The library may be beating the premiere: an Endgame encore, a Paramount-Warner merger and BTS’s half-billion tour may point to proven hits outrunning new bets

Avengers Endgame: Encore led the Sept. 25–27 weekend box office, ahead of Brad Pitt’s new film. A federal judge cleared Paramount’s $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery takeover, which is set to close Oct. 6 and would put HBO, CNN, CBS and two major film studios under one roof. BTS became the first pop group to clear $500 million on a single tour. Read together, they may show money flowing toward catalogs that already work.

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