🎬 24/7 Slop

👋 Good morning. A $580M undersea power cable linking the UK and Ireland has been rerouted after 'Harry Potter' fans discovered it would cut through Dobby's "grave" at Freshwater West beach in Wales, a memorial marking where the beloved elf character's death scene was filmed. Project CEO Simon Ludlam, fielding hundreds of calls, initially responded "Dobby? Who's Dobby?" before conceding defeat. The cable now passes near actual Bronze Age burial remains instead, which nobody seems to mind. Rest easy, Dobby.

Happy Wednesday. The weekend is now visible with the naked eye. Now, top off that coffee and let's get you caught up. 👇

David Ellison is doing the corporate equivalent of standing by the door with his coat on. At a lunch on the Paramount lot last week, he reportedly told his top executives he'll move Paramount Skydance to Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, or another state if California AG Rob Bonta won't negotiate an end to the lawsuit blocking Paramount's $110B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The details of the meeting:

The suitors aren't shy, either. Tennessee sent Ellison a formal come-hither letter in July, and Gov. Bill Lee followed up with a public invite. (Larry Ellison already took much of Oracle to Nashville.) Somewhere in Malibu, David Ellison is saving Nashville listings to a Zillow collection called "just in case."

In the meantime, Ellison is trying everything else. He's reportedly been calling Democratic politicians and top donors, hoping someone can talk Bonta into negotiating, and his 30-movies-a-year pledge has already won over AMC and Regal. Bonta isn't biting: he dismissed the pledge as an "old, stale promise," and his office called the relocation plan an attempt to "blackmail the state."

Some think he's bluffing, but it's hard not to consider the fallout if he isn't: losing Paramount, or WarnerMount, would be disastrous for an LA production economy already scraping historic lows.

Looking ahead… The case is set for trial in March, but Ellison's own deadline lands well before that. If nothing moves by October 1, the meter starts running, and so, he says, do the movers.

Picture Thanksgiving. Your cousin is explaining crypto again. Your uncle just said the word "annuities." And then you, quietly, over the mashed potatoes: "My studio is releasing a movie this fall."

Silence. The gravy stops mid-pour.

You're not lying. Legion M sells actual equity to actual fans, and it's helping bring 'Nimrods,' a road trip comedy starring Mason Thames and McKenna Grace, to theaters this week. Buy in and the trailer is your trailer. The opening weekend is your opening weekend. The phrase "my studio" is officially yours to deploy at any family gathering, holiday or otherwise.

Click below to see how it works.¹ Thanksgiving is coming.

Roku quietly added Fairground AI to its free channel lineup last week, the first fully ad-supported channel running AI-generated slop content around the clock. Even the ads are AI-generated. The people who found it did what people do: posted clips and roasted them. One clip making the rounds is a medieval drama with the floaty physics AI video still can't shake. At one point an archer fires an arrow that flies backward into the bow, which our medieval historian readers can confirm is period-accurate.

Creator Colin Petrie-Norris said the channel would deliver "gorgeous things." The clips currently circulating are not helping his case.

Recent history says no. OpenAI tried its own version of an endless AI video feed with the Sora app, and shut it down in April after usage reportedly collapsed to under 500K users. But over in China, the answer seems to be yes, actually:

Looking ahead… More AI content is headed to US screens either way. We'll see whether it catches on the way it has in China, or whether it stays the thing you put on when you want your houseguests to leave.

🍿 We officially crossed $4B at the summer box office. The last time that happened was 2023, when Barbenheimer carried the season to $4.09B. We’ve still got a few weeks left on the clock before Labor Day, so the all-time summer record (roughly $4.75B, set in 2013) may actually be in play. Global ticket sales are up 15% year over year, though attendance is still down 20%+ from pre-pandemic, so pricier tickets are doing some of the heavy lifting. Looking ahead, exhibitors think 2026 could be the first $10B domestic year since COVID.

🎙️ Disney is jumping on the podcast bandwagon. Disney+ and Hulu inked a deal with iHeartMedia to stream video versions of six of its podcasts. First up is the Jonas Brothers' 'Hey Jonas!' this Friday, timed (of course) to the premiere of 'Camp Rock 3.' Rewatch shows like 'Pod Meets World' and 'Fake Doctors, Real Friends' roll out in the coming months. It's Disney's biggest podcast play yet, and it tracks with a wider shift: YouTube has been dominating podcast viewing, so streamers like Netflix and Spotify are increasingly licensing video pods as cheap, talent-friendly programming.

🎭 Ari Emanuel just bought himself a theater empire. Mari, the events company the super agent turned mogul launched last fall, is acquiring ATG Entertainment for a reported $6B. The deal hands Emanuel seven Broadway houses and ten in the West End, where stages host 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' 'The Lion King,' and 'Paddington the Musical,' drawing 18M theatergoers a year. For Emanuel, it's less about theater and more about where he sees the money going: live experiences, calling the deal "a long-term bet on where live goes next."

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