Banijay Entertainment’s first financials since its merger with All3Media showed half-year revenues down slightly at €1.37 billion ($1.56 billion), as production volume fell.

Sales at the independent European production giant were down 2.2% on the same six months in 2025, which reflected “anticipated phasing in production and distribution.” The numbers do not include All3, whose financials will be included in quarterly reports from Q3.

Banijay’s production revenue fell 11.9%, while distribution was up 10.5% “fuelled in particular by a format sale in the first quarter.” Banijay is anticipating numbers to tick up in the second half of the year, with Q4 earmarked for significant activity.

Banijay Group groups Banijay Entertainment with its live events business, which saw its revenues zoom up nearly 50% on the back of the Winter Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup.

Earlier this month, Banijay merged its entertainment arm with RedBird IMI’s All3Media, creating an $8B revenue giant that Banijay Entertainment Chair Jeff Zucker claims is the largest indie producer ever created.

The combined group owns the likes of MasterChef, Big Brother, The Traitors, Peaky Blinders, Midsomer Murders and Gogglebox, and has a library of more than 265,000 hours.

Banijay Group received €801M from the deal, including a payment of €625M from RedBird IMI and a €176M pre-closing dividend. The agreement meant Banijay and RedBird IMI have an equal split of the new Banijay Entertainment, which is led by Marco Bassetti as CEO, Jane Turton, former CEO of All3Media, as Deputy CEO, and Zucker, CEO of RedBird IMI, as chair.

Banijay announced today that its shareholders would get an exceptional dividend of €400M following the deal, which works out to €0.93 per share. The plan had first been revealed upon announcement of a deal with All3 back in March.

Banijay also noted that a seven-year €750M loan secured last month would go towards refinancing All3’s “outstanding” senior facilities, paying transaction fees and paying “certain” dividends related to the merger.

At group level, Banijay posted H1 revenues of €2.58B, up 16.9% year-on-year on a reported basis. Adjusted EBITDA was €502.9M, up 18.5%, though adjusted net income fell 3.7% to €141.5M.

The sports betting and gaming unit posted revenues only just behind entertainment, coming in at €1.21B. The unit is currently integrating Tipico, which was acquired in a multi-billion dollar deal in October last year, and is in the process of buying France’s second-largest casino operator, JOA.

“2026 is definitely a transformational year for Banijay Group,” said Banijay Group CEO Francois Riahi. “The successful acquisition of Tipico, the completion of the combination of Banijay Entertainment and All3Media, and the proposed acquisition of JOA in France grant to the group more scale, more diversity in terms of geography, channels of distribution, and a better strategic positioning to achieve all its strategic goals, creating new opportunities for both growth and value creation.”

Could it be that Hollywood’s superheroes have begun to rediscover their powers in China? Perhaps not yet — but their friendly neighborhood standard-bearer certainly has.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened across China on Wednesday at a pace the market has not seen for a U.S. comic-book movie in at least seven years, earning more than $16.5 million (RMB 112 million) by midday, with local ticketing giant Maoyan projecting a $37.4 million (RMB 254 million) first-day total. No other superhero title has come close to such heights since Spider-Man: Far From Home bowed to $36 million in 2019. Sitting in a distant second is Venom: The Last Dance with $9.4 million earned on its first day on Chinese screens in 2024.

And Chinese box-office trackers foresee even bigger things for Tom Holland’s latest swing in the spider suit. Maoyan’s full-run forecast, published on the eve of release, pegs the film’s ultimate China total at a whopping $255 million (RMB 1.73 billion), with rival tracker Dengta going higher still at more than $265 million (RMB 1.8 billion). Such projections routinely get revised as a run matures — day-one forecasts especially — but a finish anywhere near that range would rank as Hollywood’s biggest China gross since Avengers: Endgame in 2019, surpassing even Avatar: The Way of Water‘s $246 million.

The Beijing industry has been buzzing all week about Brand New Day‘s box-office potential. Presales finished at $18.6 million (RMB 126.2 million) — the best of any imported film of the past three summers.

The film appears to be benefiting from some pent-up demand for Marvel’s most iconic character. Spider-Man: Far From Home, the last entry to play in Chinese theaters, opened to a strong $98 million over its debut weekend in 2019, finishing at $199 million. That title remains the last U.S. superhero film to clear $100 million in China. Huge sales were expected for its follow-up, the $1.92 billion-grossing Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), but the film never opened in China after local regulators reportedly balked at the prominence of the Statue of Liberty in the movie’s climax, and Sony declined to cut around it.

In the years since, U.S. superhero cinema has fallen out of favor in China even more dramatically than elsewhere. Marvel titles were blocked from the market by regulators from mid-2019 to early 2023, and earnings since the ban have been comparatively withering. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($87 million in 2023) and Venom: The Last Dance ($94 million in 2024) stand as the era’s biggest superhero totals, while nearly all other recent entries have limped to sums in the low teens. Chinese audiences, meanwhile, have transferred their enthusiasm to homegrown blockbusters.

But Spider-Man has always stood apart, and Sony and Marvel courted the market accordingly. China was given the world’s earliest release date for Brand New Day — Wednesday’s bow comes two days ahead of North America’s — along with an exclusive Imax launch unavailable to fans in the U.S., where large-format screens remain occupied by Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Holland and Zendaya flew to China for last week’s local premiere in Shanghai, where Holland charmed local media with an account of Jackie Chan visiting the film’s London set (the Chinese action icon’s famed stunt team reportedly helped choreograph some of Brand New Day‘s action sequences).

Directed by Shang-Chi‘s Destin Daniel Cretton, Brand New Day picks up four years after No Way Home, with a forgotten Peter Parker protecting New York alone — and the strain beginning to weigh on him. The film has earned strong reviews from critics, with its Rotten Tomatoes’ score currently hovering around 90 percent. Analysts are projecting a North America opening in the $180 million range for a global launch over $425 million.

EXCLUSIVE: Blast and Idhayam Murali star Preity Mukhundhan is the latest recipient of IMDb‘s ‘Breakout Star’ STARmeter Award.

New to the Indian film and TV business having started in 2024, she has already worked across Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam cinema, and IMDb has now bestowed its award for online popularity on her.

The award recognizes those in Popular Indian Celebrities list published on the IMDb app, charting those who have achieved more than 250 million monthly visitors to IMDb worldwide.

IMDb has feted Mukhundhan on the back of her performances in Tamil movies Blast and Idhayam Murali, which released within two months of each other. The roles drove a surge in her popularity on IMDb, ranking as the second-most popular Indian celebrity one week and sixth biggest the following week.

Mukhundhan has five more projects scheduled, including the Telugu film Emo Emo Idi and an untitled Tamil film alongside Ashok Selvan.

“Receiving the IMDb ‘breakout star’ STARmeter Award is incredibly special and a moment I will always cherish,” said Mukhundhan. “This recognition means a lot to me because it comes directly from the interest and support of audiences around the world. I’m so grateful to my fans for all the love they have showered upon me.

“I don’t think I would be here without you, and I feel so encouraged to do better every day, to put out good movies, and to keep growing. To IMDb, as a movie buff, the kid in me is really happy, so this means a lot. This is recognition I’ve worked really hard for.”

She added: “As an actor, you hope that the characters you portray leave an impact, and the response to my work has reassured me that I am on the right path. This award motivates me to keep learning, challenging myself, and taking on roles that resonate with people.”

Previous IMDb Breakout Star STARmeter Award recipients include Akash Makhija, Ramandeep Yadav, Ambrish Verma, Ahaan Panday, Aneet Padda, Monika Panwar, Zahan Kapoor, Kani Kusruti, Sharvari, Nitanshi Goel, Adarsh Gourav, Ayo Edebiri, Maya Hawke and Regé-Jean Page.