🎬 Lawsuits Are Here

👋 Good morning! 'General Hospital' crossed 16,000 episodes this week. That’s one of those numbers so large it feels like it stops meaning anything, like the national debt or the runtime of a Zack Snyder cut. The ABC soap has been on air since 1963, making it the longest-running scripted American drama still in production (63 seasons!). After the apocalypse, it'll be cockroaches, Twinkies, and episode 31,000.

It's Wednesday, which means you're officially over the hump. Settle in with a coffee and we'll run you through everything you need before that first meeting.

The long-rumored lawsuit is officially here, and it's not the only one. A wave of legal challenges hit Paramount Skydance's ~$110B takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery this week, just weeks after federal regulators signed off on the deal without conditions. The big one: a dozen state AGs, led by California's Rob Bonta, sued Monday to block it. What the states are saying:

Paramount's rebuttal: the suit is "wrong on both the facts and the law," and that stopping the merger just keeps Netflix comfortable by killing off a would-be competitor. Ellison advisers have floated moving HQ out of California, and Tennessee already slid a courting letter across the table like a realtor at an open house. Bonta swatted the exit talk down as attempted "blackmail."

A day later, the WGA filed its own separate suit, this one zeroed in on the hit to writers, lower pay and fewer jobs in a less competitive market. It went solo rather than join the states so it could zero in on those labor harms. The Producers Guild, theater-owner group Cinema United, and the Block the Merger coalition have also lined up against the deal.

Looking ahead… On top of the suits, foreign regulators are still weighing approval: the EU by July 22, the UK by Aug. 7. Paramount wanted this closed by now, and that's clearly slipping. And the clock gets expensive fast. If Paramount misses the Sept. 30 deadline, the company owes WBD shareholders a ~$7M-a-day ticking fee (roughly $650M a quarter) until the deal closes.

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

🇺🇸 David Ellison is courting Washington for a film credit. Quite the week for the Paramount chief, who, between getting sued, spent Monday evening in D.C. breaking bread with 13 members of the House Ways and Means Committee to push a bipartisan bill for a federal film tax incentive. Ellison's been quietly working the halls on this for six months, and the goal is to slow runaway production by giving the U.S. a national credit that can finally compete with the rebates pulling shoots overseas. And he's got company: Senator Adam Schiff has been working on his own incentive bill, so there are a couple of parallel efforts underway now.

🐈‍⬛ Another viral internet monster just got a movie deal. Sony's TriStar pre-empted the feature rights to 'Cartoon Cat,' one more creepy creation from designer Trevor Henderson. The ancient, malevolent feline uses our fuzzy memories of old cartoons to claw its way into reality, and it's pulled billions of views since 2018. Roy Lee and Steven Schneider are producing; no writer or director yet. It’s been a busy stretch for internet horror: just weeks ago, Henderson's 'Siren Head' went to Warner Bros. out of a five-studio bidding war (with 'Weapons' director Zach Cregger co-writing), and 'The Mandela Catalogue' landed at Amblin and Amazon MGM a day later.

🤼 The WWE is stepping into the microdrama ring. The wrestling giant is teaming up with ReelShort, one of the biggest players in vertical video, on an original live-action microdrama set to film next month and premiere this fall. The plot's still a secret, but stars like Drew McIntyre, Joe Hendry, and Jacob Fatu will appear alongside seasoned vertical actors. It's a smart fit (WWE's operatic feuds and cliffhangers are basically made for the format's hook-and-twist rhythm). And it's a meaningful vote of confidence. A company with WWE's huge, ready-made fan base and star power stepping in is a big boost for a format still working to outgrow the fad label.

In just the last two days, Netflix picked up two more of YouTube’s biggest creators, both releasing on Netflix and YouTube simultaneously:

These aren't one-offs. They join a rapid-fire spree that includes the Stokes Twins (140M+ followers), Ms. Rachel, Mark Rober, and a reported $100M podcast deal with Jay Shetty, alongside licensing deals for cheap publisher video from Condé Nast, BuzzFeed, and others.

Why the sudden appetite for YouTube-style filler? Partly competition (YouTube's been winning the living room, pulling ~13% of US TV viewing to Netflix's 8%), and partly ads. Its ad business is set to roughly double to $3B this year. More stuff to watch means more eyeballs, and more eyeballs means more ads it can sell. In a way, the whole strategy is an admission from Netflix's own brass that premium content alone won't juice engagement anymore.

It's got plenty of folks wondering whether Netflix is diluting its own brand. Netflix is chasing Oscars on one hand and YouTube on the other, and some wonder whether packing the home screen with videos you could watch free elsewhere chips away at the premium feel people pay up to $26 a month for. It's not so different from David Zaslav's Discovery-WarnerMedia theory (cheap reality filler to graze on between prestige HBO drops), and that one didn't really pan out.

Looking ahead… we'll see if Netflix's algorithm can thread the needle, showing this stuff to the folks who want it and hiding it from those who don't. Either way, we'd wager there are plenty more creator deals where these came from.

Governor races. Senate runoffs. Billboard charts. Celebrity news. Real money on all of it. Kalshi is the federally regulated prediction market where your opinions pay off. Trade what you know.

Know someone who should be reading The Dailies? Send them our way. Your friends get smarter. You get rewarded. Win-win.

Your referral count: {{rp_num_referrals}} (Only {{rp_num_referrals_until_next_milestone}} away from unlocking {{rp_next_milestone_name}})

Or copy your personal referral link here: {{rp_refer_url}}