🎬 Already Sold Out

👋 Good morning! Houston, we have a pop culture crossover: During Monday's Artemis II flyby, mission control hit the crew with an "amaze, amaze, amaze" as they stared down Earth from the far side of the Moon. If you know, you know: it's a nod to Rocky, the lovable alien from 'Project Hail Mary.' The livestream chats loved it. Andy Weir's novel-turned-Gosling blockbuster now has a NASA cosign.

Welcome back to The Dailies. We can't get you to the far side of the Moon, but we can get you caught up before your first meeting. Grab your coffee and let’s get into it. 👇

📺 CBS has settled on its post-Colbert late-night plan: lease the whole block to Byron Allen, the comedian-turned-media-entrepreneur. Starting May 22 (the day after Colbert's final episode), Allen's 'Comics Unleashed' moves into the 11:35 p.m. slot, with game show 'Funny You Should Ask' taking 12:35 a.m. Both air back-to-back half-hour episodes nightly under a time-buy model, meaning Allen pays CBS for the airtime rather than CBS footing production costs. CBS says late-night economics just don't work anymore, closing the book on a franchise dating back to Letterman in '93. Kimmel, Stewart, and Oliver are all up for renewal within 13 months, so we'll see if CBS is the outlier or just the first to pull the plug.

🎟️ 'Dune 3' is selling out showings eight months early. Warner Bros. quietly dropped IMAX 70mm tickets on Monday with no announcement or countdown clock. Just 19 theaters, one 7 PM showing per night over opening weekend. Tickets sold out in minutes. Each ticket comes with a strip of actual 70mm film from the movie, but the aftermarket is where things get fun: one ticket already sold on eBay for $999. It’s the same play Universal ran for Nolan's 'The Odyssey' a full year out last summer to similar frenzy. With fewer than 40 true 70mm IMAX screens on the planet, these ultra-early presales are becoming the concert-ticketing equivalent for the maybe three directors whose names alone can sell a format.

💸 Paramount's Gulf funding is now official. The company had previously disclosed that three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds were backing its $81B Warner Bros. Discovery takeover, but the signed equity commitments are now in hand. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is putting up roughly $10B, with Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi's L'imad Holding Co. covering the rest of the ~$24B total. The investors won't hold voting rights, and Paramount doesn’t expect the deal to raise any red flags with regulators, at least in the US. That said, $24B gets you in the room regardless of voting rights. How (or whether) Gulf money shapes what gets made at HBO and CNN is a question that's only getting louder.

New research from L.A.'s Otis College of Art and Design argues AI isn't behind California's creative job losses. The study, which analyzed employment data and interviewed creative professionals across the state, found that the jobs most exposed to AI (writers, software developers, artists) are actually growing. The report points to post-Peak TV budget cuts, consolidation, and California's cost of living as the real drivers.

That doesn't mean AI is a non-factor: The report found it's changing how work gets done, not who does it. VFX shops are using it for rotoscoping and wire removal, but one company described 15 artists sitting at workstations just fixing AI outputs, basically negating any cost savings.

Worth noting: the study covers 2022 to 2025, which is still early days for AI adoption in most production workflows, so these findings are more snapshot than verdict. The authors are careful to say AI hasn't replaced jobs so far, but "not yet" isn't the same as "never."

📅 SAG-AFTRA's heading back to the table with the AMPTP on April 27, jumping ahead of the previously expected June return. The WGA's surprise tentative deal over the weekend freed up the calendar before the DGA starts its own talks May 11. The SAG-AFTRA and DGA contracts both expire June 30.

✂️ Sony Pictures Entertainment started layoffs yesterday across its film, TV, and corporate divisions, with a few hundred positions expected to be cut from its 12,000+ global staff. CEO Ravi Ahuja said the cuts were strategic, redirecting resources toward growth areas like Crunchyroll, anime, and PlayStation adaptations.

🚫 Brands are starting to slap 'no AI' disclaimers to their marketing in response to consumer distaste for AI slop. Gartner found 50% of consumers prefer brands that skip generative AI in ads, and New York's AI disclosure law for marketers kicks in this June.

🧸 Netflix keeps building out its kids' ecosystem: the latest batch includes new episodes of 'Sesame Street' and 'Ms. Rachel,' multiple renewals, and a new gaming app called Netflix Playground for kids 8 and under. The app launches Monday, comes included with all memberships, and has no ads or in-app purchases.

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