|
|
Team Ankler took in Thursday’s dramatic lunar eclipse from high in the Hollywood Hills, where Janice Min, Web Summit’s Ciara Haley and Bitmoji co-founder Ba Blackstock hosted a chic soirée all about the future of entertainment. We welcomed top creators (Alan Stokes, Gabi Moura, Kaelyn Moore), CEOs (Whalar’s Jo Cronk, Flawless AI’s Scott Mann, Made by All’s Leanne Perice), Hollywood insiders (Amazon’s Hannah Broadhurst, WME’s Chris Jacquemin, Tubi’s Kudzi Chikumbu) and other leading execs from OpenAI, Spotify and more. Thanks to Ba for sharing his stunning modernist home, and to Core Advisors for helping us celebrate some of the smartest people charting Hollywood’s next chapter.
Check out the photos from our big night on Instagram and a few below.
 |
| HIGH SPIRITS 1. From left: Ciara Haley, Janice and Ba Blackstock. 2. Partygoers took in killer views of L.A. above the Hollywood Bowl. 3. Bobby Berk and Gabi Moura. 4. From left: Made by Us co-CEO Tanya Cohen, Jo Cronk, Kudzi Chikumbu, OpenAI’s Whitney Glassberg and Leanne Perice. 5. Stokes Twins COO Colin Lekstutis, Alan Stokes and Scott Mann. 6. From left: Tiger Sisters Cherie and Jean Luo, Race Capital’s Edith Yang and Web Summit’s Casey Lau. Roger Kisby |
On the other hand… our top read this week highlighted some of the industry’s older ways that never seem to die — think screaming bosses, terrorized underlings — as Tony Pierce, a longtime rideshare driver, revealed what he’s seen and heard over 10 years of pickups from CAA’s Century City offices. Can you ID the agency partner who made an assistant deliver his Gucci slides to the private terminal at LAX?
Meanwhile, Elaine Low spoke to Rob Bonta just hours after he called off Monday’s settlement talks, accusing Paramount of leaking details. On a fiery bonus episode of Ankler Agenda, the AG blasted David Ellison’s team for “playing games” and got clear for the first time about what it will take to make a deal: structural remedies that include unloading cable channels. Lesley Goldberg dug into which Paramount/WBD cable brands have the most value and the possible buyers emerging to “milk them until the end.”
And finally, if you’re hitting the Venice Film Festival next week, look out for Janice and Manori Ravindran, who’ll participate — along with The Black List’s Franklin Leonard and more top voices in entertainment and philanthropy — in Lights! Camera! Impact!, a symposium about how Hollywood can (and must) reimagine the stories it tells about parenthood. It’s an exciting and crucial conversation Ankler Media is leading in partnership with the Human Safety Net, the Van Leer Foundation and filmmaker and activist Anadil Hossain, and I’ll have more here next week on what they all discover together.
Now, ICYMI, the rest of our best of the week:
Series Business
 |
| Illustration by The Ankler. Source images: Os Tartarouchos/Getty Images, Meaghan Browning/Getty Images, Jaroslaw Wojcik/Getty Images, Issarawat Tattong/Getty Images, Disney, No Ju-han/Netflix, Sean Gladwell/Getty Images. |
↑ TV Is Failing Young Men and Boys. Here’s What They Actually Want Teens and tweens revealed they like superheroes, yes. But Elaine explains why friendship, vulnerability and lives that look like their own appeal to them, too.
TV in 3: Duffers Nab North Road Exec, Mindy Kaling’s NSFW Seeks a Lifeline Plus, Lesley digs into USA Network and Fox combining indie forces on a new drama series.
Richard Rushfield
 |
| CBS via Getty Images, Gene Arias/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images, J. Vespa/WireImage, Fairchild Archive/Penske Media via Getty Images |
↑ Hayden Panettiere, the Final Blow of Child Stardom — and Hollywood’s Shame Another lost soul joins an awful list of tragedies. Richard asks the only question left: When will this horror show make the industry realize something is wrong?
Crowd Pleaser
 |
| Illustration by The Ankler. Images: Michael Siluk/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images, A24, Macall Polay/20th Century, Disney/Pixar, Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, Jay Maidment/Sony Pictures. |
↑ Tales From the Lobby: Small Theaters and Survival in a Blockbuster Summer Matthew Frank hears from theater operators on Spidey, the screens that printed money and why Hollywood can’t afford another PG drought.
Reel AI
 |
| Illustration by The Ankler. Images: Apple, Yevgen Romanenko/Getty Images. |
↑ Apple Music’s Big AI Test: Will Fans Always Choose the Human? A third of new uploads are synthetic, but account for less than 0.5 percent of listening. Erik Barmack analyzes why the platforms are betting that may not last.
Podcasts
Ankler Agenda
Natalie joins Elaine and Sean to unpack her fresh reporting on Netflix and YouTube’s new creator wars — and debate the bigger question: Which company is actually playing defense?
Shows
Monday Morning QBs
A new YouGov poll shows that Gen Z goes to the movies most — so Sean and Chris wonder why Hollywood keeps releasing so many movies built on Gen X stars:
Rushfield Lunch
Jezebel founder Anna Holmes joins Richard to discuss her book The Power of No and what a new Jezebel would look like today:
|
|
|
|
