🎬 Hostile Enemy

👋 Good morning! Chris Hansen would like you to take a seat. Right over there, in the theater. The 'To Catch a Predator' host bought preshow ads on every screen playing A24's 'Primetime,' out next month, in which Robert Pattinson plays Hansen as a man who never met a camera he didn't like. In the spot, Hansen walks into a kitchen (naturally) and pitches his true-crime streaming network. (Anyone who bolts for the parking lot will be met by a camera crew.) It's either the best-targeted ad buy in streaming history or the movie's whole thesis playing out in the preroll. Probably both.

Welcome to Friday. Pour the coffee, we'll catch you up. 👇

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Aug. 20 to Aug. 26. Data provided by Luminate.

Meta settled its teen addiction case with 52 attorneys general on Wednesday, for up to $17.1B. The deal landed a week into a California trial over claims that Instagram and Facebook were engineered to be addictive for kids, right before Zuckerberg was due to take the stand. (Guess some things are worth $17B not to sit through.) Meta denies doing anything wrong, but it's paying out over 10 years and letting a court-appointed auditor look over its shoulder for the next decade. Here's what changes for under-18s on Instagram and Facebook:

Here’s where it gets fun: Meta only pays 70% upfront. The other $5.3B only gets released if YouTube and TikTok adopt a one-hour daily limit, night mode and age checks, and each pay a matching amount. Meta even agreed to stricter, longer limits on itself, but only if YouTube and TikTok get them too. Nothing says accountability like "I'll behave if they have to."

There could be ripple effects: Teen attention is inventory, and if these limits go industry-wide, the balance of it shifts. YouTube takes the biggest hit, and it's currently the biggest thing on TV (13.8% of all US watch-time in May, per Nielsen, ahead of every network and streamer). Cap teens at an hour a day and those hours have to go somewhere (gaming, streaming, maybe even TV). Streamers, take note.

It's summer 2023. Warner Bros had two movies ready for the weekend 'Oppenheimer' opened. One was 'Barbie.' The other was 'Coyote vs. Acme,' finished and testing 14 points above the average family movie.

They released one and shelved the other to take a $30M tax write-off. 'Barbie' made $1.4B. 'Coyote vs. Acme' sat in a vault for three years.

Then the fans got loud. And stayed loud. Eventually WB relented and a little distributor named Ketchup stepped up to acquire the rights. Today it finally opens (three years late). It’s one of the best-reviewed movies of the year.

Legion M, a studio owned by its fans, is joining Ketchup as a P&A/release partner. They invested to own a stake in the film. Join them, and you can too.¹

United Talent Agency has a departure problem, and now a press problem to go with it. Variety reported Wednesday that a slate of big names has walked and that UTA's own agents are uneasy as consolidation pressure mounts. CEO David Kramer (who took over from Jeremy Zimmer last summer) isn't disputing the exits, but insists the agency is thriving. What's actually in the report:

Kramer fired off a companywide note calling the story biased and accusing reporter Matt Donnelly of trying to damage UTA's business. As evidence, he pointed to messages from Donnelly earlier this year, including one allegedly calling UTA a "flagrant and hostile enemy," along with complaints about how Donnelly dealt with UTA executives.

Variety's response: it stands by Donnelly, says the messages are being taken out of context (they came from a heated back-and-forth over an earlier Variety interview, which a UTA exec initiated), and notes UTA hasn't disputed the facts of the story.

The bigger picture: Agencies and trades usually swap scoops for coverage, so a CEO publicly going after a reporter is rare. And with Penske Media owning Variety, THR, and Deadline, there aren't many other places for agency news to land. (Fun fact: this newsletter is not owned by Penske. Tips welcome.)

🪓 Annapurna laid off about 30 people, over 15% of Megan Ellison's indie shop, citing "shifting market conditions." Not the ideal comeback headline: Ellison's been rebuilding after years of near-dormancy, rehiring old lieutenants, and just saw Olivia Wilde's 'The Invite' cross $50M worldwide.

🎮 Xbox is shopping its game catalog to Hollywood in one big bundle. Microsoft's troubled gaming division is quietly pitching a dozen-plus titles, including 'Halo,' 'World of Warcraft,' and 'Diablo,' to a single buyer for $300M+, and Netflix, Paramount, and Universal are reportedly looking. Achievement in progress: liquidity.

⚖️ Montana joined Iowa in asking the Supreme Court to toss the 12-state antitrust suit blocking the Paramount-WBD deal, calling it "politicized." Neither state is party to the case, so legal experts liken its odds to hitting the Death Star's thermal exhaust port (non-nerds: a longshot). The Court could weigh in as soon as Oct. 9.

📰 The Wall Street Journal is fine with AI-written op-eds, apparently. When billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller's column got flagged as AI-generated, the paper's Opinion editor Paul Gigot defended it, saying the ideas must be the writer's, even if the sentences aren't. Sounds like a precedent, intended or not.

Everyone is watching SpaceX.

But Wall Street’s top-rated analysts are pointing to 5 different stocks right now.

MarketBeat’s Top 5 Stocks to Buy Now report reveals the names getting some of the strongest analyst support before the broader market catches on.

View The 5 Stocks

🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' is set for a fifth straight weekend on top with $18-25M, something no film has done since 'Avatar: Fire and Ash.' Behind it, 'The Odyssey,' 'Coyote vs. Acme,' and 'Insidious' are all bunched up in the $10-15M range fighting for second. The one to watch is 'The Dog Stars,' where rough reviews have Ridley Scott's $70M epic tracking for just $8-12M.