GPT-5, Sora 2 & Hollywood in Revolt; 10 Power Showrunners
Plus: a top agent’s secrets for selling unscripted TV now & Chalamet’s Oscar bid
The industry was abuzz over our Reel AI two-parter, written by producer Erik Barmack, about Sora 2 and GPT-5. It was a week when Hollywood finally found its fight against AI’s breakneck incursion as OpenAI’s new technologies stun the industry with a vault forward in video quality and — more ominously — a brazen hoovering of IP. Agencies, guilds and studios slammed the tech, even as GPT-5’s irresistible functions immediately found their way into writers rooms, on studio lots and in production offices. Erik interrogates the risks and potential — and offers a roadmap for Hollywood as it faces its greatest existential threat perhaps in its history:
AI is becoming the threat of all threats to the industry, and potentially its greatest opportunity. Will AI be able to make a new film from a single text prompt? It hasn’t been ruled out. But most importantly: Will Hollywood ranks — executives, writers, crew and all — have a place in the new AI order?
The answer to that question is more complex than a short response, and we put together some of our best and most recent coverage here:
Fittingly, AI was also one of many hot topics on the agenda at Advertising Week in NYC, where Ankler Media CEO Janice Min spoke on a panel moderated by Axios’ Kerry Flynn. Even as fears churn about the tech, “Top creators, top voices, great writers will have a greater premium,” Janice told the standing room only crowd. “People’s individual voices will rise in that environment.”
This week, we’ve got our own coast-to-coast events coming. Look for Sean McNulty at DPAA Summit on Tuesday in NYC — where he’ll moderate a conversation with Warner Bros. Pictures marketing co-heads Dana Nussbaum and Christian Davin about their winning year — and at the Montclair Film Festival, where he and Richard Rushfield will host a State of the Industry chat on Saturday at 1 p.m. Also in Montclair, Ankler deputy editor Christopher Rosen will lead an Oct. 19 conversation about Audiences, Awards, and the Future of Movie Marketing. Meanwhile, Montclair denizen Thom Powers of Pure Nonfiction is westward bound, joining us out in L.A. on Thursday to host our latest Documentary Spotlight event at Vista House, where he’ll sit down with filmmakers including Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman (The Alabama Solution), David Osit and Jamie Goncalves (Predators) and many more. Request an invitation here.
Now, ICYMI, here’s the rest of our best this week:
Series Business: Anon Reality Rep; Top 10 Showrunners
In a no-holds-barred chat with a top unscripted TV agent, Elaine Low learns what producers must bring to the table now to close a deal; what every seller needs to have in a pitch deck and presentation to stand out; and Netflix’s new unscripted strategy and the formats it’s betting on now:
Lesley Goldberg surveyed agents, top execs and leading figures in the industry about which TV creators shape the market and own the zeitgeist; and what they said about why these pros get hired:
Richard Rushfield Sounds the Alarm (Again)
Whether it’s AI, production flight, Big Tech or a merger that would leave thousands out of work, threats loom everywhere. The only constant across all of them: Hollywood at large can’t seem to put up any kind of fight. Richard assails those who wish to go quietly into this abyss:
Prestige Junkie: Chalamet & Swift
Timothée Chalamet’s speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year, where he boldly declared himself “in pursuit of greatness,” wasn’t just talk, writes Christopher Rosen, who attended the New York premiere of the star’s Marty Supreme. Plus: Katey Rich chats with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You director Mary Bronstein about her incendiary A24 flick:
The Wakeup
The action is the juice each morning for Sean McNulty, who details the studio swap on Michael Mann’s Heat 2, the big-name producers now attached — and the dubious economics ($170 million!) for a 30-years-later sequel:
Monday Morning QBs
This week on our live box office show, Richard and Sean name Taylor Swift a theatrical one-of-one, drawing audiences on name alone. Plus: The Smashing Machine flop raises questions around A24:
🎧 PODCASTS
THE ANKLER
10 Showrunners Shaping TV — Right as GPT-5 Rewrites Everything The most influential creators meet their most disruptive collaborator yet:
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
📱 LIKE & SUBSCRIBE BY NATALIE JARVEY
👓 THE OPTIONIST BY ANDY LEWIS
FINAL HOUSEKEEPING!
As an Ankler subscriber, you are automatically subscribed to all of our newsletters and podcasts by default. Not interested in all of them? Customize which ones would like to receive notifications for. It’s easy to do.
Log into your Substack account from a desktop or laptop, select “Settings” from the drop-down menu.
Under Subscriptions, click on The Ankler to review the sections you’d like to subscribe to/unsubscribe from.
On the next page, click on the toggles next to each newsletter and podcast you want to receive emails for. A gray toggle indicates notifications are off.
Alternatively, when you get an email newsletter, select “Unsubscribe” in the footer of the email and click on “Turn off emails” next to each section you’d like to unsubscribe from.
