netflix’s The Whisper Man captures this shift by combining Robert De Niro’s star recognition with the familiar pleasures of a crime thriller and an immediately understandable serial-killer story. Its 863 million Nielsen viewing minutes put it ahead of the streaming debut of Star Wars: The M

Familiarity is becoming a powerful advantage in an entertainment landscape overflowing with choice. Audiences don't always need the most prestigious, original or demanding movie — sometimes they simply want something instantly understandable that keeps them entertained. The sudden Netflix success of Lifetime thriller The Seemingly Perfect Family captures the rise of Comfort Thrillers: recognizable stories built around secrets, danger and escalating twists that deliver Easy En

Life Unfiltered is shaping a new generation of coming-of-age storytelling as audiences look for stories that reflect the confusion, relationships, mistakes and emotional intensity of growing up. The upcoming coming-of-age dramedy Friend Thing captures the enduring appeal through a 14-year-old navigating first love, heartbreak, family tragedy and friendship. But today's Reality-Driven Coming-of-Age stories increasingly combine recognition with humor, romance, heightened drama

The K-Trend is expanding beyond the individual success of K-pop, K-dramas and Korean movies into a connected entertainment ecosystem where audiences can follow the artists they love across formats. New theatrical projects starring NCT's Jeno and Jaemin, Fifty Fifty's Keena, Chanelle Moon, Yewon, Hana and Athena, and The Boyz's Younghoon show how established music fandom can become the starting audience for new screen entertainment. Emerging from short-form series on the K-pop