🎬 The Depp Referendum

👋 Good morning, and happy Friday the 13th! By one oft-cited estimate, US businesses lose up to $900M every Friday the 13th because people are too spooked to fly, sign deals, or make big purchases. So if your agent doesn’t call back today, don’t take it personally.

Welcome back to the Dailies. Top off your coffee (carefully, given the date) and we’ll get you caught up on everything the industry’s been up to the past few days.

📉 Netflix's lead is getting a little smaller: A new report looked at how much time Americans spent watching streaming originals over the first nine months of 2026, and Netflix leads by a mile with 58% (Prime Video is next at 13%). That's down from more than two-thirds in 2024, though, and total minutes have slipped 3% from last year to 753B. Part of that is other streamers landing big hits of their own, like 'The Pitt' and 'Love Island USA.' The other part is that Netflix has fewer of them: only 13 of its shows have passed 5B minutes this year, compared to 23 at this point last year. 'Bridgerton' S4 is its biggest at 11.3B, but returning shows like 'Monster,' 'One Piece,' and 'Beef' all came in lower than expected. Then again, it only takes one big hit to change the story.

Top-streamed chart (U.S.) Nov. 5 to Nov. 11. Data provided by Luminate.

Paramount's 'Ebenezer' opens today. It's Ti West's gothic spin on 'A Christmas Carol,' Johnny Depp plays Scrooge, and it's the first time a major studio has put him at the top of a call sheet since Warner Bros. cut him from 'Fantastic Beasts' in 2020. Hollywood wants to know one thing this weekend, which is whether Johnny Depp can still open a movie.

Studios had already cooled on Depp before the Amber Heard trials. 'The Lone Ranger,' 'Mortdecai,' and 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' all lost money, and he came with big salary asks and on-set drama. But by every measure anyone's taken, audiences still want to see him:

So Paramount made the bet small on purpose. The movie cost $38M, less than 'Mortdecai' did, though marketing is another $50M or so. If it legs out through the holidays and does its usual Depp business overseas, it turns a profit. Depp took the small bet too: $5M upfront plus box office bonuses. For scale, his 'Pirates 4' paycheck alone was $55M, more than this whole movie cost.

The campaign is built to keep the trial out of it. Depp has only shown up to promote the film in full Scrooge costume, yelling at Comic-Con crowds in July and knocking over a Christmas tree in Bryant Park this month. No junket, no "comeback" branding, no sit-downs. The only thing left to talk about is the performance.

Looking ahead… Tracking has it around $20M, probably enough for No. 1, and 'Hunger Games' lands next Friday, so the window is one weekend. Lionsgate already has Depp's 'Day Drinker' (opposite Penélope Cruz) in the can for March, and he's in talks with Disney on 'Pirates 6.' Both are going to read a lot into this weekend’s number.

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Creators are Hollywood's hottest free agents right now. Netflix is signing YouTube stars to compete with YouTube itself, Disney's upping its creator spending, and even Instagram's getting in on it with its new long-form Features format.

Then there's Tubi. Fox's free streamer admits it won't always pay the most, but it has added programming from about 700 creators in 18 months, and viewing time on its creator content is up nearly 4,000% from a year ago. For most of the new shows it backs, the offer is simple: we'll fund it, and you keep it.

Tubi offers three separate kinds of deals, and a creator can do more than one:

Why creators are saying yes: Tubi pays upfront, stays out of the creative, and invests in niches that can be underserved on bigger platforms (YA, Black entertainment, LGBTQ+ programming). The trade-off is that budgets are far smaller than a typical TV show. It's also a way into TV. For creators making their first show, Tubi can pair them with a production company to handle the unfamiliar parts, like legal, insurance, and production design.

Zoom out: This is bigger than Tubi. A new report tracked what the biggest media and tech companies spend on content, and it added up to $207B last year. Of that, $46B went to creator content, up 75% since 2021. Traditional film and TV still gets the most, but its share has dropped from 71% to 64% over that stretch, with creators and live sports picking up the difference.

🎤 'The Voice' might be packing its bags. NBC is weighing a move out of LA (Nashville and Atlanta are in the mix) to cut costs, though staying put is still on the table. 'American Idol' is already headed to Georgia for S25, and 'America's Got Talent' is rumored to be looking around too.

🏛️ Hollywood wants its tax credit by Christmas. At an AFM panel this week, backers of the federal film incentive bill (a 20-30% credit on U.S. production wages) pushed for passage before the Senate's Dec. 18 adjournment, so films starting Jan. 1 could qualify. Democrats take over Congress in January.

🎙️ iHeart's podcast unit may be for sale, depending on who you ask. Sources say the radio giant is in early talks to sell some or all of it, mostly because it needs the cash. iHeart says that's not happening. Either way, video podcasts are a key battleground for Netflix and YouTube, and a slate this size could be serious ammo.

💸 Skydance is going through WBD's receipts. It reportedly found "tens of millions" in luxury hospitality spending under the old regime, from dining and travel to gifts (plus a lot of Erewhon runs). Now it plans to save millions by trimming outside vendors, studio services and overlapping marketing budgets.

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