👋 Good morning! ABC pulled the plug on 'The Bachelorette' last week, and TikTok has already filled the void with… AI-generated fruit. 'Fruit Love Island,' a TikTok series where animated fruits live out reality TV melodrama, is getting millions of views. They argue. They cheat. They stare into each other's seeds. The characters have names like Bananito, Watermelina, and Grapenzo, which, sure. It's 'Love Island' if the cast were produce and the render quality suggested a budget of roughly $0. OpenAI just pulled the plug on Sora a few days ago, but the AI slop, it seems, has found a way.
Happy Friday. Grab your coffee and we'll get you caught up on the latest. First up, a look at this week's streaming numbers. 👇
TOP STREAMED
📊 What U.S. audiences were watching this week…
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| LAST WEEK'S NEW RELEASES | |
 | Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man Netflix The film spinoff debuted at #1 with 25.3M views globally, per Netflix. Very strong, but not mega-event territory. The numbers are more in line with franchise extensions like ‘El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,’ which drew ~25M+ views in its first week. |
 | Imperfect Women Apple TV The psychological thriller starring Elisabeth Moss, Kate Mara, and Kerry Washington opened to 2.3M U.S. views in its first week. Fairly niche, female-skewing audience, as expected. That puts it slightly below recent Apple entries like 'The Last Thing He Told Me' S1 (2.9M in its first week) and well under top performers like 'Your Friends & Neighbors' S1 (4.3M in the same window). |
Sources: Top streamed chart (U.S.) via FlixPatrol; new release viewership data (U.S.) via Luminate.
CLOSEUP
👨⚖️ Turns out Big Tech can, in fact, lose in court…
Neal Mohan (CEO of YouTube) and Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta)
Two juries handed Meta and Google landmark losses this week. A Los Angeles jury found both companies liable for designing Instagram and YouTube to addict young users, awarding $6M in damages. A day earlier, a New Mexico jury tagged Meta for $375M for misleading consumers about child safety. $6M is couch-cushion money for companies worth a combined $3.5T, but the precedent is what stings.
For decades, tech companies have hidden behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that says platforms aren't liable for what users post. It's been the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card, with companies arguing they're neutral platforms, not publishers.
Plaintiffs found the loophole: instead of going after content, they targeted platform design, arguing that infinite scroll, autoplay, and algorithmic recommendations are defective products. Courts are now treating recommendation engines as active editorial decisions, not passive hosting. If you curate and promote content, you may bear responsibility like a publisher. That's a big reframe, and a big deal for entertainment:
YouTube commanded 12.5% of all U.S. TV viewing in Nielsen's January Gauge report, ahead of Netflix (8.8%) and every legacy media company.
YouTube and Instagram are core infrastructure for trailers, content discovery, and talent promotion. Court-mandated design changes (read: less addictive, less effective) could rewire how audiences find film and TV.
Both platforms compete with studios and streamers for ad dollars. Anything that dents engagement metrics reshuffles the deck.
Looking ahead… This is far from over. Both companies "respectfully disagree," which is corporate for "see you in appeals court." But the LA case is a bellwether for over 1,600 consolidated plaintiffs (including hundreds of families and school districts). More trials are expected this year.
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'The Odyssey' is already the early 2027 Best Picture favorite
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The market is betting 'The Drama,' A24's Pattinson/Zendaya film, clears 80% on Rotten Tomatoes
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CLOSEUP
🎤 A24’s running a music-to-actor pipeline…
Charli XCX, star of 'The Moment,' and Dua Lipa, newly cast in 'Peaked.'
Dua Lipa has joined the cast of A24's 'Peaked,' a Molly Gordon-directed comedy about two women trying to relive their glory days at a 10-year high school reunion. The cast already includes Emma Mackey, Laura Dern, and Amy Sedaris, with production set to begin next month.
But zoom out and Lipa is one of at least 30 musicians A24 has now cast across its film and TV slate:
Already released: Charli XCX in 'The Moment,' Tyler, the Creator in 'Marty Supreme,' A$AP Rocky in 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Brandy in 'The Front Room'
Still to come: Phoebe Bridgers in 'Primetime,' Rosalía in 'Euphoria,' Gracie Abrams in 'Please,' FKA Twigs in 'Mother Mary'
It's not just A24 either: Teyana Taylor starred in Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another,' SZA broke out as a comedy lead in 'One of Them Days,' and Bad Bunny went full villain in Darren Aronofsky's 'Caught Stealing.'
Musicians in movies isn't new, but at this rate A24 might need a talent scout at Coachella. According to CAA agent Dan Kim, the studio regularly approaches agencies asking for artists who want to act.
The bigger picture: Traditional star power alone hasn't been opening movies the way it used to, and artists come with something most actors can't put on a résumé: millions of followers who will show up opening weekend and post about it for free. For A24, which has been signaling mainstream ambitions for the past several years, it's one of the cleaner ways to grow without losing the indie credibility that made the brand in the first place. The artist gets the A24 cosign, A24 gets the audience. Growth strategy dressed up as artistic curation.
ICYMI
⚡️ Quick hits…
📅 The date is set: WBD shareholders will vote April 23 on the $111B Paramount Skydance merger, and the board unanimously wants them to say yes. Shareholders get $31 per share if it passes, and it’s expected to close by Q3 2026. If it doesn't, Paramount owes a $650M "ticking fee" each quarter, so the clock is literally ticking.
🏆 The Oscars are moving out: After calling the Dolby Theatre home since 2002, the ceremony heads to the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live starting in 2029 through a 10-year deal with AEG. The move lines up with the broadcast's jump from ABC to YouTube. New house, new network, new era.
🤖 Hollywood and the White House agree on something: SAG-AFTRA came out in strong support of the Trump administration's new national AI policy framework, backing its protections for performers' voices and likenesses from unauthorized AI use. The union also wants Congress to move on the NO FAKES Act targeting digital replicas.
📉 Update on the trouble at Row K: The indie distributor that splashed out at TIFF last fall is losing its top execs, with President Megan Colligan and CMO Ben Carlson both out after just seven months amid cash flow issues. 'Poetic License' is now shopping for a new distributor after Row K couldn't meet its release obligations.
LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️
Ryan Gosling will star in a new Daniels film, their first since ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once.’ (more)
Alison Oliver replaces Daisy Edgar-Jones to star in period thriller ‘Bad Bridgets,’ from the team behind ‘Wuthering Heights.’ (more)
Vanessa Kirby and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II are leading 'Liminal,' a sci-fi thriller at Apple directed by Louis Leterrier. (more)
Netflix wins bidding war for ‘Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage,’ with Gwyneth Paltrow attached to star. (more)
Amazon MGM Studios lands rights to ‘Romantic Hero’, launching Jennifer Salke’s new producing banner. (more)
'The Comebacker,' a baseball drama from Tom Hanks and Marielle Heller, has three studios in a bidding war. (more)
Snoop Dogg is starring in and producing 'God of the Rodeo,' a prison drama with Ridley Scott and Rosalind Ross attached. (more)
‘Time Out’ adds Willem Dafoe, Steve Zahn, and more to Adam Sandler’s next Netflix film. (more)
TV Development 📺
Business 🤝
Amazon MGM Studios extends ‘Young Sherlock,’ EP Marc Resteghini’s overall TV and film deal for another three years. (more)
Netflix raises subscription prices for the second time in a year, increasing costs across all plan tiers. (more)
Banijay is getting into the microdrama space with 'Survival Sisters' and a slate of short-form projects. (more)
SXSW Film & TV Festival tapped longtime critic Peter Debruge as its new director. (more)
RELEASE RADAR
📅 This week’s new releases…
🎥 THEATRICAL
They Will Kill You: Action-comedy-horror starring Zazie Beetz and Patricia Arquette, directed by Kirill Sokolov.
📺 STREAMING
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen: (Netflix) Horror miniseries from creator Haley Z. Boston, produced by the Duffer Brothers.
Bait: (Prime Video) Comedy series created by and starring Riz Ahmed. Sundance premiere, 94% on RT.
For All Mankind: (Apple TV) S5 of the alternate-history space drama from Ronald D. Moore. Already renewed for a sixth and final season.
🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: 'Project Hail Mary' should have no trouble holding the top spot for a second straight weekend, tracking for $40-50M off its monster $80.5M debut. The only notable newcomer is Warner Bros.' 'They Will Kill You,' which is expected to open modestly at $5-7M.
VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers
MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments
Aaaaand that's a wrap. If this landed in your inbox via a generous friend, hit subscribe so you don't have to rely on their kindness forever. Have a great weekend. Catch you Monday.
-The Dailies Team