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👋 Good morning! What if 'Blair Witch' ditched the camcorder for a podcast mic? That's the concept behind A24's 'Undertone,' a horror film about a paranormal podcast host who starts receiving terrifying recordings. The entire scare factor is built around what you hear, not what you see, and A24 is leaning into that. The director originally shot it in his own living room, and now the studio is releasing it early in 100+ Dolby Atmos theaters, handpicked for their ability to surround you in a 3D dome of sound, before the wide release on March 13.

Welcome back to The Dailies. Happy Friday. You've almost made it. Grab your coffee, we'll handle the headlines. 👇

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

Well, that's that. Netflix officially bowed out, declining to match Paramount's $31/share bid and ending its pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets. The move came yesterday, just hours after WBD's board declared Paramount's offer a "superior proposal," which triggered a four-business-day window for Netflix to raise its $27.75/share bid. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos was reportedly still at the White House with DOJ and Trump administration officials when the rug got pulled.

Netflix didn’t even sleep on it. Sarandos and co-CEO Greg Peters said the deal they negotiated "would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval," but that at the price required to match Paramount, "the deal is no longer financially attractive."

Wall Street seems relieved: Netflix stock spiked in after-hours trading, while Paramount also jumped. Netflix had dropped ~30% since the merger was announced in December, so investors seem happy to see the streamer walk away. WBD can now terminate its Netflix deal and move forward with Paramount's $111B all-cash offer for the entire company. Paramount's bid includes covering the $2.8B breakup fee WBD owes Netflix, so the transition should be clean.

Looking ahead… Warnamount is on the horizon, but it’s far from a done deal. Netflix was facing serious regulatory scrutiny from the DOJ, the Senate, and multiple state attorneys general. It remains to be seen how much of that carries over to Paramount, but the Senate antitrust subcommittee isn't wasting any time. They've already invited Paramount CEO David Ellison to testify at its March 4 hearing.

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

🪧 The WGA might cancel its own awards show. About 100 WGA West staffers, who keep the guild's day-to-day operations running, have been on strike since Feb. 17 over low wages, unfair promotion practices, and alleged labor violations as they negotiate their first-ever contract. This week, the situation escalated when management reportedly issued an ultimatum: accept the latest offer by today or the 2026 Writers Guild Awards (March 8) will be canceled, since the guild says it won't ask nominees to cross a picket line to attend. It would be a notable loss for awards season given that the WGAs are a key Oscar bellwether for screenplay races. The internal strife is also tough timing for a guild heading into AMPTP contract negotiations on March 16.

🎲 Prediction markets meet insider trading. Kalshi, the prediction market platform, suspended and fined a MrBeast editor named Artem Kaptur after he placed ~$4,000 in bets on outcomes of the YouTuber's videos using information from, you know, editing the videos. He was fined over $20,000, banned for two years, and reported to the CFTC. It's the exact scenario critics have warned about as prediction markets push deeper into Hollywood as a new revenue and engagement play (remember Polymarket literally putting odds on-screen at the Golden Globes?). More integrations are on the way, and the bigger entertainment betting gets, the more opportunities there are for industry insiders to unfairly cash in on what they know.

💺 AMC is going full airline mode with its movie theater seats. The chain announced it will reserve the best seats in the house exclusively for its top-tier loyalty members, A-List and Stubs Premiere, at no extra charge. The program is expected to launch later this year. It's a rebrand of sorts: AMC tried charging more for prime seats through its Sightline program three years ago and scrapped it, but now they're flipping the script by framing seat access as a perk instead of a fee. Attendance dropped 10% last quarter and revenue dipped with it, so AMC appears to be planting its flag in the loyalty model over chasing casual moviegoers. AMC hasn't defined which seats qualify yet, but we're guessing it's not the one so far left that you're basically watching the movie in italics.

🎥 THEATRICAL

📺 STREAMING

🔮 BOX OFFICE PREVIEW: The multiplex is getting stabby this weekend. 'Scream 7' is tracking for a franchise-best $40-55M opening that would dethrone 'Scream VI's' $44.4M launch. Behind it, Sony's animated 'GOAT' ($9-12M) and 'Wuthering Heights' ($7-10M) should round out the podium as holdover counter-programming.