🎬 All Bets Are Off

👋 Good morning. To every parent nervous about a kid going into film scoring: relax. Nathan Johnson, who years ago scored 67 episodes and five movies of ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ was elected Attorney General of Texas this week. The anime composer-to-AG pipeline is officially a thing. Solid fallback plan.

Welcome back to The Dailies. You made it to Friday. As a reward, here’s everything happening in Hollywood, so you can head into the weekend fully briefed. 👇

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Oct. 29 to Nov. 4. Data provided by Luminate.

Know who's playing the next James Bond? Your bosses would really prefer you didn't bet on it. Studios and production companies are reportedly rolling out new rules that ban employees from betting on industry news through prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, where you can wager on almost anything.

The rules cover studio earnings, casting, and release dates, among other things. Tipping off friends and family so they can bet instead is out, too. And at least one company set up an anonymous snitch line hotline for snitching on coworkers.

These new rules stop at the studio gates, though. They only cover employees, so someone in the audience at a pre-taped talk show can still bet on what a guest said. And with crypto, bets can be nearly impossible to trace back to anyone.

Zoom out: the federal agency that oversees prediction markets (the CFTC) is still deciding which entertainment bets should be allowed at all. Hollywood has gotten one kind banned before. In 2010, exchanges were about to let people bet on a movie's box office, so the studios lobbied Congress to make it illegal (it still is). And this goes way beyond Hollywood. Federal prosecutors have already charged a soldier with using classified info to win $400,000 betting on the Venezuela raid (he's pleaded not guilty). If a wider crackdown comes, entertainment bets look like an easy target.

These days, everything is easy, fast, and connected. You can customize your coffee with an app, track all your credit cards in one place, and even dim your lightbulbs from your phone.

Shouldn’t production finance be that easy? We think so. With Wrapbook, you can expect more from your software. That means:

Ready to reset your expectations?

You can tell a lot about Disney by the startups it hangs out with. Each year, Disney picks a few through its Accelerator program, invests in them, and brings them in to work with its teams for about four months. The 2026 edition wrapped up this week with Demo Day, where the startups show off what they've been working on. And this time, the entire class is made up of AI companies.

Past classes are a decent crystal ball: Epic Games came through in 2017. Since then, its tech has helped build the LED stages on 'The Mandalorian,' Marvel and 'Star Wars' characters have become regulars in its game 'Fortnite,' and Disney has invested $1.5B in the company.

The bigger picture: this is Josh D'Amaro's Disney. He took over as CEO in March (the same month a planned $1B investment in OpenAI fell through), hired the company's first-ever chief technology officer from an AI chatbot startup, and says Disney will be aggressive about new tech. And once Disney is doing it out in the open, it gives every other studio cover to follow.

🗳️ Nithya Raman won the race for LA mayor. Karen Bass conceded yesterday, making the democratic socialist the first challenger to unseat an LA mayor since 2005. She's promised a film czar in the mayor's office, fairer indie permit fees, and a push to lift the state's $750M film tax credit cap. Raman takes office Dec. 14.

🟠🟢🔵 The New York Times wants Letterboxd. It's in exclusive talks to buy the beloved film review app for roughly $330M, over 20 times its expected 2026 earnings. Letterboxd would join The Athletic, Wirecutter, and Wordle in the Times' bundle. Your four favorites, right next to your Wordle streak.

👻 Lionsgate's launching a horror label. It's reportedly called Render Road, a partnership that plugs Lionsgate into the talent pipeline at its management firm 3 Arts, which reps 'Backrooms' director Kane Parsons. It'll develop horror for digital platforms as well as film and TV.

📱 Google, Meta, and TikTok are suing California. They want to block a new law that stops apps from using "addictive" features like autoplay and personalized feeds on kids under 16. It kicks in Jan. 1. If it holds up, the apps competing with Hollywood for young viewers lose some of their best tricks.

Meet Castability, the audition simulator leveraging technology to give actors what traditional auditions rarely can: honest insight into how casting sees you. Get individual feedback from established casting directors, showcase your best work, and unlock a personal, dynamic data dashboard illuminating your marketable types, competitive standing, skill development, and progress over time. Turn self-tape practice into measurable growth and build your competitive edge.

Join now during launch for two weeks free, plus chances to win exclusive prizes.

🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: It's a busy weekend after a very quiet Halloween. 'Godzilla Minus Zero' is expected to open at #1 with around $25-35M, which would be the biggest opening ever for its distributor, GKIDS. 'The Cat in the Hat' should come in second with $15-25M, a soft start for a Dr. Seuss movie. The other newcomers are looking at much smaller openings. In limited release, ‘I Play Rocky,’ ‘Club Kid,’ and ‘Being Heumann’ all open this weekend.