☀️WGA Against PAR/WBD Deal, Microdramas Get New H’wood Player
PAR, Depp do the holiday movie thing / NBC's NBA audience returns / T-MOBILE Q3 broadband soars
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Friday, October 24, 2025.
Where it’s reassuring to see POLYMARKET isn’t letting yet another “ya don’t say . . .” sports gambling scandal get in its way — I mean, the app still isn’t even legal in this country anyway 😉!
Yes, the gambling site predictions market is having conversations with money’d folks about new funding at a valuation between $12B and $15B — or 10x the valuation it had . . . 4 months ago — which is similar to the conversations I am also having for this newsletter.
Thus far, they are very short conversations.
AND: Ya gotta love Trump demolishing the White House movie theater this week to make way for his ballroom 🤌. So, now I guess YOUTUBE is literally crushing Hollywood (AMAZON and COMCAST, we see your donations to the cause as well).
WELL DONE 👏: To Stephen Colbert for this line, referring to the Trump admin’s efforts to closing down public areas that the press was using to document the East Wing destruction:
“If none of it’s on camera, they can just claim the East Wing hanged itself in prison.”
KUDOS: To AMAZON PRIME VIDEO for using the slot right after the end of its Thursday Night Football games to air full trailers for AMAZON projects — Crime 101 got the love last night, well done!
There was also plenty of NBA promo for tonight’s big debut on PRIME VIDEO in the fully programmed post-game show.
And then a Shaboozey concert sponsored by PAR+/Tulsa King, with promo to sign up for PAR+ via AMAZON SUBSCRIPTIONS (fka CHANNELS)
Gotta love that AMAZON #Flywheel in action!
THEN: Sounds like there’s gonna be a lotta homemade KPop Demon Hunters costumes out there trick—or-treating next Friday . . .
YEAH: Ya gotta love The Goonies getting the LEGO set treatment!
HMM: PAR is putting its upcoming A Paw Patrol Christmas special (airing Thanksgiving weekend on CBS) in 3,600 movie theaters across 17 countries starting next weekend — and yet not in the U.S., where perhaps you could see it as a fun singalong event for parents to bring their kids to . . . a la KPop.
I get the CBS thing, but why are NETFLIX and Taylor Swift the only folks looking at better utilizing movie theaters in this country for events in Q4? Movie studios — there are other things to do besides just re-releasing old films from the library.
I can’t think of a reason PAR couldn’t look to theatrically eventize this holiday singalong special from a franchise with a proven track record in movie theaters . . . and offer something fun to do with the young kids during the day in the holiday season (note there is a bonus 11-minute Paw Patrol “episode” being included in the international theatrical stunt).
You can even run your SpongeBob movie trailer before it! (in theaters December 19.) I mean, it’s not like the kids won’t re-watch the special 30 times on PAR+ afterward anyway.
Via Giphy
PLUS: The WSJ reviewed ATLAS and the other new AI-driven browser options out there — which really do seem like a real evolution of the product that hasn’t been made in 30 years.
The piece includes a look at a new tool from DIA called Budget Buddy (avail for Macs) that tells you where to find cheaper versions of the things you’re looking to buy . . . right as you’re browsing sites. Sure that’ll do wonders for the bougie e-comm sector.
BUT: Basically this all confirmed the thesis that most internet traffic will turn into bots talking to each other. Can’t wait until they get into their own shouting matches against each other on X!
AH: Inflation ticked along at +3% YoY in September (August was +2.9%), still well above the Fed’s 2% goalpoast . . . which still likely won’t stop another interest rate cut by the end of the year (if not 2).
BUT: I mean, it’s not like the U.S. didn’t just add $1T to its debt in . . . a 2 month period — the fastest accumulation of federal debt since Covid — to hit $38T total. Ugh, the debt is such a Q2 2025 topic 🙄, come on, bro!
YAH: A not-so-covered #funfact in those well-covered 600 META layoffs in its AI division this week — another roughly 100 folks were laid off in META’s User Privacy (😂) division. To be clear, the 😂 is not officially in the name of the group.
OH: Add DISNEY to the list of media companies coming down to the wire this fall in a YOUTUBE TV carriage deal — the current deal expires in a week and DISNEY has begun heating up the warning flares about losing your channels after Oct. 30.
Of course the irony here being that DISNEY is negotiating with the person who used to handle these negotiations for DISNEY, in Justin Connolly.
PLUS: Add BJ Novack’s pop-up food business, CHAIN, to the list of businesses outside of TV that FOX CORP is investing in, via FOX ENT’s STUDIO RAMSAY GLOBAL business . . . which certainly tracks.
No word on the 💰 or the % stake, and CHAIN MEDIA gets a first-look deal at FOX for . . . I’m not exactly sure what, but I guess we’ll find out.
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Count me in with the dreamers on Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere!
NEW POD
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
