How to Save Movies; ‘All’s Fair’ Paydays; Mike & Pam Tell All; Disney Microdramas?!Plus: Janice grills Tilly Norwood creator; Brentwood Country Club battleTeam Ankler goes everywhere to bring you our industry-best reporting, and in this week’s debut of Crowd Pleaser, our new collaboration with Letterboxd, Matthew Frank really put in the miles (4,050 of them, to be exact), visiting 58 theaters in 20 states to deliver an urgent and very colorful snapshot of the state of American moviegoing today. It’s a must-read for anyone who loves movies. The takeaway? There are huge, hungry audiences in every corner of the U.S., and Hollywood needs to seize the opportunity to bring them back to the theater. It’s a warning Richard Rushfield underscored with his smackdown of indie studios, whose end-of-year awards plays are increasingly misaligned with audience demand. Ranging even farther afield this week were Ankler CEO Janice Min, Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey and our star events director, Hanna Hensler, who jetted to Web Summit Lisbon. Highlights included Natalie’s panel about how to win Gen Z audiences with Pubity co-founder Kit Chilvers and shit you should care about CEO Lucy Blakiston (read about it Tuesday on Like & Subscribe) and Janice’s hilarious surprise onstage Q&A with Career Ladder’s TikTok superstar Max Klymenko (8.6 million followers) in the massive MEO Arena: Janice also sat down with Eline Van der Velden, the Dutch entrepreneur who sent Hollywood into full meltdown this fall with the introduction of AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood. They explored how fast the tech behind Tilly is advancing (both scary and mind-boggling) and the strangeness of an AI performer’s “career” (Tilly is for sale, and the nudity question is still up in the air). Read all about it or watch the video here: Van der Velden also was among the media and tech powerhouses who joined us Monday for The Ankler Media in Motion Dinner, presented by ProRata.ai. Co-hosts Janice, Sky News executive chairman David Rhodes and ProRata chief business officer Annelies Jansen welcomed guests including Time CEO Jessica Sibley; Pod Save the People’s DeRay Mckesson; massive creator-entrepreneur Josh Richards and his CrossCheck Studios’ co-founder Chris Sawtelle; Blakiston; Chilvers; Web Summit executive producer Ciara Haley; ITN CEO Rachel Corp; Fox Business News’ Susan Li; Axios’ Sara Fischer and the New York Times’ Katie Robertson. At the intimate and lively gathering, Jansen prompted guests to discuss one of the most urgent questions in media right now: “How can publishers and creators start to make money off AI, instead of the other way around?” Oof, maybe Tilly knows!
Now, ICYMI, here’s more of our best of the week: Series Business: ‘All’s Fair’ Scoops; Disney Microdramas?!
Rushfield: Movies’ Drama Mess
Dealmakers: Crowdfunding 2.0
ESG: Disney’s Money Trap
Brentwood’s Barbed-Wire Battle
Prestige Junkie: Sinners Women
The Wakeup
Our Shows
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How to Save Movies; ‘All’s Fair’ Paydays; Mike & Pam Tell All; Disney Microdramas?!
November 16, 2025
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