🎬 Deal Approved

👋 Good morning. The list of people who can crash AMC's website just by selling tickets: Taylor Swift, and now Christopher Nolan. IMAX presales for 'The Odyssey' went live yesterday and AMC's site immediately threw users into a queue with wait times over an hour (just to load the homepage, not even to buy anything). Fandango was dragging too. For anyone who didn't get through, the good news is tickets are available on eBay. The bad news is they're listed at up to $1,000.

Friday. You know the drill. Streaming numbers, industry news, and everything worth knowing before you disappear for the weekend. 👇

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) May 27 to Jun. 3. Data provided by Luminate.

As the conversation about YouTuber-made box-office hits 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' rolls on, one of the many takeaways being kicked around is that platforms like YouTube and TikTok have basically become the new training ground for talent. And TikTok just made a move that fits the moment, aiming to turn its own creators into writers.

The scoop: TikTok is teaming up with the Sundance Institute on a new micro-series writing program, head of entertainment partnerships Dawn Yang shared this week:

It's a play for homegrown talent, and the Sundance partnership is telling. Building on an earlier initiative that brought TikTok creators to the festival, it signals that Hollywood is taking creators and microdramas more seriously as the format matures into a legitimate medium of its own.

The momentum’s building: Everyone from legacy TV execs to major studios is piling into microdramas now, and TikTok's gone so far as to build a whole app for them, PineDrama. The platform also financed Issa Rae's production company, Hoorae, to make 'Screen Time,' a tense little thriller about a stranger who crashes a couples' movie night. It nearly hit 75M views in week one, the best seven-day run of any series on the platform.

The big picture: Hollywood spent years underestimating YouTube as a real entertainment player, and it paid for that: the platform now commands the single biggest share of all TV viewing per Nielsen (ahead of Disney and everyone else), is widely seen as Netflix's toughest rival, and its creators are minting box-office hits. It's trying not to make the same mistake with microdramas, and TikTok's getting a head start by training its own.

From Emmy^® Award-Winner Jonathan Glatzer, the Tech-Disrupting Drama Features a Powerhouse Cast Led by Billy Magnussen, Sarah Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis and More. Praised as “Irresistible” by the Wall Street Journal, the darkly comedic drama looks at what happens when the architects shaping tomorrow can barely manage their lives today. 

For your Emmy consideration in all categories including OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES.

All episodes available to stream on amcfyc.com 

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🗳️ SAG-AFTRA members approved their new four-year AMPTP contract. The agreement passed with 91.42% voting in favor, though only 19.25% of eligible members actually turned out to vote. At four years instead of the usual three, this deal runs longer than past contracts, a sticking point for some members who felt that was too long to lock in AI provisions while the technology keeps shifting fast. A lot can change by 2030. (For more on what's actually in the deal, see our earlier breakdown here.) The contract takes effect July 1 and runs through June 30, 2030. Next up is the DGA, which has been at the table with the AMPTP since mid-May and has its own deadline coming at the end of the month.

📱 Fox thinks its back catalog might have a future in microdramas. The company took the full third season of 'Farmer Wants a Wife' (11 primetime reality episodes) and re-edited it into 101 vertical micro-episodes, each under two minutes, for Holywater's My Drama app (a vertical video platform popular for short-form romance content). It launches next week, timed to the show's S4 finale, with a QR code during the broadcast pushing viewers to the app. The whole thing is basically a test to see if there's a real pipeline here, one where studios can dust off existing libraries and give them a second life on microdrama platforms. And Fox has an equity stake in Holywater, so the company has a direct interest in whether this model actually scales.

💸 Sports are the only thing keeping the TV ad market afloat. TV networks are in the thick of this year's upfront negotiations, and budgets are leaner than usual. Some advertisers have cut spending by as much as 30-40%, and ad buyers are pushing back on rates across the board. Rates for scripted and unscripted programming are mostly flat or declining, and live sports (NFL in particular) is the only category still commanding top dollar. Disney initially floated $10M for a 30-second Super Bowl spot, though it's already had to come down to $8M. On the streaming side, there's a ton of inventory now that Amazon and Netflix are selling ads, but per-unit value is soft because on-demand viewers watch on their own time, making it harder to deliver the big, same-moment audiences advertisers pay a premium for.

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