The Big Picture

Movie theaters nationally are coming off a so-so Fourth of July weekend, and a blockbuster summer continues to elude a commercial real estate niche that could really use a happy ending. Meanwhile, New York state’s first-in-the-nation LLC transparency law has real estate attorneys and business groups worried. Labor groups and elected officials, not so much.

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— Tom Acitelli, Co-Deputy Editor

Forecast of Doom: Theaters Ride Out a Sluggish Summer Box Office Start

In “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Harrison Ford’s character must reclaim an antique calendar that Nazi henchmen pilfered so they could travel back in time and change the outcome of World War II. Movie theaters showing the octogenarian’s latest flick may also wish they could travel back in time to the days when feature films regularly hauled in hundreds of millions of dollars. “Dial of Destiny” could struggle to earn back its $295 million budget after earning only $82 million domestically over Independence Day weekend, a modest sum below forgettable sequels like Star Wars’ “Solo” and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” Several other blockbusters loom later this summer — some analysts believe “Barbie” could earn $400 million — while the fall promises highly anticipated offerings from Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and David Fincher as well as “Dune” and “Hunger Games” sequels that could turn theaters’ fortunes.

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New York's LLC Law Might Be Bad for Everyone, Not Just Criminals and Slumlords

New York state’s LLC Transparency Act is redundant, tedious, lacks teeth and is dangerous to the wrong people. At least that’s the opinion of real estate and small business leaders who see the bill as little more than a worse version of the federal Corporate Transparency Act. The legislation, passed in late June by the New York State Legislature and as of July 7 awaiting a signature from Gov. Kathy Hochul, gathers the same information that will be tracked at the federal level and can even be filed using a copy of the same form. But the names of beneficial owners of limited liability companies in New York from all backgrounds will have their names made public in a database, including those LLC owners using the vehicle to hide their identities in a property purchase.

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