🎬 5-Year High

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👋 Good morning! Ben Stiller almost scored a presidential cameo for ‘Severance.’ Before Keanu Reeves voiced the company's orientation video in S2, Stiller actually emailed Barack Obama for the gig. The former president personally replied: "Big fan of the show... Don't think I have time in my schedule." Obama may have passed, but Stiller still counts it as "pretty cool that he responded."

Welcome aboard the Dailies. As you sip your morning brew, we’ll get you caught up with the fast-paced world of Hollywood—no need to chase down a newsstand, we’ve got everything you need right here.

🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:

• Technicolor’s Collapse

• Oscars Reach a 5-Year High

• Disney+ Dials Back Animation

• YouTubers Build Studios

• Last Looks: 👀 Bite-sized scoops on developing stories/projects

• Video Village: The latest trailers

• Martini Shot 🍸

CLOSEUP
🎬 VFX giant Technicolor crumbled overnight…

Technicolor, the legendary VFX powerhouse that pioneered color film technology back in 1915 and recently created visual effects for movies like Disney's ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ has shut down operations worldwide, declaring financial insolvency in late February. Offices across the US, UK, Canada, and India have gone dark, leaving thousands of visual effects artists jobless and major studios scrambling to find new vendors to complete their in-progress projects.

The collapse played out like a blockbuster disaster movie:

• 👨‍💼 CEO Caroline Parot told employees "we're back" in January after two years of financial struggles, only to announce the company's demise weeks later

• 💸 Up to 10,000 workers globally were affected, with many not even receiving their February paychecks

• 🏢 Offices were reportedly stripped bare of everything valuable, from computer monitors to awards

• 🎭 Major productions like ‘Mission Impossible,’ Netflix's ‘Wednesday,’ and Disney's ‘Snow White’ were left in limbo

History repeating itself…

Technicolor's fall echoes Rhythm & Hues' infamous 2013 bankruptcy, which happened just days before they won an Oscar for ‘Life of Pi.’ That collapse sparked industry protests but little structural change. So why does VFX keep reaching these breaking points?

• Paper-thin margins make VFX shops vulnerable to any market hiccup. Studios demand Hollywood magic on shoestring budgets, creating what one executive calls "a race to the bottom" in pricing.

• Global tax credit hopping has companies constantly shifting operations to chase the best government incentives, creating workforce instability and operational nightmares.

• Mismanagement at the top played a major role in Technicolor's case. Former executives were blasted for burying the company "under massive debt" while lacking vision and management skills.

• Limited union protection amplifies industry failures. Despite recent unionization wins at Marvel, Disney and Apple TV, most VFX workers—including Technicolor's—lack the collective bargaining power to pressure management or secure safety nets when companies fail.

Looking ahead... While thousands of VFX artists face uncertainty, some are already bouncing back. Former employees have launched "Arc Creative," and TransPerfect rescued Technicolor Games in India. The future might belong to smaller, nimbler VFX shops powered by cloud tech, with AI emerging both as a potential threat and tool. This collapse is just one piece of entertainment's broader belt-tightening as the industry adapts to changing economic realities.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 The Oscars, Disney+, and YouTuber studios…

🎬🏆 The Oscars just hit a 5-year viewership high. The 97th Academy Awards pulled in 19.69M viewers marking the show's biggest audience since 2020. Hulu's first-time streaming of the event contributed to this digital uptick, but with just 169,000 more viewers than last year's broadcast, the streaming debut fell short of expectations. The night wasn't smooth sailing for Hulu subscribers, who battled numerous technical glitches—some even getting booted before the final awards were revealed. Despite these hiccups, the show dominated social media with 104.2M interactions, outperforming both the Super Bowl and Grammys. While nowhere near the massive 46.3M audience from 2000, this modest bump suggests awards shows might be finding their footing in a "new normal" after pandemic-era ratings collapses.

…at the same time, Hollywood's big night has gone increasingly global. The Academy's membership has undergone a dramatic expansion since 2014, with international voters now making up roughly 30% of its nearly 10,000-strong roster. This worldwide shift was on full display in the winners circle, with Latvia, Palestine, and Brazil all snagging their first-ever Oscar victories. The Cannes Film Festival has emerged as a crucial Oscar launchpad, with 40% of this year's winners having premiered there. The million-dollar question: will studios rethink their approach to "Oscar bait" if the Academy keeps showing more love to international cinema?

🎬📉 Disney+ is cutting back on long-form animation. The streaming giant just shelved its ‘Princess and the Frog’ spinoff series ‘Tiana,’ and it's not just a one-off cancellation—an unnamed animated feature and Pixar's streaming ambitions are getting the boot too. For Disney, the math makes perfect sense: those bite-sized ‘Bluey’ episodes on Disney+ (sometimes just 8 minutes long) are nearly matching ‘Suits’ viewership with a fraction of the production costs. Don't worry, Disney's still committed to theatrical features like ‘Zootopia 2’ and ‘Frozen 3,’ but they're pivoting hard toward economical short-form content for streaming. It's just another sign of a more grown-up streaming landscape, where cold hard data is replacing the "more content at any cost" mentality that defined the early streaming wars.

📱🏗️ YouTubers are building mini-studios while Hollywood contracts. Dude Perfect—the YouTube sports-comedy group famous for viral trick shots and stunts with 60M subscribers—just opened a massive 80,000-square-foot Texas facility. With 15B views and a hefty $100M investment from a private equity last year, they've created a mini-studio empire for filming, merch, and fan experiences. They're not alone—MrBeast's sprawling 50,000-square-foot complex and MKBHD's tech review facility are following the same playbook. Of course, these creator operations are mostly operating on entirely different scales than traditional Hollywood studios, but it’s worth noting that digital creators are expanding their physical footprints at the exact moment legacy studios are consolidating and downsizing.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Cosmo Jarvis joins Christopher Nolan’s star-studded ‘The Odyssey,’ which is currently filming in Morocco ahead of its 2026 release. (more)

• David Arquette returns as Deputy Dewey Riley in ‘Scream 7,’ joining fellow legacy cast members in a surprising comeback. (more)

• CBS cancels ‘FBI: Most Wanted’ and ‘FBI: International,’ while the flagship series remains renewed through 2027. (more)

• Henry Winkler, Sexyy Red, Ty Dolla $ign, and Ski Mask the Slump God join Owen Wilson and Matt Rife in the hip-hop comedy ‘Rolling Loud.’ (more)

• Steve Carell joins Jesse Armstrong’s untitled HBO film alongside Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith. (more)

• Aaron Paul, Luke Evans, and Daniel Zovatto join Russell Crowe in ‘Bear Country,’ an action-thriller currently filming in Australia. (more)

• Martin Scorsese will produce ‘Wall of White’, a survival drama about the 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche, with Convergence Entertainment financing. (more)

• A24 will release Celine Song’s ‘Materialists,’ starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, in theaters nationwide on June 13. (more)

TV Development 📺

• Rachel Weisz will star in and executive produce ‘Vladimir,’ a Netflix limited series based on Julia May Jonas’s novel. (more)

• Arian Moayed and Alex Karpovsky join S2 of Netflix’s ‘Nobody Wants This’ in key recurring roles. (more)

• Julianne Nicholson, Michaela Watkins, and 11 others join ‘Hacks’ S4 as guest stars in the Max original comedy. (more)

• Tracy Morgan will star as a disgraced football player in an NBC comedy pilot from Tina Fey and the ‘30 Rock’ team. (more)

• George Lopez partners with Truly Original to develop unscripted projects, including a Charlie Murphy documentary currently in production. (more)

• ESPN cancels ‘Around the Horn’ after 23 years, with its final episode set for May 23. (more)

• Neil Patrick Harris joins ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ as a guest star, alongside Michael C. Hall and Uma Thurman. (more)

Business 🤝

• Andrew Cripps joins Disney as head of global theatrical distribution, stepping in after his recent exit from Warner Bros. (more)

• NFL MVP Josh Allen signs an overall deal with Skydance Sports to develop scripted, unscripted, and branded content. (more)

• Canal+ commits at least $500M to French films over three years in a new deal with cinema guilds. (more)

• ‘Divergent’ producer Pouya Shahbazian launches AI-driven studio Staircase Studios AI, aiming to produce studio-quality films for under $500,000. (more)

• BritBox has surpassed 4M subscribers across several international markets, marking continued global growth for the BBC-owned streamer. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max will launch in Turkey on April 15, replacing BluTV and expanding the streamer’s global reach. (more)

• Tired of reading screenplays? Start listening to them with Screenplayer. (more)*

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VIDEO VILLAGE
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