🎬 Running on Fumes

👋 Good morning! A24 would like to marry you. Not metaphorically. The studio is opening a one-day pop-up wedding chapel on the Las Vegas Strip to promote 'The Drama,' its upcoming Zendaya and Robert Pattinson film about a couple whose wedding goes spectacularly sideways. Couples can apply for a shot at getting hitched "the A24 way," complete with live music, celebrity impersonators, and keepsakes you won't find anywhere else on the Strip. 'The Drama' hits theaters in April. Your move, Neon.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to The Dailies. Our Oscar Predictions app is live. If you haven't already, sign up, lock in your picks, and start a league with friends. Every friend you invite enters you to win a year of AMC A-List. Now, onto the news. 👇

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case over whether AI-generated art can be copyrighted. The ruling lets stand a Copyright Office decision that only humans can be authors under U.S. copyright law.

The background: Computer scientist Stephen Thaler applied for a copyright on a piece of visual art that his AI system, DABUS, created entirely on its own. The Copyright Office said no, a federal judge agreed, and an appeals court upheld it. SCOTUS won't step in.

So what? As studios and streamers lean harder into generative AI for everything from concept art to post-production, the legal picture is getting clearer. If there's no meaningful human involvement in the creative process, there's no IP protection. That's a big deal for anyone banking on AI-generated content as a business asset.

🔒 Netflix just locked in Affleck and Damon for the long haul. Their production company Artists Equity signed a multi-year first-look deal with the streamer after 'The Rip' spent three weeks at No. 1 on Netflix's Top 10. Artists Equity also cut a first-of-its-kind backend deal on the film that made all 1,200 cast and crew eligible for performance bonuses, something Netflix had never done before. Artists Equity already has a separate theatrical deal with Sony too, so the company now has both a streaming and theatrical pipeline. That's pretty rare for an indie studio, and Artists Equity gets to decide which projects go where on a film-by-film basis, so they're not locked into either partner. Up next is 'Animals,' an Affleck-directed thriller starring Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson, due later this year.

📺 Paramount+ and HBO Max are becoming one. Paramount Skydance announced plans to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max into a single streaming platform following its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. On paper, the combined service would have around 200M subscribers, but that includes some double-counting, since about 14% of U.S. subscribers already pay for both services. Even after combining, it would still trail Netflix's 325M global subscribers by a wide margin. CEO David Ellison didn't share much about the new platform's structure or pricing, but emphasized that HBO would "operate with independence" and that the premium brand won't be diluted under Paramount's roof. If you've lost track of the name changes from HBO Go to HBO Now to HBO Max to Max and back to HBO Max, don't worry. Another one is probably coming.

🤝 The world's biggest indie producers are merging. Banijay Entertainment, the French-founded group behind 'MasterChef,' 'Big Brother,' 'Black Mirror' and 'Peaky Blinders,' is joining up with UK-based All3Media, the company behind 'The Traitors' and 'Squid Game: The Challenge.' If you've watched an unscripted format in the last decade, odds are one of these two made it. Together they'll command roughly $6.65B in revenue across the US, UK, and 25+ other markets, which really makes “independent” more of a vibe than a descriptor. It's a scale play: as streamers and studios consolidate into fewer, larger buyers, production companies need to bulk up too or risk losing leverage at the negotiating table. Former CNN and NBCUniversal chief Jeff Zucker will serve as board chairman.

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In a recent memo, the Writers Guild of America warned members that its health plan will burn through reserves before 2029 at the current rate. Fewer writers working and more relying on backup coverage has added an extra $37M in costs onto the health plan in 2025, and the fund has been running a deficit every year since 2022. This all comes as guild-studio talks are less than two weeks away.

The fund is getting hit from all sides: The industry contraction has left more writers out of work and relying on backup coverage, the 2023 strike wore down reserves, and healthcare costs keep outpacing revenue. On top of that, employer contributions are capped at $250K per project, a limit the WGA says studios have refused to meaningfully raise in five straight negotiations. Writers have tried to pick up the slack by forgoing minimum pay increases totaling $64M annually, but it hasn't been enough.

The AMPTP reportedly has a fix in mind: massive cash infusions into guild health and pension funds in exchange for five-year contracts instead of the standard three. The guilds need the money, but locking in for two extra years means giving up negotiating leverage in an industry that's changing fast. The WGA hasn't said where it stands yet, and over at the DGA, newly elected President Christopher Nolan has called the idea "inappropriate."

Looking ahead… AI has gotten most of the attention heading into this bargaining cycle, but health and pension funding is quietly becoming the issue that could define it. The DGA and SAG-AFTRA are staring down similar deficits, which means this isn't just a WGA problem, it's an industry-wide one. Negotiations kick off March 16.