Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY, February 20, 2025.

Where some say corporate innovation is dead (and a good morning to you as well, Richard), but I gotta say the folks at DINE BRANDS GLOBAL are clearly bucking the trend.

Ladies and gentlemen — meet the APPLEBEE’S IHOP! Yes, DINE has Frankenstein’d its two brands into one location for the very lucky folks in Seguin, TX (about 45 minutes outside of San Antonio), who will now be living the dream of not having to change locations all day when “working from home” during March Madness next month (better hope that Wi-Fi is strong, APPLEHOP).

Plus, you can finally live that dream of ordering a martini with your pancakes. #Innovation

AND: Cynthia Erivo is your Tonys host this June.

ALSO: NETFLIX is investing $1B over 4 years (2025-28) in Mexican productions, including $2M in one of Mexico City’s oldest and biggest production facilities, CHURUBUSCO STUDIOS.

PLUS: The NFL is going back to Brazil for a Friday night opening weekend game this Sept. 5, featuring the CHARGERS. No word where it’ll air/stream (last year was PEACOCK).

• Labor Day being early on the calendar gives the NFL that option (Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 says it can’t do Friday night games starting the 2nd Friday of September).

THEN: Happy 1 month into the new administration! Okay fine, I guess it’s technically tomorrow — but while this is anecdotal for sure, just one month of the return of Trump 2.0 may be tiring some folks out already.

• It seems a not insignificant number of folks on the very popular Joe Rogan pod REDDIT are already tired of the constant and overpowering Elon talk of late. Kinda tough managing the brand when things go from being anti-establishment to . . . establishment.

  • Rogan’s pod is currently down to #3 on the APPLE chart this week behind The Daily and a “left”-leaning pod called The MeidasTouch.

• Things aren’t much better for Elon — and certainly not Zuck in this new PEW RESEARCH poll from the turn of February. God bless the 6% of folks who said they hadn’t heard of Zuck.

• BTW: NY TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, AP, REUTERS, POLITICO and the notorious left-leaning, uh, BLOOMBERG NEWS are the main news subscription publications targeted for government account cancelations. Still trying to figure out how the WSJ avoided the knife . . . 🤔.

• OH: Speaking of the notoriously left-leaning WSJ, it reported that X strongly hinted to ad biz behemoth INTERPUBLIC that in effect it needed to get clients to buy more on X, or, well, let’s just see how the company’s currently merger deal proceedings with OMNICOM go.

• FINALLY: Ya just gotta love that moment when a FOX NEWS host realizes that Trump / DOGE cuts to the Pentagon are also going to result in the layoffs of military veterans who work there 🤯 (not to mention DOGE also cut 💰 support for 9/11 first responders). Gonna be a fun year, everyone.

WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL

Now, a 100% Zuck-free poll! 🥳

NEON’s The Monkey is roughly tracking around $17M . . . but I had previously seen some higher numbers than that for this movie from the studio and director that brought us Longlegs. So, let’s go a little big here.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN