☀️ OPENAI Enlists Humans in Hollywood March
NFL plants flag on Christmas Day / UNI sets new Cillian Murphy project / ESPN new move into streaming future
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY, March 26, 2024.
Where it’s definitely been a minute since we had a morning coffee together (rest in peace, celeb real estate website Dirt.com), but let’s change that today and sip some ☕️ on the deck of Zuck’s new $300 Million, 387 foot-long dinghy (I’m sure it runs on clean solar power, of course).
Or, if your tastes are more modest — we can have it brought to us on the $30 Million “companion ship” that comes with it, which as we all know is customary to have with one’s mega yacht. I mean, you can’t keep the good wine on the party boat. 🙄
So, time to get to work to make enough room to dock it near his $270 Million Hawaiian doomsday bunker 🤞 — let’s just hope his beer-filled cows don’t mistakenly stumble their way on board 🐮💩.
AND: Diddy’s homes in NYC, L.A. and Miami were raided by the Feds as part of ongoing sex trafficking investigations against him.
HUH: A San Francisco appeals court ruled that advertisers could sue META for inflating the number of people who saw their ads by as much as 400% (and thus how much META over-charged them for that privilege).
Can you imagine what would happen if NIELSEN or a TV network did that? Folks, enjoy the digital advertising future — see ya at the Upfronts.
AND: The EU is now going to take about a year to do diligence on how well companies like META, APPLE and GOOGLE are complying with their digital laws there. March 2025 should be fun.
Remember the EU has real fines for these kinds of violations: up to as much as 10% of a company’s total annual worldwide revenue, and up to 20% for companies who repeatedly flout the rules. Although ya know, I’m sure everything’s on the up and up.
WELL: At least kids under 14 years-old in Florida won’t have to deal with any of this anymore — Gov. DeSantis signed a bill banning social media accounts for anyone under 14 in Florida, regardless of parental consent, and companies must close accounts of Florida residents that they know to be under that age, as of Jan. 1. Those ages 14 & 15 can get accounts with parental consent.
In a move that I guarantee they did not appreciate the irony of . . . NETCHOICE, the trade group for social companies like META, SNAP and TIKTOK said that the law would essentially infringe on people’s privacy. Man, that’s rich. The lawsuit that we all know is coming to challenge this law has yet to be filed.
NOW: Who wants new SORA videos!? 😱 OPENAI opened the tool up to some filmmakers, artists, etc, and dropped a new round of video shorts to check out here. This of course comes after the report a few days ago that OPEN AI is taking meetings around town to get Hollywood creative folk to take a whirl.
But for now — enjoy some flamingo-giraffe hybrids, and balloon man here 👇:
ALTHOUGH: Perhaps the term “Artwashing” will increasingly become part of the vocabulary here . . . as folks are pointing out some uh, potential conflicts in advancing a tool that uses other people’s work as a component, without proper compensation, from a company whose CTO has no idea what creative Sora is using to create its output.
ADD: The BBC to the list of media companies using AI in marketing materials (here for Doctor Who) . . . it subsequently received complaints, apologized for it and said they won’t do it anymore (could that sentence be any more British?). It was to draft some promo emails, and BBC disclosed the use of AI before sending.
BACK OVER IN REAL LIFE: This overnight Baltimore bridge collapse from a ship strike is 🤯:
IN OTHER BOAT NEWS: Pete Davidson & Colin Jost are turning their decommissioned Staten Island Ferry into a traveling restaurant, bar/nightclub & event . . . uh, barge (I guess?), with a 24-room hotel included. The ship’s engine won’t be operational, but the idea is to tow the $34 Million project between ports in various cities, and yes, Miami was one cited.
ALSO: Kudos to a New York institution — yesterday marked 50 years for Chuck Scarborough at WNBC in NYC 👏.
A REST IN PEACE: Goes out to longtime industry exec and producer Paula Weinstein (The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Perfect Storm, Analyze This), who died at the age of 78 yesterday.
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
The NFL is expanding to Christmas once again (👋 NBA), as ESPN makes a small move that tips a hand to a potentially much larger strategy.
New project news at UNI, PEACOCK, DISNEYFOX, CBS, APPLE TV+ and much more.
BONUS 1: Just a nice story from the NY Times about how dog adoption has helped the community outside of Nashville, TN after their school shooting incident last year (plus just a lotta cute pictures of dogs to start your day — and a turtle).
BONUS 2: For your listening rotation — the boss (The Ankler CEO Janice Min, not Bruce) is the latest guest on the Digiday pod:
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
