Before I get to our stories of the week, a reminder — today is the LAST DAY of our biggest Ankler sale ever. Until midnight tonight, new paid annual subscriptions are 30% off (gift subscriptions too)! That comes out to less than $10 per month for the industry’s freshest reporting, scoops and most incisive analysis.
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A whip-smart daily brief from Sean McNulty’s The Wakeup
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Reel AI from producer Erik Barmack, who balances opportunity and outrage in reporting on the tools about to take over Hollywood
Features that bring you fresh perspective (and fun), like the 19 press tour stops that matter now, the IRL experiences Gen Z audiences really want, and the microdrama boom minting six-figure careers
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Katey Rich’s Prestige Junkie that takes you into the heart of awards season, and Matthew Frank’s Crowd Pleaser, our collab with Letterboxd
TODAY is the last day of our sale at the lowest price we’ve ever offered, so don’t miss your chance to get — or give — our best-in-class intel. Next year, we’ll continue to expand and deepen our coverage of where entertainment is heading (not where it was).
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Now, ICYMI, here’s our best of the week:
Series Business: Actors’ Pivot as Ads Dry Up; Big Biz of Holiday Movies
If you watched some good old-fashioned linear TV this Thanksgiving, you probably caught a lot of ads featuring faces like Jason Momoa and Chris Pratt. Between the rise in star shills and advertiser pullback from traditional TV spots, day-to-day working actors are pivoting to a new survival playbook, Elaine reports:
The Grinch brings fewer ho-ho-holiday movies on tighter budgets in today’s Hollywood, but for writers, payday can still feel like Christmas morning. Speaking with more than a dozen execs and creatives who work in the genre, Lesley digs into the economics of festive fare and how the post-Peak TV contraction has impacted Santa’s messengers:
Rushfield: Hollywood’s Vultures
Richard calls out the rapacious shift from value creation to vulture capitalism that is currently driving showbiz’s demise:
Crowd Pleaser: Movies-as-Games’ New Era
Films are no longer just watched. They’re also being played. Matthew scoops how Paul Thomas Anderson influenced the decision to put One Battle After Another into Fortnite, and reveals how studios are using Fortnite and Roblox as marketing tools, while Disney’s Epic Games investment revitalizes the Walt Disney flywheel:
Dealmakers: Foreign Presales’ New Playbook
Ashley talks to top players about what global rights buyers want now (besides Jason Statham), how they’re keeping the indie ecosystem alive, which genres travel, and what it’s really going to take to get a movie made in 2026:
Notable: Johnson & Johnson Talk Dead Man
Rian Johnson has worked with his composer cousin, Nathan Johnson, on every film he’s made except for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Rob LeDonne chats with the two creators about their shared love of “imperfection,” the progression of the Knives Out trilogy, and how the darker, gothic tone of Wake Up Dead Man required a musical pivot:
Prestige Junkie: The Big A-List Interviews
Katey brought her A-game to the A-list this week, logging a terrific interview with Dwayne Johnson — whose turn as UFC fighter Mark Kerr in A24’s The Smashing Machine has him vying for an Oscar nom — as well as revealing conversations with Hamnet director Chloé Zhao and composer Max Richter:
The Wakeup
As Regretting You and Wicked: For Good over-perform while Him, The Smashing Machine and The Running Man all fail to deliver, women were the ones powering the fall box office. Sean breaks down the stark data — and the opportunity lying in plain slight:
📹 Ankler Shows
Monday Morning QBs: Wicked: For Good scored big, but the rest of the box office top 10 grossed just under $31.6 million combined. Richard and Sean assess what to make of the scary times in theatrical:
Rushfield Lunch: The Simpsons and Frasier alum Jay Kogen joins Richard for a discussion of how creatives in Hollywood can cope with relentless disruption:
🎧 PODCASTS
THE ANKLER
Elaine, Sean and Natalie Jarvey examine how women have been largely underserved at the box office this year, and Katey joins to lay out the key storylines as the Oscar race heats up:
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