Kill Jackie producer Fremantle saw its half-yearly revenues slide nearly 8% due to drama and film production, but earnings still shot up to nearly $70M.

In results released by parent RTL this morning, the London-based company posted revenues of €835M ($963M), down 7.7% on the €905M from the same period last year.

RTL attributed the fall to “timing effects at Fremantle’s drama and film business,” with entertainment and documentaries “broadly stable.”

Fremantle will see the dip reverse in the second half of 2026, RTL projected, and post “slightly higher” numbers that he previous year due to upcoming productions such as AMC+’s Kill Jackie and Fox’s Baywatch.

However, Fremantle was one of two units that RTL attributed to a significant increase in earnings across the group. Adjusted EBITA was up from €39M to €60, with the margin widening sharply from 4.3% to 7.2%. This puts Fremantle on track to reach a target margin of 9% for the full year.

The news comes less than two weeks after Deadline revealed Fremantle had hired Katie O’Connell Marsh to become CEO of its Global Scripted Hub. Her role will be include building out Fremantle’s drama and comedy slate, while improving the revenue take from productions. Days after her hire became public, the Baywatch reboot sold to Prime Video in numerous territories.

Fremantle’s latest financials come after RTL implemented cost saving measures at the production house following a strategic review. Part of the move saw Fremantle exit fully-financing films, though it will remain as a co-producer on projects.

RTL noted cost reduction plans will continue until 2030 by “optimisation of production costs, simplification of processes [and] reduction of technical costs – driven by AI.”

RTL profits rise

Overall, Luxembourg-based RTL posted group revenues up 0.1% at €2.9B, with adjusted EBITA coming in at €239M, significantly higher than the €160M delivered in H1 2025. Excluding the impact of buying Sky for €68M, RTL posted group adjusted EBITA up €18M.

Streaming revenue, which comes from services such as RTL+ and M6+, was up 27.2% to €299M, with the number of subscribers growing alongside higher pricing in Germany and “rapidly growing” ad money in Germany and France. In total, paid subscriptions for Germany and France – RTL’s biggest two territories – were up 20.7% to 8.7 million.

Adjusted EBITA from streaming was €31M and is expected to reach around €100M for the full year, way up on previous guidance to analysts of around €25M-€50M.

The result were also the first since RTL on June 1 completed a deal for Sky Deutschland, which posted adjusted EBITA of €61M in H1. RTL noted this would not be indicative of the whole year as June has no production costs attached to the Bundesliga or German Cup football.

Once RTL+ and Sky Deutschland merge operations, RTL will have more than 12 million paying subs across in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

“RTL Group delivered a strong first half performance in 2026, driven by rapid streaming growth, gains in both TV audience and TV advertising market shares, and the successful completion of the acquisition of Sky Deutschland,” said RTL CEO Clément Schwebig. “We also demonstrated the unique power of our content and brands, as the coverage of the football World Cup on M6 and M6+ attracted 60 million viewers and generated exceptional digital engagement.

“Our streaming businesses deliver strong profitability. Streaming revenue and paid subscriptions continue to grow dynamically. As a result, streaming is now expected to contribute around €100M to our full-year operating profit.”

Schwebig, the former Warner Bros. Discovery exec, replaced Thomas Rabe as CEO earlier this year. Rabe remains boss of RTL parent Bertelsmann until later in the year.

This year’s Busan International Film Festival has named Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui as the recipient of the Camellia Award, presented to filmmakers who have made significant contributions to elevating the status of women in the film industry.

Hui was a leading figure in the Hong Kong New Wave as a director, screenwriter and producer, making her directing debut with The Secret in 1979. She has continued making films consistently since then, building a body of work that includes 27 feature films and two feature-length documentaries, including multiple award winner A Simple Life, which won Best Actress at the Venice film festival for Deanie Ip’s performance in 2011. 

Along the way, she has also won Best Director winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards six times and Best Director winner at the Golden Horse Awards three times. Both A Simple Life and Summer Snow (1995) achieved the rare feat of sweeping Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Hui has also been presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2012 Asian Film Awards, Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award at Busan film festival in 2014, and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival.

“Underlying Hui’s remarkable career and international acclaim is a singular cinematic vision rooted in compassion and humanity, one that has long captured the complexities of Hong Kong society and the spirit of its times,” said Busan film festival in a statement. 

“Spanning a wide range of genres, her films chronicle the everyday lives of ordinary people while weaving intimate personal stories into broader social realities. Her nuanced portrayals of women, particularly those often pushed to the margins, have resonated deeply with audiences across cultures and generations.”

Hui commented on the award: “In my previous years I felt unwilling to receive such taking-stock prizes because I wished to continue making movies. Now that I’m nearly eighty and find it difficult to make a film, I think the prize comes just in time for me to appreciate it more.” 

She added, “I am so happy to return to Busan and meet an audience that is among the most savvy and cinematically literate in the world.”

Busan partnered with Chanel to establish the award, named after Gabrielle Chanel’s favorite flower, which was last year awarded to Taiwanese actress, director and producer Sylvia Chang. 

This year’s Camellia Award will be presented at Busan’s opening ceremony on October 6. As previously announced, the festival has also named Michelle Yeoh as this year’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year. 

The new Peacock series Crystal Lake will welcome a new scream queen in Linda Cardellini, who will play the role of Pamela Voorhees, mother of Jason Voorhees, the infamous serial killer from the Friday the 13th films.

Ahead of the streaming series’ premiere on Thursday, October 15, Cardellini and Brad Caleb Kane, writer, showrunner, and executive producer of the series, hosted a panel on Monday afternoon at the NBC Backlot Press Day.

“We all know where Pam ends up because she starts all the killing in the first movie. So, what Brad gave me was a beautiful beginning and somewhere to go. There’s an arc there from somebody who means well and is trying to survive. She’s doing the best that she can and fighting hard for things that she thinks are right to [becoming] somebody who then turns out to do all the wrong things. That gives me a lot of places to go. I think that dissent is very necessary,” Cardellini shared.

The role of Pam has been played by multiple actresses, but the gold standard is Betsy Palmer, the first to play the serial killer mom of a serial killer, in the 1980 film Friday the 13th. Since news of the prequel series broke, there have been questions about how Cardellini will approach playing the character.

“I have, of course, seen what Betsy Palmer did. Then you see a little bit more of it in [Friday the 13th Part 2]; she kind of comes back as the severed head. The fans love her so much. We even toyed around with the idea of the short hair, but we figured she has 10 years to get there,” she said.

Adding, “You can’t duplicate what Betsy did, which was to play this devoted mother. So I can take that and sort of bring that to the early childhood years of Jason’s life. I also think that you don’t get to where Betsy is without really truly loving Jason and getting to know him. That was really important to us going in. And no, you can’t be another Betsy. But I do do a little bit of an homage with a certain sweater that makes an appearance.”

The famous sweater Cardellini is referring to is the one worn by Palmer in the original film when Pam was decapitated by a camp counselor.

Without giving too much away about the pilot episode, there’s a scene where Cardellini ends up with about a bucket’s worth of blood all over her. Trust me, it’s way more impactful when you watch the scene. The blood pours over her head and face, which, according to Cardellini, required “a lot of cleanups and redos.”

“That blood has to fall exactly in the right position for that stunt to work. So there were several ways we did it; for it to really have its full impact on my face, it took a few takes,” she said.

Added Kane, “A lot of the gags in the show are very complicated. The special effects gags are very complicated. Linda had to go through a lot, and they’re very hard to reset. We didn’t have a lot of opportunities to do that. And I’d like to give my props right now here in front of all of you to Linda; she nailed it every single time. There was never an, ‘Oh, Linda was not in the right place.’ No, she nailed it every time. So it was a pleasure working with her on these complicated gags because she’s a consummate pro.”