How a Universal Exec Picks IP; Sundance’s Last Dance; Netflix-WB Global Fallout
Plus: Scoops on Substack’s move into TV and WBD’s split date
Greetings from Park City, where Richard Rushfield and I are taking in “the Last Dance,” aka Sundance’s final fest in the Utah mountains. Yesterday morning at the FilmStack gathering Richard co-hosted with Kinema’s Christie Marchese and Ami Vora, there was a wistful vibe about next year’s move to Boulder, Colo., but people were still excited to talk about building community around independent filmmaking and the NonDē movement — and of course, to compare notes on Friday’s Charli XCX double header (Richard wrote about her starring vehicle, The Moment, and I caught her hilarious supporting turn in I Want Your Sex).
Richard also led an important conversation on Thursday at the Impact Lounge with members of the Future Film Coalition, whose new initiative, Block the Merger (more on that here), is aiming to collect short, first-hand accounts from filmmakers, film workers, producers, sales agents, exhibitors, audiences and other professionals as evidence to document how media consolidation is hurting the independent film ecosystem. Ultimately, these testimonials will be shared with government officials looking to fight consolidation.
On Friday at UTA House, I tackled “Changing the Narrative on Health in Storytelling” with the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s Dr. Stacy Smith, writer-director Petra Volpe, producer Ben Grayson (co-founder with Chris Hemsworth of Wild State) and Lilly CMO Lina Polimeni. You can find Richard tomorrow morning at Old Town Cellars, where he’ll chat with producer Shane Boris and antitrust attorney Lee Hepner (“Streaming Power, Creative Loss: The Fight for the Future of Hollywood”; RSVP here), and I’ll be back at the Impact Lounge Tuesday for a talk with “Fearless Female Filmmakers” including producer Liz Cardenas, director Millicent Hailes (Perfect, the upcoming Julia Fox vehicle) and others (register here).
Look for Richard’s final report from the mountain later today, and catch up on all his Sundance dispatches here:
Now, ICYMI, our best of the week:
Series Business: Universal’s IP Ambitions
Our London correspondent, Manori Ravindran, roars back from maternity leave with a wide-ranging column about the blast radius set to strike Europe in the wake of the pending Netflix-Warner Bros. deal — plus, she scoops the official date Warner Bros. and Discovery split:
Jordan Moblo, Universal Studio Group’s book guru, talks to Lesley Goldberg about the evolving books-to-screen market and how he makes decisions on what to option. Plus, Lesley’s analysis of Netflix recent spate of library buys:
Polymarket has been reaching out to programming executives asking for meetings, Elaine Low reports. Plus, she reveals whether California’s newly expanded film and TV tax credit has actually started to make a difference:
Like & Subscribe: Substack Moves Into TV
Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey nailed a huge exclusive this week about Substack’s new TV app and spoke to the company’s CEO, Chris Best, about what it can unlock for creators and audiences:
Dealmakers: Big Game, Bigger Ad Stakes
Ahead of the Big Game, Ashley Cullins chats with top reps and more about the exact dollar range stars are making for Super Bowl ads (less than you’d guess) and this year’s tough new rules of negotiation:
Prestige Junkie: Oscar Noms
Oscar nominations are finally set, and Katey Rich breaks down with Christopher Rosen who won, who lost and what it all means for the big night in March:
The Wakeup
Sean McNulty put Netflix under the microscope after its Q4 earnings call and H2 2025 data dump, and the intel he gleaned is fascinating for the business:
📹 Ankler Shows
Monday Morning QBs: Sony’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple faced off against Netflix’s Matt Damon-Ben Affleck vehicle The Rip and it wasn’t pretty:
Future of Sundance: Festival director Eugene Hernandez joined Richard for a chat about the last Park City incarnation of the iconic indie haven:
🎧 PODCASTS
ANKLER AGENDA
Elaine, Sean and Natalie predict the top stars of 2026 and share behind-the-scenes insights from the casting directors of Heated Rivalry:
Hollywood still throws plenty. It just forgot how to have one, says Rob Long:
📱 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.
