Hi! Lights, camera, (sporting) action! Get ready for the sports equinox today, the only day this year that fans can tune into matches across all four major American sports leagues (and the MLS) in the same evening. Today we’re exploring: |
- Bored in the USA: The Springsteen biopic had a disappointing first weekend.
- Commercial route: Apple is planning to bring ads to its Maps app.
- Full of beans: China may resume buying US soybeans, America’s largest farm export.
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As the Springsteen movie disappoints at the box office, is music biopic fatigue setting in? |
The life of The Boss; the guy from The Bear; a smattering of decent feedback from audiences and critics alike — while “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” which landed in theaters on Friday, may never have posted Minecraft-level numbers, the $8.7 million the movie hauled domestically over the weekend was a little disappointing. |
As you might expect, the movie follows Hollywood’s increasingly tried and tested music biopic formula: charting the rising star of a now-household name and the early tribulations they had to overcome in getting there. The film finds Bruce, played by Jeremy Allen White, in a period of transition, working on his 1982 album “Nebraska,” and struggling on the cusp of full-blown international stardom. While The Boss would go on to find global success with his next album, the fortunes of the music biopic movie genre don’t seem quite so bright in 2025. |
Earlier this year when picking up a Sag award for his role as Bob Dylan in 2024’s “A Complete Unknown,” Timothée Chalamet conceded that the genre he was working in “could be perhaps tired” — American movie audiences in 2025 seem to be in broad agreement. While the Springsteen film’s gross over the weekend isn’t actually too far off the $11.7 million that the Dylan picture mustered on its open in December 2024, it pales in comparison to the huge figures biopics like “Straight Outta Compton” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” garnered. It's also less than a third of the sums that “Bob Marley: One Love” and “Elvis” pulled in. With a biopic on the King of Pop set to land next year, and separate efforts on each of the four Beatles slated for a couple of years after that, it’d be ill-advised to sound the death knell on the big-star-origin-story genre just yet. At least for now, though, moviegoers seem to have cooled on the format. | Apple is planning to put advertising in the Maps app by 2026 |
Apple is well known for its iconic ads. Now, the same thing that attracted many to the company in the first place could be what deters them from its products. According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman published on Sunday, Apple is moving ahead with plans to put adverts in its Maps app. Like features already incorporated into rival Google Maps and other navigation services, Apple plans to sell prominent space within the app’s search results to restaurants and other businesses. Per Gurman, this will be similar to Search Ads in the App Store, where developers can buy promoted slots for their software based on queries; Apple also intends to employ AI for its sponsored Maps suggestions to ensure “relevant and useful” results. |
After years of eschewing ads within its offerings, Apple seems increasingly enamored by in-app marketing — perhaps as a way to bolster its all-important Services division, which keeps the Apple machine ticking along between iPhone purchases. Last year, the segment brought in ~$96 billion in revenue, roughly a quarter of the company’s total. |
Home to the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud, advertising, and more, Apple has grown its Services revenue fivefold in the past decade alone. Meanwhile, per eMarketer’s estimates, Apple’s ad revenue totalled $6.5 billion last year, or 7% of its Services total. Although Apple has historically played down its desire to move further into the ad space, in part due to its privacy-conscious data collection terms, “Apple Ads” may now be too fruitful an option for the company not to squeeze for juice (à la Walmart and Amazon), with advertising typically carrying very healthy profit margins. Still, Apple could face a backlash if it plugs promos too strongly: users have fought against ads featuring in iOS settings; in June, many iPhone customers bemoaned Apple Wallet putting out a push notification to promote the F1 movie; and we all remember that U2 album. |
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China could start buying US soybeans again |
Last year, China bought more than $12 billion worth of American soybeans. Since the summer, however, not a single bean has been shipped, making the legume one of many commodities that have fallen victim to simmering trade tensions. But China might be about to start buying American beans again. Soybean futures rose 2% to a five-month high in Chicago this morning, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China “will be making substantial purchases” as the two countries close in on a trade deal. For American farmers, it’s a much-needed jolt of optimism, as soybeans are the country’s biggest agricultural export — worth $24.5 billion last year — according to the USDA. |
China typically buys more than half of that total, so its absence this season has left US silos full and profits thin. Earlier this month, Washington outlined a bailout plan to help offset losses, but payments have been delayed by the government shutdown, leaving growers in limbo in the middle of harvest season. |
If this soybean standoff feels familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. Back in 2018, the US-China trade flare-up cut American soybean exports to China by 75% in a single year, prompting the government to roll out roughly $12 billion in emergency farm aid. Meanwhile, China has already stocked up on soybeans from Brazil and Argentina and is ramping up domestic production. Still, Bessent, himself a soybean farmer, said growers will be “extremely happy” with the upcoming deal “for this year and for the coming years,” in his interview with CBS News on Sunday. |
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- US consumers are expected to spend a record $13.1 billion for Halloween this year, per the National Retail Federation’s annual survey.
- Where to, guv? London’s iconic (and waning) fleet of black cabs will have some new competition soon, as Waymo and Uber look to debut their driverless taxis in the city starting next year.
- A high school student in Maryland was reportedly handcuffed after an AI security system confused his bag of Doritos for a possible firearm.
- For perfection: Strive, the bitcoin treasury company backed by former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, went vertical this morning as retail traders eye the firm.
- Another retail favorite, GameStop, also rose in premarket trading after the official White House X account shared its post with an image of President Trump as a Halo character.
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| Off the charts: By what age do nearly 60% of US children now own a smartphone, according to a recent Pew Research survey? [Answer below]. |
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