TheFutureParty
A Community-based Media Company
Nate Bargatze, currently the biggest touring comedian in the world, is expanding his brand of PG-rated comedy with the creation of a wide-ranging media company — Nateland Entertainment. The Big Picture: While live touring and podcasts have been cash cows for comedians over the past decade, Hollywood has immensely underinvested in the genre during the […]
Thunderbolts*, Marvel’s risky new superhero flick starring heroes from the Black Widow universe, got great reviews across the board — but nobody went to see it. The Big Picture: Since 2008, Marvel has built the highest-grossing film franchise of all time and ridden that wave for decades. But audiences may have finally lost enthusiasm for superhero mashups, […]
NBCUniversal and Disney have filed suit against the generative-AI platform Midjourney for committing copyright infringement on a mass scale. The Subtitles: This move marks the first major legal action taken by Hollywood studios against a generative-AI company. Previous lawsuits have mostly been restricted to individuals trying to preserve ownership of their name, image, and likeness — and usually, they were […]
Mini-dramas — low-budget, short-form, vertical shows that are distributed on dedicated apps — are expanding beyond their popularity in Asia (especially China) to the US. The Big Picture: While the premium A-list series on Quibi couldn’t catch on, the soap opera-esque programming of mini-dramas seem to have found a home with American audiences. With traditional […]
Ballers, which bills itself as a social-sport venue and members club, raised a $20 million Series A round in the run-up to the opening of the company’s first flagship location in Philadelphia. Why It Hits: Ballers is in the racket sports and golf business — two sports blowing up in popularity with Gen Z, not just for the […]
Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the entertainment conglomerate will be split in two — with one company housing “Streaming & Studios” and the other comprising the “Global Networks.” The Big Picture: WBD isn’t the first entertainment giant to announce such a move — Comcast threw off its high-revenue (yet declining) cable assets into Versant, and Lionsgate separated its […]
Grammy-winning rapper and music producer Timbaland is launching a company called Stage Zero that will generate artificial pop stars. The High Note: AI is creating waves in the music industry, with some artists, like Timbaland, embracing the tech, while others, like Billie Eilish, deeming it an existential threat. But Stage Zero is taking things a […]
Lionsgate is seemingly exploring the use of AI not only to cut production budgets by half, but also to radically alter existing movies — such as making R-rated titles kid-friendly and turning live-action films into animated ones. The Big Picture: While Lionsgate is the first studio to publicly announce that they partnered with an AI company (inking a […]
This month, WhatsApp and sports-content publication OffBall’s “The Chat” feature has hosted conversations on some of the biggest moments in sports with some of the biggest names in sports. The Big Play: So much of the culture of watching sports is engaging with expert commentary and interacting with like-minded fans. The Chat, which launched in […]
Disney’s live-action remake of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch has become a ginormous box-office hit thanks to millennial and older Gen Z audiences who flocked to the theater for a sweet dose of nostalgia. The Big Picture: While 80s and 90s nostalgia has fueled the box office over the past decade, Lilo & Stitch may signal […]