Boiling Point: M&A, Kimmel, AI & Jobs
Plus: Sam Altman’s Pixar moment; a discredited doc’s second chance
Anyone feeling unsettled by relentless Hollywood consolidation, concessions and disruption should watch The Ankler’s Thursday Town Hall, where Richard Rushfield and anti-monopoly expert Matt Stoller (the mind behind Substack BIG) led a clear-eyed discussion on how you can push back against a possible Paramount-WBD merger if you don’t think it would be good for the business (and they lay out plenty of reasons why it wouldn’t be, based on the troubled history for workers following industry M&A). On the Zoom, joined by hundreds, former FTC chair Lina Khan and former commissioner Alvaro Bedoya (who challenged Trump’s attempt to fire him earlier this year) urged entertainment workers to take a stand. “Storytellers, you have a unique ability to tell a public story here,” said Khan, citing the power of the public to influence elected state AGs, as well as the effective campaign that blocked approval for the Simon & Schuster-Penguin Random House merger a few years ago. “Really leaning into that could be quite effective.”
Watch the video, read the transcript, take notes.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension and return to ABC kept nerves frayed too. Elaine Low and Lesley Goldberg delivered exclusive details in their tick-tock of the crisis and explored the long-term ripples for late night and comedy.
And on The Ankler podcast, Richard joined Elaine, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey to talk about the head-spinning chain of events, the heartening effort by Bob Iger and Dana Walden to get Kimmel back on the air, and what it all means for the town’s perennial favorite topic: Disney succession.
Now, ICYMI, here’s the rest of our best of the week:
Series Business: Fighting for L.A. Jobs
Lesley scoops Breaking Bad and Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan’s four-year overall deal renewal with Sony, his longtime studio home, and takes stock of the state of overalls in the post-peak TV era:
Elaine chatted with her congressperson this week: U.S. Rep. Laura Friedman (whose district includes Burbank, Glendale, WeHo and parts of L.A. and Pasadena). The former film and TV producer who was on the front lines protesting Kimmel’s suspension explains why concentrated media ownership threatens democracy and how she’s fighting for a tax credit that could make or break Hollywood jobs:
Reel AI: Sam Altman’s Pixar Moment
OpenAI is spending $30 million on Critterz, an animated film aiming to debut at Cannes ’26, and the stakes are stratospheric, Erik Barmack writes. If OpenAI can deliver a feature-length hit in nine months, the very definition of “studio” changes, and the same theaters that fear AI disruption to their business may welcome Critterz with open arms:
Starry Allies for a Discredited Doc
Meg Smaker’s The UnRedacted follows five former Gitmo prisoners doing time in a rehab center for Islamic militants. But after accusations of Islamophobia and debates over Smaker’s handling of such fraught material, Sundance apologized for screening the doc and EP Abigail Disney wiped her hands of it. Nicole LaPorte chronicles Smaker’s quest to get the film seen as filmmakers like Alex Gibney and Sebastian Junger take her side and detractors still fight:
Prestige Junkie: ‘Megalopolis’, ‘Predator’ Docs
This week, Katey Rich has looks into buzzy documentaries that reassess two loaded pieces of pop culture: Francis Ford Coppola’s megaflop Megalopolis and the mid-’00s Dateline series To Catch a Predator. Plus: On her Prestige Junkie podcast, Katey and Tyler Coates dissect how Warners will run Oscar campaigns for Sinners vs. One Battle After Another:
The Wakeup
Buried by the other wave of Disney headlines this week, the Mouse House announced some significant streaming price hikes. Sean McNulty assesses the increases, how Disney manages to do this year after year and how price hikes affect streaming profits:
Weekly Shows
Monday Morning QBs: This week on our live box office show, Richard and Sean break down why two original films — Him and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey — both struggled to leave a mark, and how Taylor Swift mastered the power of theaters:
Rushfield Lunch: Russian dissident Garry Kasparov has as much experience with authoritarianism as anyone — and what he’s seeing now in the U.S. frightens him. Kasparov joins Richard for a chat about the warning signs to be concerned about, and how to fight back:
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