The Mail Cart: Wednesday, June 24th

👋 Bonjour! (in honor of seemingly every person in the Entertainment industry posting from either UTA Beach or a LinkedIn pop up at Cannes). It feels like the longstanding festival for brands and creatives is becoming the 2nd Coachella for influencers, and yes I am having FOMO as I write this with June Gloom stuck over my head in Silicon Beach (Playa Vista for all of you non-LA newbies).

☀️ Sassy rant over. A ton of cool announcements, cool people, cool experiential pop ups, and a continued flow of $$ from brands into creator-first projects. Give me 12 months and I’ll be on the beach hosting AvA LIVE with a belly full of lukewarm tomato mozzarella that came from a mini wooden stick.

📝 The big news out of Hollywood today is ~~Jake Shane was spotted on yet another yacht~~ A24 and Google are teaming on an AI initiative, and read on for yet another thought piece from someone probably unqualified to write it (me). Plus Olivia Rodrigo launched a new all female non-profit festival and it’s my favorite thing I saw this week.

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📹 Unless you've been living under a rock. You've seen InStyle's vertical series The Intern pop up on your feed more than twice. Today we’re sitting down with Jonathan Borge, the brains behind that show and others as the Head of Entertainment & Deputy Editor at InStyle.

@instyle
Yep, your favorite fashion magazine’s favorite fashion magazine’s scripted social series ‘InStyle’s The Intern’ is back! I sincerely hope ... See more

Plus drop your questions in the YouTube chat live for the legendary Bill Lawrence (Shrinking, Ted Lasso, Rooster, Scrubs etc. etc.), Dalia Ganz who oversees digital marketing at Warner Records (no I am not named after them) who works with everyone from The Red Hot Chili Peppers to Sombr to Madonna, and the co-founders of what many are calling the A24 of the Internet.

⭐ You either die a hero or live long enough to partner with a big tech company on an AI initiative, or whatever Batman said

The latest domino to fall is A24. It was reported yesterday that Google DeepMind is investing $75M into A24 to develop AI-powered filmmaking tools. This marks Google’s parent company’s Alphabet’s first stake in a movie studio. Some important details here that I do want to point out before you start marching down Melrose Ave. with your pitchforks.

This is not a data-training/IP deal like the now backpedaled $1 billion equity investment and three-year licensing partnership Disney signed with OpenAI.
Google will not have access to A24’s catalog, and A24 will have full creative control. For now.
The $$ will be used for “research” and to build out new workflows.

My take: AI isn’t going anywhere. IF and a big IF strict creative guardrails & IP protection for creatives and their work are put up around these deals that leverage administrative AI, you can’t blame these companies who are just trying to stay alive. That being said (please read this twice): I will never ever be OK with Generative AI running rampant through media, Hollywood, the creator economy or really anywhere for that matter.

❝

“We think there are better uses that preserve creative control and support risk-taking. This won’t look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with.”

Scott Belsky - Head of A24 Labs

⭐ Advertising revenue for the NFL reached a new high of $5.6 billion last season (+6.8% from the year prior)

The biggest winners? Fox ($1.13B), NBC/Peacock ($996M), CBS ($902M), ESPN/ABC ($525.1M), Prime Video ($488.1M), and Netflix ($112.8M).

⭐ GIRL POWER

Olivia Rodrigo launched a non-profit, all-female festival, called Daisy Chain Fields that will donate all proceeds to various charities.

Daisy Chain Fields will also host an all-female lineup that includes Stevie Nicks, Chappell Roan, and more. Before I went full time on the memes at AvA, I helped run a non-profit festival in Phoenix called M3F Fest. A great cause and even better example of how to correctly use free will!

⭐ IG goes Horizontal

Because of course. This is IG’s 2nd initiative to take your eyeballs from your little screen to your bigger screen, after announcing a TV app to watch IG Reels back in December (vertical vids only back then). Because what is more fun than watching brain rot with your wife and kids on a flat screen as they see how cooked your algo is? That initiative never really seemed to take off, but this one makes a lot more sense.

The circle of life continues: Horizontal to vertical and now back to horizontal.

⭐ DDA Talent and Worldwide Production Agency merge to form new global talent agency that is yet to be named.

It’s giving Prestige Worldwide.

⭐ Amazon’s ‘Wondery’ platform secured exclusive rights to the distribution and ad sales of Kevin Durant’s ‘Boardroom’ podcasts

Wasn’t Wondery being ‘sunset’ like 6 months ago? Anywayssss…

⭐ Amazon also debuted a new Creator Hub at Cannes for Fire TV that will include work from the likes of MrBeast, Dude Perfect, and more.

UTA signed our king Kareem Rahma (‘Subway Takes’ & ‘Keep The Meter Running’) across all areas.
Paramount Skydance elevated two of their veteran labor relation execs (Nicole Land and Sheldon Kasdan) to lead their newly formed Industrial Relations team.
Netflix promoted Hannah Minghella to become their new Animation Studios Chief. She originally was brought on in 2024 to cover both animation AND live-action family films, but will now hone in on the former.