🎬 Joining the Collection

👋 Good morning! Scientists should really study Taylor Sheridan's circadian rhythm. The guy behind 'Yellowstone,' '1883,' '1923,' 'Tulsa King,' 'Landman,' and whatever he greenlit while we were typing this sentence is now adding "author" to the résumé. 'How to Not Die in Prison' is a survival guide co-written with ex-con Tom Nelson. Sheridan's never actually been to prison, but the man had a free afternoon between pilot scripts, apparently, so here we are.

Happy hump day. The coffee's poured, the inbox is open, and Hollywood didn't slow down while you were sleeping. Let's get you caught up. 👇

The companion podcast isn't a new idea. Fan-led recaps came first, then cast-led hits like 'Office Ladies' and 'Pod Meets World' proved there was real demand. Lately, it's the streamers themselves making a concerted effort to ramp up their own. HBO got the ball rolling with an official 'Chernobyl' breakdown pod in 2019, Apple TV+ started building companion pods into its programming slate in 2021, and by 2025 Disney+ and Hulu had full video podcast slates. Some recent proof points:

The timing makes sense: Streamers have been shifting from a growth-at-all-costs phase to an engagement-and-retention one, and companion pods are cheap incremental engagement compared to, you know, making more TV. For a long time, networks didn't really know how to handle their most obsessive fans. Now they're actively courting them. The thinking: fans who are already theorizing on Reddit and dissecting episodes on TikTok will do even more of that if you give them official behind-the-scenes content to work with.

The tradeoff is that official pods get access independents can't match, but don't expect anyone to bite the hand that greenlights them. They're PR with a podcast mic, not journalism.

Looking ahead… Companion pods are likely to become standard issue for big releases, though the format suits some shows better than others. 'The Traitors' breeds the kind of weekly obsession that fuels a pod. A low-stakes sitcom, not so much.

FYC HAMNET | Nominated for 8 Academy Awards® including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress

💰 Paramount Skydance submitted its 10th bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. The WBD board acknowledged yesterday that the new $31/share offer could end up being the better deal, though it hasn't officially said so over Netflix's $27.75/share bid just yet. The offer also includes a $7B regulatory termination fee and a commitment to cover the $2.8B breakup fee WBD would owe Netflix. If the board does determine it's the better deal, Netflix has four business days to match or walk away. The prolonged uncertainty has been dragging on Netflix's stock price. For now, a shareholder vote on the Netflix deal is still scheduled for March 20, though at this point, who knows how many more chapters this saga has.

📀 'KPop Demon Hunters' is joining the Criterion Collection. The prestige home video label is adding the viral Netflix hit, along with Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein,' to its catalog. 'KPop Demon Hunters' became the most-watched film in Netflix history after going viral last summer, won the Golden Globe for best animated feature, and picked up a Grammy for its K-pop track 'Golden.' It's a notably young-skewing title for a brand built on Bergman and Kurosawa, and most of its fanbase has never bought a disc. But Criterion is folding it into the canon anyway, probably betting that the next generation of collectors will come through the fandoms they already care about. If your shelf goes from 'Seven Samurai' to 'KPop Demon Hunters,' honestly, respect.

📉 AMC had a rough quarter, but it likes what's ahead. The exhibitor reported Q4 earnings with attendance down nearly 10% across its domestic and international theaters. US attendance fell 7.5% while international markets took a steeper 15% hit. Revenue slipped a bit, but AMC did trim its losses from a year earlier. The chain is leaning into the growing popularity of premium formats like IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and laser projection to boost per-ticket revenue, betting that if you build a fancier screen, they will come. Part of the problem was a lighter release calendar in 2025, though studios are promising a fuller slate ahead. CEO Adam Aron pointed to a January box office running 16% ahead of last year, and believes the 2026 slate is shaping up to be more 'Barbenheimer' than 'Madame Web.'

📽️ The teaser for A24's 'The Backrooms' is getting a lot of attention. The film is directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who turned an anonymous 4chan horror post into a YouTube universe with 190M+ views. Another sign that internet-native stories aren't just niche bets, they can be genuine cultural forces. Check out the trailer below.

📱 The microdrama boom just hit a major milestone: people in the U.S. are now spending more time watching microdramas on mobile than they are Netflix, Disney+ or Prime Video. Leading app ReelShort averages 35.7 minutes per user per day vs. Netflix's 24.8, and global revenues are projected to hit $14B this year.

🇬🇧 The U.K. will now regulate major streamers like traditional broadcasters. Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video will have to follow the same content and accessibility rules as traditional TV channels, a move that could set the tone for other countries looking to bring streaming under the same umbrella as legacy media.

📊 Creator reviews now carry more weight than professional critics, according to a new study. YouTube and TikTok videos ranked as the top two most influential review sources among U.S. moviegoers, with 35% of Gen Z saying social media is the main way they hear about new movies.