As with the dual strikes in 2023, artificial intelligence was a big sticking point in negotiations. As such, the new contract establishes performer safety guardrails and gains around AI, including consent and disclosure requirements for artificially generated digital replica use. - Deadline
M2 appears to be an end-run around this issue, allowing ByteDance to pour in those ingredients but then step away to let Americans run the kitchen. Will we still be as hungry? Less clear. - The Hollywood Reporter
“Is there a chance the fog surrounding the company’s quest to sell itself to Skydance Media is about to lift? So far, it’s not entirely clear — not even to executives at Paramount Global.” - Variety
“The 11-month strike waged by the performers’ union was brought to a tidy end on Wednesday as members voted overwhelmingly to ratify a labor agreement with major interactive companies, which collectively are behind franchises like Call of Duty and Marvel’s Spider-Man.” - The Hollywood Reporter
Festivals are also answerable to funders and to different stakeholders’ interests. Cancellations of planned films raise questions about festivals’ roles and accountability to community groups who find certain films objectionable, the wider public, politicians, festival sponsors, audiences, filmmakers and the films themselves. - The Conversation
The brand’s voice is embedded in the content, as are its products, but there’s no overt pitch, no awkward energy of a sponsored partnership. The videos are seemingly unpolished, even if they may have been meticulously planned. And, in many cases, viewers may not even realize they’re being marketed to. - The New York Times
“Phil McGraw‘s Merit Street Media is in bankruptcy court and is simultaneously suing its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting, for breach of contract that the company says led to the chapter 11 filing. But signs that the 15-month-old network was struggling were there well before Merit Street began bankruptcy proceedings.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“According to Netflix, more than 50% of its members — amounting to over 150 million households, or an estimated 300 million viewers — now watch anime. The company says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the past five years, with 2024 marking a record-breaking year.” - The Hollywood Reporter
What seems rather dangerous about Hollywood’s interest in generative AI isn’t the “death” of the larger studio system, but rather this technology’s potential to make it easier for studios to work with fewer actual people. That’s literally one of Asteria’s big selling points. - The Verge
Hollywood, it appears, is stuck on repeat, sucked with an ever-more deafening gurgle into a death cycle of creative bankruptcy desperately presented as comfort food. - The Guardian
Since his 1990 series “The Civil War” drew record viewership to PBS and crossed over into pop culture, Burns has proven time and again that there’s a robust market for interrogating history with the clear eyes of a journalist and the heart of a patriot. - The Wall Street Journal
Wow, OK: “The agency is targeting professionals at the intersection of arts and technology for recruitment, CIA officers told The Times, and continues to cooperate with entertainment giants to inspire the next generation of creative spies.” - Los Angeles Times (AOL)
Perhaps this is not a surprise in a time of AI slop, but at least the villainous, fictional Saja Boys’s songs are performed by real-life musicians on the high-debuting soundtrack. - Vulture
“The sound team has anxiety-heightening tricks. ‘Whether it’s some repetitive sound that starts speeding up, like some chopping or whatever. Just adding, adding, adding, adding.’” - Variety
Then the (gay) director left; "a number of creatives working behind the scenes left,” and America Ferrera, originally supposed to be Elio’s mom, left the production because there was no longer “Latinx representation in the leadership.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
