| | | | | | | Presented By AT&T | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Sep 05, 2021 | | Happy holiday Sunday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,169 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Fadel Allassan. | | | | | | 🎥 1 big thing: Hollywood's Delta horror |  Data: Box Office Mojo. Chart: Axios Visuals Amid some bright flashes, Hollywood's hopes for a huge 2021 recovery look doomed, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer reports. - Disney's new Marvel hit "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" is expected to break records at the box office this weekend, giving the theater industry a glimmer of hope heading into the fall.
But Delta has crushed this year's recovery dreams, with studios starting to pull major movies off the fall and winter release schedule. - A few recent box office hits — "Candyman," Disney's "Free Guy" — prove that consumers are still willing to go to the theater despite the Delta variant.
- But the box office is still pacing far behind 2019 totals, and likely won't be able to recover meaningfully until 2022. Ticket sales are down 74% year-to-date vs. 2019.
Projections show "Shang-Chi," the first Asian-led superhero flick, obliterating the previous Labor Day record — MGM's "Halloween" in 2007. - "Shang-Chi" will be on Disney+ after a shortened, 45-day exclusive run on the big screen.
Meng'er Zhang, Simu Liu and Awkwafina in "Shang-Chi." Photo: Marvel Studios via AP What we're watching: The pandemic-fueled shift to streaming means movie studios will continue experimenting with hybrid releases. - Some studios are streaming films for free, or for a premier access fee, at the same day that they debut in theaters. Others are making movies available on streaming after a shortened theatrical window.
What's next: While the vast majority of movie theaters in the U.S. are open, studios are still trying to figure out whether they should delay hits. - Paramount is pushing "Top Gun: Maverick" from November to May 2022, and "Mission: Impossible 7" from May to September 2022.
Watch the trailer ... Share this graphic. |     | | | | | | 2. Milley: Afghan civil war "likely" |  | | | Image: Fox News | | | | The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said at Ramstein Air Base in Germany yesterday a "resurgence of terrorism" out of the Afghanistan region is "very likely" in the next one to three years. Fox News' Jennifer Griffin asked: "Is the U.S. safer today since the U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan?" The general said his "military estimate" is that "the conditions are likely to develop, of a civil war." - "I don't know if the Taliban is going to be able to consolidate power and establish governance," Milley continued. "They may be, maybe not. But I think there's at least a very good probability of a broader civil war — and that will then in turn lead to conditions that could, in fact, lead to a reconstitution of al-Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriad of terrorist groups."
- "The conditions are very likely, in my opinion that — I've testified this and I've said it in public — that you could see a resurgence of terrorism coming out of that general region within 12, 24, 36 months."
Between the lines: This is America's top general saying his assessment is that President Biden's biggest foreign policy decision to date could make the U.S. less safe. What to watch: The next time Milley testifies on Capitol Hill, it's likely to be uncomfortable viewing for the White House. | | | | | | | | 3. 🌀 1 in 3 Americans lived through a weather disaster this summer |  | | | A motorist confronts a flooded expressway in Brooklyn early Thursday. Photo: Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images | | | | 32% of Americans live in a county or state that declared a federal disaster area in the past three months, the WashPost calculates. - The equivalent for 2016 was 11% ... 2017: 7% ... 2018: 5% ... 2019: 12% ... 2020: 28%.
64% live in places that experienced a multi-day heat wave. Why it matters: "The expanding reach of climate-fueled disasters ... shows the extent to which a warming planet has already transformed Americans' lives," The Post reports. - At least 388 people in the U.S. died this summer due to hurricane, flood, heat wave or wildfire.
| | | | | | | | A message from AT&T | | We are connecting communities to their American Dream | | |  | | | | We're making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help ensure broadband is more accessible and affordable, so low-income families like the ones Kamal works with have the opportunity to succeed. Learn more. | | | | | | 4. 🏈 College football roars back | | Photo: Joann Muller/Axios Axios' Joann Muller sent us these pics from The Big House at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which always announces "the largest crowd watching a football game anywhere in America today." Photo: Joann Muller/Axios After last year's letdown, college football powerhouses brought back massive, often maskless crowds — even tailgating — for Week 1. Photo: Brad McClenny/The Gainesville Sun via Reuters University of Florida fans clipped the Florida Atlantic Owls yesterday in The Swamp — Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville. Photo: Matt Gentry/The Roanoke Times via AP Virginia Tech's Hokies brought UNC to heel Friday night in Blacksburg, Va. | | | | | | | | 5. Stat of the day |  | | | In Dulac, La. — 70 miles southwest of New Orleans — Starlin Billiot Sr. washes himself off beside the home where he has been living without power or running water. Photo: John Locher/AP | | | | 70% of electric customers in New Orleans had no power yesterday, for the sixth day in a row. (N.Y. Times) | | | | | | | | 6. What the Taliban means for the neighbors |  | | | China Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's political leader, in Tianjin, China, on July 28. Photo: Li Ran/Xinhua via Getty Images | | | | The Taliban's neighbors are vying for influence while preparing for instability, refugee flows and the threat of a terrorist safe haven, Axios World author Dave Lawler writes. - The Taliban's return is largely a strategic victory for Pakistan, which has harbored Taliban leaders, and a defeat for India, which invested heavily in an Afghan state that has now collapsed.
- For China, it's both a source of concern and of opportunity. The Taliban has made clear it will depend on close relations with Beijing.
- Iran and the Taliban were bitter foes in the 1990s, but they have built ties gradually. The Taliban's insistence that it will protect Afghanistan's Shia minority is at least partially designed for Tehran's consumption.
America's humbling exit from Afghanistan provided a propaganda coup for China. - A Foreign Ministry spokesperson scolded that the U.S. military intervention, justified on the grounds of "democracy" and "human rights," ended in "turmoil, division, and destruction."
- Beijing will have few qualms with the Taliban's record on human rights. A Taliban spokesman said that, with western assistance drying up, the new government would rely on China to "invest and rebuild."
- China has kept its embassy open in a signal that it's ready to deal with the incoming government.
Share this story. | | | | | | | | 7. 🌼 Remembering Willard Scott | | Willard Scott in 1980. Photo: NBC Willard Scott, who once delivered the "Today" show forecast in a top hat, using a brush as a pointer to promote a chimney-sweep event (video), died in Virginia's hunt country at 87. - Al Roker, his successor in your neck of the woods in 1996, wrote on Instagram: "He was truly my second dad and am where I am today because of his generous spirit. Willard was a man of his times, the ultimate broadcaster. There will never be anyone quite like him."
- Katie Couric, a partner in crime on the No. 1 show, tweeted a pic of her with Willard, who was in an NBC letterman jacket: "He played such an outsized role in my life & was as warm & loving & generous off camera as he was on. Willard, you didn't make it to the front of the Smucker's jar, but you changed so many lives for the better."
Scott, — known for his toupées and boutonnières — began his career as a page at WRC, the NBC affiliate in Washington. - He played Bozo the Clown in the 1960s and Ronald McDonald in commercials in the D.C. area, then joined "Today" in 1980.
Willard saluted birthdays of 100-year-olds on a popular segment sponsored by Smucker's jelly. - "You know how to live right — and a long time, too," he'd say.
Turns out ... so did he. | | | | | | | | 8. Tweet for the road | | | | | | | | | | A message from AT&T | | We are connecting communities to their American Dream | | | | | | | | We're making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help ensure broadband is more accessible and affordable, so low-income families like the ones Kamal works with have the opportunity to succeed. Learn more. | | | | 📬 Invite your friends, family and colleagues to sign up here for Axios AM and Axios PM. |  | | It'll help you deliver employee communications more effectively. | | | |
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