Team Ankler took in Thursday’s dramatic lunar eclipse from high in the Hollywood Hills, where Janice Min, Web Summit’s Ciara Haley and Bitmoji co-founder Ba Blackstock hosted a chic soirée all about the future of entertainment. We welcomed top creators (Alan Stokes, Gabi Moura, Kaelyn Moore), CEOs (Whalar’s Jo Cronk, Flawless AI’s Scott Mann, Made by All’s Leanne Perice), Hollywood insiders (Amazon’s Hannah Broadhurst, WME’s Chris Jacquemin, Tubi’s Kudzi Chikumbu) and other leading execs from OpenAI, Spotify and more. Thanks to Ba for sharing his stunning modernist home, and to Core Advisors for helping us celebrate some of the smartest people charting Hollywood’s next chapter.
Check out the photos from our big night on Instagram and a few below.
On the other hand… our top read this week highlighted some of the industry’s older ways that never seem to die — think screaming bosses, terrorized underlings — as Tony Pierce, a longtime rideshare driver, revealed what he’s seen and heard over 10 years of pickups from CAA’s Century City offices. Can you ID the agency partner who made an assistant deliver his Gucci slides to the private terminal at LAX?
Meanwhile, Elaine Low spoke to Rob Bonta just hours after he called off Monday’s settlement talks, accusing Paramount of leaking details. On a fiery bonus episode of Ankler Agenda, the AG blasted David Ellison’s team for “playing games” and got clear for the first time about what it will take to make a deal: structural remedies that include unloading cable channels. Lesley Goldberg dug into which Paramount/WBD cable brands have the most value and the possible buyers emerging to “milk them until the end.”
And finally, if you’re hitting the Venice Film Festival next week, look out for Janice and Manori Ravindran, who’ll participate — along with The Black List’s Franklin Leonard and more top voices in entertainment and philanthropy — in Lights! Camera! Impact!, a symposium about how Hollywood can (and must) reimagine the stories it tells about parenthood. It’s an exciting and crucial conversation Ankler Media is leading in partnership with the Human Safety Net, the Van Leer Foundation and filmmaker and activist Anadil Hossain, and I’ll have more here next week on what they all discover together.
Now, ICYMI, the rest of our best of the week:
Series Business
↑ TV Is Failing Young Men and Boys. Here’s What They Actually Want Teens and tweens revealed they like superheroes, yes. But Elaine explains why friendship, vulnerability and lives that look like their own appeal to them, too.
TV in 3: Duffers Nab North Road Exec, Mindy Kaling’s NSFW Seeks a Lifeline Plus, Lesley digs into USA Network and Fox combining indie forces on a new drama series.
Netflix v. YouTube & Wall St.
↑ 15 Creators, Deals Up to $10M: Inside YouTube’s War to Fend Off Netflix Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey has the scoop on terms as “scared shitless” execs offer deals to Brittany Broski and Kareem Rahma, and Hulu joins the 7-figure fray.
Wall St. Is Punishing Netflix. Here’s Why — And What It Needs to Prove With the stock off 40 percent and YouTube pulling ahead, Claire Atkinson explains why the company is learning the cost of winning the streaming wars.
Richard Rushfield
↑ Hayden Panettiere, the Final Blow of Child Stardom — and Hollywood’s Shame Another lost soul joins an awful list of tragedies. Richard asks the only question left: When will this horror show make the industry realize something is wrong?
Crowd Pleaser
↑ Tales From the Lobby: Small Theaters and Survival in a Blockbuster Summer Matthew Frank hears from theater operators on Spidey, the screens that printed money and why Hollywood can’t afford another PG drought.
Reel AI
↑ Apple Music’s Big AI Test: Will Fans Always Choose the Human? A third of new uploads are synthetic, but account for less than 0.5 percent of listening. Erik Barmack analyzes why the platforms are betting that may not last.
Prestige Junkie
↑ Noah Wyle Manages the Young Docs of The Pitt Onscreen & Off The Gen X star and director tells Katey how he handles the show’s millennials and Gen Zers — and why he won’t say, “you know what we used to do…”
21 Best Emmy Nominations This Year, Ranked — Zendaya to Kimmel Katey shares her favorites and why.
The Clues Pointing to Widow’s Bay Beating Hacks Katey and Chris break down the toughest Emmy race to call — unless you know where to look.
The Wakeup
Besides the Bonta-Paramount battles, Sean McNulty looks at Apple TV’s price hike, Meta’s big lawsuit settlement — and Mark Wahlberg as the hardest-working leading man in showbiz:
Friday → ☀️ HULU 🫶 Ellen Pompeo, APPLE Joins #PriceHike Train
Thursday → ☀️ Wahlberg, Again! 10 Pics, 4 Years and Here’s Another
Wednesday → ☀️ WB Wants Flintstones, META’s $17B State Settlement
Tuesday → ☀️ PSKY’s Linear TV Options With Bonta
Sunday → ☀️ SONY Rules Late Summer Box Office
Podcasts
Ankler Agenda
Natalie joins Elaine and Sean to unpack her fresh reporting on Netflix and YouTube’s new creator wars — and debate the bigger question: Which company is actually playing defense?
Shows
Monday Morning QBs
A new YouGov poll shows that Gen Z goes to the movies most — so Sean and Chris wonder why Hollywood keeps releasing so many movies built on Gen X stars:
Rushfield Lunch
Jezebel founder Anna Holmes joins Richard to discuss her book The Power of No and what a new Jezebel would look like today:
The Optionist
Andy Lewis’ latest IP picks:
↑ A Horror Hunt for Red October That John Carpenter Would Love
Comments
Only Ankler All Access subscribers can comment
Already a subscriber?