UPDATE 9/10: The 1970-2000 wave just hit television: Paramount is developing a Hawaii Five-O movie with Spider-Man director Destin Daniel Cretton.
UPDATE: The production side of the jobs picture just went presidential: Trump officially called on Congress to pass the federal film tax incentive, with Adam Schiff agreeing within hours.
The re-release wave is just getting started, and it goes way past Star Trek.
The same Hollywood source behind our info that Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are planning to put directors’ cuts back in theaters — the play now running as the Star Trek 60th Anniversary Event — is back with more, and the scope is bigger than one franchise, one studio, or one anniversary.
“Every property from 1970-2000 is getting a second and third look,” the source tells us. “I’m talking TV and movies.”
And the line that sums up where Hollywood’s head is at: “Nostalgia is the new woke,” adds the source.
‘Many More To Come’ Over The Next 6-12 Months
“Many more to come in the next 6-12 months,” the source says of the re-release campaigns — easy money for the studios and a way to bring lapsed fans back to properties they already love. “I’m hearing other studios are planning similar campaigns.”
The model is already playing out on screens.
The Star Trek 60th Anniversary Event runs the first four films September 4-8 — The Motion Picture in its Director’s Edition and The Wrath of Khan in its Director’s Cut — with Enterprise popcorn vessels at the concession stand and the 60th Anniversary Blu-ray sets landing September 8.
Old movies back in theaters. Collector merch tied to the event. New home-video releases. And, most importantly, a real-time test of how much demand is still sitting there.
That’s what the “new woke” line is getting at.
For the last decade, much of Hollywood organized itself around messaging. Now the organizing principle is nostalgia: give audiences back the movies, characters, and franchises they already loved.
As we reported on July 4, Ellison’s Paramount has the internal data on the audience that walked away, and the industry-wide 180 toward the fans it shunned is becoming the playbook other studios want in on.
And unlike the strategy it’s replacing, this one comes with an obvious incentive: it makes money.
The 1970-2000 Window Is Already Filling In
Paramount’s new-production slate already shows exactly what that strategy looks like.
Tom Cruise and Anne Hathaway announced Days of Thunder 2 for June 2, 2028, a sequel to a 1990 movie, arriving 38 years later on the Top Gun: Maverick math.
Cruise is also returning for Top Gun 3.
Danny McBride is officially directing the new G.I. Joe, ’80s American IP played straight, with THR reporting Ellison is ramping up development on major brands including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Trek.
The Primal label’s Freddy Krueger movie, per our sources, is set in the world of the original 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street and is not a remake.
The Possession, from the 1981 cult classic, is getting a remake, dated for June 11, 2027.
Street Fighter hits theaters this October, and this year’s slate alone ran through a seventh Scream and a new Scary Movie.
That is 1981, 1984, the ’80s cartoon shelf, 1990, the ’90s horror boom, the exact window the source describes, filling in title by title.
The re-release campaigns have another upside: those same three decades returning as legacy titles, with royalties attached.
‘A Great Way To Keep Hollywood Employed’
The source also flags a side of these campaigns nobody is talking about: the paychecks.
“Also a great way to keep Hollywood employed,” we’re told. “Many un/sub-employed actors need this visibility to book cons etc. And the royalties aren’t bad either.”
A re-release isn’t just a box office line.
When a studio puts a 1980s movie back in theaters and presses new discs, the actors from that era get paid twice: royalties from the re-release and renewed visibility that drives autograph lines and convention bookings.
Three decades of film and television getting a second look means work for the people who made it, many of whom haven’t seen a Hollywood check in years.
It also fits the jobs push David Ellison is already making in public.
As we covered in July, Ellison has been backing a first-ever federal film tax incentive, with Christopher Nolan’s DGA, IATSE, and SAG-AFTRA all behind the effort.
Bonta Says The Merger Hurts Hollywood: Wrong
Now hold all that up against the lawsuit.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 11 other states sued to block Paramount’s $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing the merger will cost Hollywood jobs and reduce competition.
The case is headed to a March 2027 trial, with a September 24 hearing on Paramount’s $1.88 billion demand that the states set money aside to cover the delay’s cost if Paramount wins.
But what keeps coming out of the merged company’s actual planning, per our source, is work: re-release campaigns across three decades of catalog, royalties flowing to actors, and a wave other studios want to copy.
The theaters have seen the plan, and they picked a side.
The three biggest chains in the country back the merger, and as we exclusively reported, Cinemark switched gears because exhibitors got “a glimpse into what the audience wants.”
And the lawsuit built on protecting theaters is now opposed by the theaters it claims to protect.
Iowa and Montana made a version of the same point to the Supreme Court.
The two states asked the Court to take the case away from Bonta’s home turf and rule the merger legal. Their filing backed up exactly what our insiders said and argues the delay itself is what’s hurting Hollywood: “movies that are not made, risks that are not taken, and every decision hedged.”
Meanwhile, Wall Street is betting the deal closes sooner rather than later, with WBD stock climbing to nearly the price the Ellisons agreed to pay.
The Woke DCU Doesn’t Fit The Model
Now look at the one corner of the merged company running the opposite play.
The same week the nostalgia wave hits theaters, James Gunn’s DCU delivered Lanterns Episode 3, which rewrote John Stewart’s origin around race.
The episode’s writer also said that she studied the 2019 Watchmen backlash first and decided “even if a million people hate (‘Lanterns’), that’s OK.”
Per our insiders, the series itself is the rehashed woke HBO version Berlanti’s team rejected.
A million haters as an acceptable price is the exact opposite of the strategy our source is describing.
The nostalgia play is built on giving fans back what they loved and paying the people who made it.
The DCU’s returns speak for themselves: Netflix’s CEO confirmed Superman underperformed, and Supergirl exited theaters as the lowest-grossing DC movie ever. Nearly half the fans bailed on Peacemaker.
Which is why, per our insiders, the runway ends with the paperwork.
Gunn and Peter Safran are “kept” only until their DC Studios contracts run out.
And notice what the incoming regime is reaching for instead.
Per those same sources, Ellison is going all in on Batman with Matt Reeves, and Zack Snyder’s The Dark Knight Returns — Frank Miller’s 1986 book — is ready to go, built for IMAX.
