The Mail Cart: Friday, September 18th

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Today we have the biggest announcement in AvA history, plus we cover:

Radical new healthcare policies for Hollywood professionals, Latin Grammy Awards noms, Is Paramount REALLY going to Nashville, one of the most inspiring stories in Entertainment, Macklemore and Ms. Rachel just became the most unlikely duo and jobs at Sony, WME, Warner Bros., Complex and CBS.

💼 Looking for open Entertainment jobs? Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter or visit our Job Board now has 225+ early career Entertainment roles as well.

🏖️ We are having a goodbye summer event (we are sad) with Sundial on Sunday Sept 20th, go touch some grass!

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If you’ve lived in LA and are a fan of music, you’ve probably been to The Wiltern. Or at least you’ve seen it in pics. It’s hard to miss due to its iconic massive green structure, the 12-story Art Deco Pellissier building, towering over it. Do I know what goes on in that building? No. Does it have a special place in my heart? Also no. But the venue below it does. Let me explain.

My first desk at WME in the Music Department, was working for Alex Bramwell. He was one of the good ones! Beyond admin and entering offers, I was tasked with helping book every show in the great state of California under ~3,000 capacity for all of WME’s roster. LA indeed is in California, so that meant booking shows at venues within eyesight of my desk. JK we didn’t have windows!

The other, much cooler, responsibility was controlling the guest list for all of those shows. It was the ultimate flex of power when it felt like you didn’t have much. I’d obviously slip my name onto many guest lists, and venture out on school nights to every show I could. But I found myself going to one venue over and over. You guessed it.. The Wiltern. I’d stand in the back watching bands like Khruangbin, Polo & Pan, James Bay, Hozier, and whoever was playing that night.

So with that context, it’s pretty surreal and full circle to announce that we are hosting our first IRL version of AvA LIVE on October 18 at that same venue 10 years later in front of 750 of you.

A lot more to share soon, but a sincere thank you to everyone who has read this newsletter, liked a meme, showed up at an event, and/or watched an episode of AvA LIVE.

🏥 Lionsgate, NEON, and FilmNation all agreed to new healthcare policies ‘that support Hollywood’s career producers’

📦 Matt Belloni breaks down if Paramount really is headed to Nashville

🎫 Oasis is tackling ticket chaos on its 38-date 2027 tour with fixed price tiers and sales limited to pre-registered fans.

🏆 The Latin Grammy Award nominations are in, 4 artist tie for the most nods with 7 all around (Happy Hispanic Heritage Month btw!!)

⚔️ The streaming wars are becoming the platform wars

The ability to pull in, retain with a massive volume of the right types of content, and consistently serve subscribers the best next thing via algo seems to be the whole game.

That's why Netflix is looking a lot like YouTube and YouTube is spending millions to retain creators AND as of today Disney is hiring its first CTO the former Character.AI CEO who will oversee technology, data, AI, product and engineering.

Media companies are being pushed to a fork in the road (buzzword), get paid to be a tile on someones platform and collect cash or race to get to scale.

🕷️ ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ is officially the highest grossing domestic film of all time with $936.7 million… dethroning ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

💸 Ms. Rachel just matched Macklemore’s $1 million donation to support Palestine, and it seems like Ed Sheeran and Robert Kraft were bullied into donating too (rare cyberbullying W)

📈 The trend of shows performing better in their second season continues…

‘The Gentleman’ posted a 48% increase on season 2
‘Adults’ saw a 40% jump in viewership compared to season 1
BTW one of the most successful shows of all time, ‘The Office,’ was almost cancelled before season 2 because it started slow
Main takeaway here? Good things take time.

Mario Dedivanovic used to hide his makeup kit in a Nike shoebox under his bed. Then 20 years after landing a role as a greeter at Sephora, his product was on the shelves.

Growing up, his mom cleaned the executive offices at L'Oréal headquarters. Sometimes she brought product home for his sisters. He'd sneak into the bathroom and swatch it when nobody was looking, because he was pretty sure being obsessed with makeup was the wrong thing to be obsessed with.

The timeline from there:

Walked into a Sephora after high school and applied that same day. His mom told him no.
He kept calling them back. Day after day. Until they finally agreed to interview him. He landed his first job as a fragrance consultant and greeter.
First day on the floor, a customer asked him to help her find a lipstick. He wasn't supposed to. He did it anyway. She loved the shade.
Built his kit in secret for years. Told his family he was still working in fragrance. Hid everything in a Nike shoebox in his room and snuck it out to do his first private clients on the side.
Met Kim Kardashian right as YouTube was taking off, before Instagram existed. 18 years later they still work together.
Launched Makeup by Mario across North America at Sephora exactly 20 years to the day after he first walked into a store

He still says that first retail job is a big part of what made his brand a success. Our full convo:

Today we have a FUN ONE that even includes olives.

The one and only Sandra Bullock on Happy Hour Overheard. Sandra and her co-star Lee chat about getting ghosted and whether she has ever interacted with a real life ghost?