5 Questions That Will Decide the Streaming Wars

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Hello! With The Last of Us done and dusted, I took an early look at the entertainment landscape for the rest of the year. Here's what surprised me: The stakes of the next half year or so in Hollywood are pretty damn high. So I won't keep you waiting. These are my biggest questions for TV and film heading in the second half of 2025.

1. Have we already seen the best show of the year?

TV was in a bit of a rough place after the one-two punch of the Covid-19 pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strike, which both severely delayed production in Hollywood. Three years passed between Severance season 1 and 2. The same goes for Stranger Things, Squid Game, Andor, Wednesday, and more. 2025 feels like the year that all the biggest shows are finally returning to the small screen. So, now that we have the full slate before us, how are we feeling about this year's slate?

Well, as we head into the second half of 2025 (already?!), Esquire's entertainment team is honestly shocked by how much good TV we've already watched this year: The Pitt, Severance, Andor, The White Lotus, The Studio, The Last of Us, Adolescence. TV has been so great, actually, that it has me wondering if anything else coming out this year can even compete.

2. Has bundling gone too far?

Streaming was supposed to provide customers with a welcome alternative to traditional cable television. Now, it's no secret that a whole bunch of folks are paying more for TV than ever before.

To supposedly ease the repeated blows to our wallets, today, bundling services—like the Disney/Hulu/HBO package—have become the new normal. Next up? ESPN plans to include all of its cable network channels into a new ESPN app—which is set for its own bundle with Disney and Hulu. Could we see a single bundle for every major streaming service within the next two years? How many years away are we from the next great Netflix disruptor?

3. Will The Bear season 4 live up to the hype?

Speaking of quality TV, The Bear returns for season 4 on June 25. The new batch of episodes will follow the "To Be Continued…" cliff-hanger that ended the previous season, with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) awaiting the first reviews for his new restaurant.

The Bear season 4 is a make-or-break moment for the culinary drama, as the critically acclaimed show hopes for even more positive reviews of its own. Season 3 received a bit of a mixed reaction from viewers who were enamored with the highs of season 2, but season 4 has the potential to finally give Carmy and co. some much-needed resolution. If The Bear seeks to enter the G.O.A.T. debate, this is its chance.

4. Will we see one more Taylor Sheridan series by the end of 2025?

Paramount+ is having a moment. According to Nielsen, the Paramount Network and its affiliated channels account for a third of all total TV usage, right behind YouTube and the Walt Disney Company. CBS programming such as NCIS, Survivor, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert account for a decent amount of viewership, but creator/writer Taylor Sheridan has been a golden goose for Paramount's streaming service ever since Yellowstone.

Alongside Yellowstone, Sheridan also helms Landman, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, and Lioness. But now that Yellowstone is set to expand into several spin-offs, Sheridan—and Paramount—have a real opportunity to turn one of the most popular franchises on TV today into one of the most popular TV franchises of all time. The network hasn't handled delivering fans the roadmap ahead particularly well, but Paramount is reportedly planning four spin-offs that will roll out within the next year.

5. What will 2025's summer movie blockbuster season tell us about the future of the film industry?

Ever since "Barbenheimer," Hollywood has tried to eventize every new release to consistently fill movie theaters. "Glicked," a.k.a. the same-day release of Wicked and Gladiator II, was the most obvious attempt last year—even though Wicked made sure that it wasn't much of a competition at all. (I saw someone watch Gladiator II on an airplane this past weekend, if that tells you how much of a must-see-in-the-theater event it was for some audiences.)

What moviegoers really want is to see a good film. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stitch are currently dominating at the box office, but there's still many contenders ahead, including Jurassic World Rebirth, Superman, F1, How to Train Your Dragon, M3GAN 2.0, Eddington, and Fantastic Four: First Steps. Are any of these films the spark plug that the theater industry desperately needs this summer?

What's your biggest question about the state of TV and film in 2025? Ask me at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com, and I'll respond right here in The Cliff-Hanger next week.

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The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk

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Meanwhile, the Your Friends and Neighbors creator, Jonathan Tropper, answered our burning questions about the season 1 finale—including that twist. The Apple TV+ series stars Jon Hamm as Anderson "Coop" Cooper, a down-on-his-luck, ultra-privileged divorcé who resorts to stealing misforgotten treasures from his wealthy neighbors to help keep up his lifestyle and support his family. Read the interview here. >>

Jon Hamm in Your Friends and Neighbors / Apple TV+

The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week

Winner: Taylor Swift

The musician bought back the rights to her recordings this week. Swift spent the last six years re-recording her first six albums and re-releasing them to fans as "Taylor's Version's," after her former label sold her catalog to Scooter Braun in 2019. Now, Swift finally owns her own music. So, what versions do we listen to now?

Loser: The FAA

Appearing on CNN earlier this week, comedian Nathan Fielder criticized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for their comments on his HBO series The Rehearsal. This season, Fielder sought to prove that miscommunication in the cockpit was a major factor to the recent increase in plane crashes—and he made a very convincing argument. However, the agency reportedly found no evidence to "claim that pilot communications is to blame for airline disasters." Fielder called the FAA's response, "dumb."

"Here's the issue: I trained to be a pilot," Fielder continued." I'm a 737 pilot. I went through the training. The training is someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying, 'If you are a co-pilot and the captain does something wrong, you need to speak up about it.' That's all. That's the training, and they talk about some crashes that happen, but they don't do anything that makes it stick emotionally."

Enough said.

Winner: Wagner Moura

The Narcos star won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Secret Agent, a Brazilian political thriller set in 1977 during carnival. The film also won Best Director (Kleber Mendonça Filho), but lost top prize to Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident. Cannes is rising as a tentpole for Oscar Best Picture candidates. Last year's Palm D'Or winner, Anora, also took home the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Mikey Madison), and Best Original Screenplay. Is Moura next?

Loser: George R. R. Martin

Game of Thrones famously ended before George R. R. Martin, the writer of the A Song of Fire and Ice novel series, could finish his final two books. Ever since, Martin has a history of complaining on his personal blog that we should stop asking him to hunker down and write an ending to the series for his devoted fanbase already. His latest rant is a new all-timer.

Winner: Faizan Zaki

Congratulations are in order for Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Faizan Zaki, the 13-year-old from Allen, Texas. He was last year's runner-up, after falling in a lightning round tiebreaker. The winning word this year? Eclaircissement.