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, March 28, 2024.

Where lest you think all trade secret espionage in Big Tech happens between countries — enter, you guessed it, FACEBOOK!

Meet Project Ghostbusters folks, which apparently was the internal name given to (then) FACEBOOK’s 2016 snooping initiative to intercept and decrypt the network traffic of SNAP users to gain competitive insights, according to new documents released as part of a class-action lawsuit against META.

FB later used this technique of decrypting previously-encrypted data traffic on YOUTUBE and AMAZON as well, according to the internal documents. Oh META . . . how could you 😔.

Though, gotta love this quote in an email at the time from FB’s then Head of Security Engineering, Pedro Canahuati: “I can’t think of a good argument for why this is okay.”

AND: Ariana DeBose will return to host the Tonys for the third year in a row this June on CBS.

ALSO: The MLB ⚾️ season starts today . . . well, not in NYC — sorry METS (52 degrees and rain means you get your own special day to start tomorrow).

ADD: LINKEDIN to the list of social media platforms looking to be more like TIKTOK (it’s testing a new ‘short-form video feed’). Come on bro . . . this is why we like you!! Just be yourself — well, by that I mean present an obviously much more successful version of your actual self, but still.

KUDOS: To the Jersey Shore resident who won $1.1 Billion in the Mega Millions this week, breaking a streak that existed from last December. SKYDANCE — I’m happy to see if they want in on PARAMOUNT when I’m down there this weekend.

Note: If this winner is a relative of mine, well — it’s been great run, thanks for reading everyone.

HMM: Some context for that attention-grabbing $5M offer that Ice Cube’s BIG3 basketball league made to Caitlin Clark to play in 8 games, with potentially 2 more playoff games . . . that’s it. The Athletic points out that the highest WNBA salary is currently $252k a season, and highest rookie pay last year was $74k.

PLUS: Media buying giant GROUP M is going to double its ad spend investment in women’s sports in 2024-2025, starting with the Upfronts — although no note of how big that spend was in 2023-2024 👀. 2x is great . . . but 2x of what?

TODAY IN ‘DIGITAL ADVERTISING IS THE FUTURE’: It seems some digital e-comm brands are having an increasing issue with fraudulent ad campaigns on META, according to Modern Retail. Apparently folks can run entire ad campaigns on FB and INSTA using a brand’s logo and imagery (and fake underlying URLs) . . . which clearly have nothing to do with the companies they’re faking (lo and behold — they’re mechanisms to steal either consumer data or worse).

When consumers complain to META or simply try to point out this illegal activity, they’re told, yes, wait for it . . . that the companies doing this obvious fraud aren’t breaking any of META’s policies. 🤬
I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear that META apparently also isn’t too helpful in stopping these things when brands themselves complain . . . including brands who sign up for something that totally doesn’t sound like a mafia payment — the META Brand Rights Protection tool.
- Even then — companies report they still have to do a lot of the manual work (💰) here themselves to find and deal with the fraudulent campaigns.

See ya at the Upfronts in about six weeks.

THEN: AMAZON is putting another $2.75 Billion into AI company ANTHROPIC, the second installment of a promised $4 Billion investment announced last year (i.e. this is not an additional new investment on top of that).

The startup is currently being sued by UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING and 2 other large music publishers for using their copyrighted materials in training its AI.

#PrintIsTheNewVinyl: Josh Kushner & Karlie Kloss are reviving Life as a print magazine and brand, securing the rights from Barry Diller’s DOTDASH MEREDITH (which still owns the archive, and will still publish themed, one-off print editions), according to the NY Times. The plan is to have Life on its feet next year.

Kushner & Kloss’s BEDFORD MEDIA also owns W and i-D.

OH: In case you want to find the football (or gambling) fan in your life during the holidays this year . . . better make the most of Dec. 24 and Dec. 27.

WAKEUP BOX-OFFICE POLL

Okay, it’s time for the real marquee matchup of March: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Where are we by Easter Sunday? Tracking is broadly $50M to $55M.

The last one did $48M over 5 days in pandemic-ish 2021, and was also a #ProjectPopcorn pic so, not great comps here.

IN THIS EDITION

A look at what’s afoot at AMAZON MGM’s movie business of late . . . which makes NETFLIX’s latest movie project acquisition all the more curious.
Who made more money in 2023 — the theatrical movie business or the recorded music business? Take a look at the numbers.
PAR gets more great news from Wall Street (err, I mean “great”)
Plus a busy day in new projects and casting around town once again, and much more.