Ankler Agenda

How do you solve a problem like Netflix Film, and who is best positioned to figure it out? “As currently constructed, it’s an impossible job,” Richard Rushfield tells Elaine Low and Sean McNulty on this week’s pod. The problem? Netflix wants to churn out 30-plus movies a year, deliver the next KPop Demon Hunters, compete for Oscars and somehow make films tha...

To hear Ted Sarandos tell it, things are going great at Netflix. “Our business and our business flywheel are working,” the co-CEO said on this week’s earnings call — a week after laying off a thousand employees, and unceremoniously firing content chief Bela Bajaria, whose sudden perp-walk out of the company’s HQ has shaken even an industry accustomed to volatility. So while rev...

Steve Hilton has been talking with David Ellison, Ted Sarandos and Trump Hollywood ambassador Jon Voight about how to bring production back to California. And the Republican candidate for governor has a big idea: blow past the state’s existing film tax incentives with an uncapped credit that could reach 40 percent, covering everything from stars’ salari...

David Ellison has an ambitious pitch for Hollywood: Skydance will spend more on content than Netflix or Disney, crank out roughly 190 series and 30 movies a year, find at least $6 billion in savings and pay down its mountain of debt. All while keeping the creative community happy. How, exactly, is all of that supposed to work when even Wall Street doesn’t see it? Ellison a...

The new Paramount is taking shape fast. On the eve of the Warner Bros. deal concluding, David Ellison is bringing in fresh blood — and bloodletting. Former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz boards as the surprise co-CEO, charged with day-to-day management and integration (read: layoffs). And after months of heated rivalry between Cindy Holland and Casey...

Mike Schur calls Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. a “nightmare scenario” for Hollywood — and now that David Ellison has cleared the biggest obstacle to getting the deal done, he’s even more alarmed about what comes next. “It’s gasoline on a fire,” the Parks and Recreation co-creator and Dig producer tells Elaine Low, pointing to an industry alrea...

So after months of big talk about only settling for structural remedies, i.e., selling off assets, what did California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the 11 other state AGs suing Paramount Skydance wind up getting? Less than you think. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Lesley Goldberg break down the settlement terms — loopholes, fine print and...

A dire warning from Anthropic and OpenAI that increasingly autonomous AI agents could launch cyberattacks – or worse – has an especially chilling implication for Hollywood, where studios and streamers are rapidly weaving AI into their businesses. "Imagine a world in which there are thousands of Sony hacks happening in real time," Reel AI columnist Erik Barmack tells Elaine Low and Sean McNulty. "Y...

Inside President Macron’s summit, where Ted Sarandos, Dana Walden and Hollywood power players attended — very quietly French President Emmanuel Macron summoned some of the biggest names in global entertainment to the south of France this week to talk about nothing less than the future of cinema — and Hollywood came. Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Disney’s Dana Walden, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley and oth...

It wasn’t long ago when studios took the biggest jewels of their fall slates — the Gravitys and Jokers and First Mans — to the Venice Film Festival to kick off awards season and put A-list talent on a gondola. But this year, not so much: The Venice lineup is light on flashy studio premieres — don’t look for Tom Cruise and Digger or Timoth...

Hollywood’s newest talent war isn’t over movie stars. For years, YouTube was treated as a “farm league,” in Ted Sarandos‘ words — a place where talent dreamt of graduating to Hollywood. Now smaller player Netflix is raiding the world’s biggest streamer, scooping up creators, podcasters and personalities who built their audiences on YouTube. And YouTube has had enough. Nata...

So much for détente. California Attorney General Rob Bonta canceled Monday’s planned meeting with Paramount after accusing the company of leaking — and misrepresenting — confidential settlement discussions to the press. “They need to sleep in the bed that they made,” Bonta tells Elaine Low in this bonus episode of Ankler Agenda, blasting Paramount for “playing games” and waging a PR campaign while...

Hayden Panettiere worked in Hollywood since she was 11 months old, and by the time Heroes made her a household name at 16, she was already navigating the darker side of child stardom. The Wall Street Journal‘s Esther Zuckerman joins Elaine Low to reflect on Panettiere’s life, career and exploitation — including a top NBC exec kissing her on the lips when she...

“Everyone has dry powder for sports,” Ashley Cullins heard while reporting her recent look at the private equity firms circling Hollywood. It’s a truism Bob Iger and Josh Kushner‘s Thrive Capital proved, buying the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion. But sports is only part of the story. With billions in undeployed capital sitting on the sidelines, wh...

It’s been a while since Hollywood has seen a power couple quite like Zendaya and Tom Holland. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey, the newlyweds helped drive more than $2 billion (and counting) at the box office this year. What makes them so bankable to Gen Z in a volatile theatrical landscape? And how much does the audience’s parasocial inve...

What a difference a month makes. With Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery now in limbo, 35,000 Warners staffers have plenty of time to reconsider their options. Could HBO chief Casey Bloys or WBTV head Channing Dungey be tempted by more stable pastures? Is Warners still a haven for top showrunners? As confidence in the deal crumbles, Holl...

What could Paramount Skydance do to make a dozen attorneys general drop their lawsuit against the Warner Bros. Discovery merger? Sell off CNN? Paramount Pictures? According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta: not much. “We’re not talking about settlement. We’re going to be telling the judge when we want a trial date,” he tells Elaine Low on Friday, shortly after Paramount announced it would...

David Ellison may be calling Paramount’s agreement to delay its $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition a “significant win.” Wall Street appears less convinced. Paramount Skydance shares sank to a new low after the company agreed Friday not to close the deal until the antitrust lawsuits brought by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America are resolved — or until next...

Who’s buying Letterboxd? The social media platform, prized for its Gen Z audience and movie fan bona fides, is on the market for a rumored $250 million — with multiple studios circling. Dealmakers columnist Ashley Cullins, who broke the big news of A24 pursuing the platform, joins Elaine Low to reveal the other potential buyers and why the price tag is raising eyebrows, an...

States, 1. Paramount, 0. The $111 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger has hit its first real wall after a coalition of 12 states won a temporary restraining order blocking the deal. And California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the charge, isn’t interested in helping Paramount find a way around it. “We love the judge’s order,” Bonta tells Elaine Low in a...

It’s a bad week for David Ellison, with Paramount Skydance facing two concurrent lawsuits seeking to block its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery — plus a shareholder case accusing Ellison and his father, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, of corruption. On Monday, 12 state attorneys general — led by California AG Rob Bonta — filed their long-exp...

Welcome to Netflix’s hard pivot. Faced with lagging engagement from its users and signs of audience disinterest in some of its top shows between seasons, Netflix’s next big thing might be… cable television. Live channels, more talk shows (via video podcasts) and creator content and bundles with other streamers (including perhaps Peacock) to recreate the lean...

Monoculture may not be dead after all — it just needed Taylor Swift in a wedding dress and Christopher Nolan in IMAX. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down an old-fashioned July of cultural spectacle, from the Swift-Travis Kelce nuptials to Nolan’s star-studded Odyssey, which arrives with sold-out premium-format...

Books run on word-of-mouth. So what are the people who shape what gets made, watched, read and bought reading? Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty dig into The Ankler’s inaugural summer reading list, where 100 notables — including Sony Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sherry Lansing, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Netflix film chief Dan Lin, Gil...

Another Monday, another huge deal in Hollywood. Two weeks ago, Fox Corp. announced its intentions to acquire Roku for $22 billion. Now, it’s Comcast’s turn — in reverse. Today, the company revealed it will exit Hollywood completely, spinning off another division, consisting of NBCUniversal and Sky Media, as a publicly traded company, and joining Versant outside the Comcast gates. Comcast hopes to...