| | | | | | What's news: Chris McCarthy is reuniting with Taylor Sheridan at NBCU. A Stargate series is coming to Prime Video. Lionsgate is launching an all-movie digital network. NBC and Netflix have scored MLB rights. And AI music firm Udio has settled with WMG, paving the way for a new platform. — Abid Rahman
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THR's 50 Most Powerful TV Producers 2025 ►"If I could have made movies alone on my computer, I wouldn’t have met 93 percent of the people I love." Let’s not sugarcoat it. Writers are out of work. Production is fleeing Los Angeles. And a 13-year-old in rural Montana is probably using Sora 2 to create a new season of Wednesday right now. But for all of its many, many issues, the TV industry persists, minting breakouts every year, and many of its biggest power players are feeling a little hopeful — about longer orders, boosted interest in original ideas and maybe even loosening purse strings. In THR ’s annual census of the most powerful writer-producers, we polled 50-ish creators behind the biggest hits of the past year about the promising conversations they’ve had, Zoom pitch horror stories, their concerns with AI, writers room envy and the 2025 series that most impressed them — under strict instructions they couldn’t name The Pitt or Adolescence. The list. |
AI Is Transforming How We Think About Music ►Bleak. A flood of AI slop is raging through our devices. By one count, there’s 50,000 AI songs uploaded daily to a major streaming service and 97 percent of listeners can’t tell when they hear a fully AI-generated track. In another survey, about 1 in 4 of all producers conceded to using AI tools, while others may quietly say that the tech allows them to produce dozens of ideas for a song, cutting the time it takes to work on a single track. To take America’s temperature, THR partnered with the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami on a nationally representative poll of 2,244 U.S. adults, with the aim to understand listening habits, willingness to embrace AI-generated music and opinions on key issues like streaming pay for artists. The survey, conducted by decision intelligence firm Morning Consult, highlights dividing lines on how AI is scrambling the industry. The story.
—🤝 Bubble latest. 🤝 Suno, the most prominent AI music generation platform in the industry, has announced the close of a $250m funding round, a deal that the company says values Suno at about $2.45b. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, the prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm whose portfolio includes companies like Chime, Roku and Uber as well as prominent AI company Anthropic. Others participating in the round were NVIDIA’s venture capital arm NVentures, as well as Lightspeed, Matrix and Hallwood Media. Hallwood signed a first-of-its-kind record deal with a Suno music creator earlier this summer, while another of its AI signees, Xania Monet, had garnered headlines after getting several songs on some of Billboard’s charts. The story.
—🤝 Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. 🤝 Hollywood-oriented AI is getting a major boost from the Saudi government, which announced Wednesday that it will anchor a $900m funding round for Luma AI, the San Francisco company building models meant partly for entertainment. Humain, the AI company backed by Saudi’s PIF, will be the lead investor in Luma AI’s latest funding round, which also includes powerhouse VC Andreessen Horowitz as well as early-stage investors Amplify Partners and Matrix Partners.. The size of Humain’s stake was not disclosed, but principals described it as significant. The story.
—🤝 Break out the bubbly. 🤝 Warner Music Group is settling its copyright infringement lawsuit against AI music generation platform Udio. The settlement is Udio’s second with the major music companies in less than a month. WMG and Udio didn’t disclose financial details, though like the settlement agreement Udio entered with Universal Music Group at the end of October, the latest pact opens the door for a new platform Udio is launching in 2026, with licensed music from the WMG recorded and publishing catalog. Among artists on WMG’s roster are Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Cardi B, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX among many others. The story. |
The Good News and Bad News About California Film Shoots ►Mixed bag. "We put our feet up, we took things for granted," opined California Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 2, as he signed into law a doubling of the state’s tax incentives for film and TV projects from $330m to $750m annually. Now the impact of the move is starting to come into focus: California saw a 10 percent increase year-over-year in shoots in the third quarter, per a report from industry tracker ProdPro shared with THR . But! Before the state’s advocates congratulate themselves on stemming the filming exodus, it’s worth underscoring that most of California’s biggest competitors saw upticks too. And California’s production spend in the third quarter actually fell 10 percent year-over-year to $1.5b, which ProdPro attributes to more indie films shooting in the state as opposed to big-budget titles, which usually employ more crewmembers. The story.
—Exploiting the library. Lionsgate is launching MovieSphere Gold, an all-movie digital network to feature library titles like Dirty Dancing, Rambo, Kick Ass and The Shack. The ad-supported venture from the Lionsgate Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury has already debuted in around 30m homes, including on DirecTV, Dish TV, Frndly and Sling Freestream, and broadcast groups reaching over 80 percent of the U.S. market. The digital offering will effectively tap the Hollywood studio’s 20,000-plus movie vault for fresh titles. The story.
—🤝 First-look deal. 🤝 Former Topic Studios head and HBO Films executive Maria Zuckerman is headed to Fox — as a producer. Zuckerman has signed a first-look deal with Fox Entertainment Studios that covers both TV and film projects. Under the multi-year deal, she’ll develop and produce scripted series and feature films and nonfiction projects including feature documentaries and series. Zuckerman won an Emmy earlier this year as an executive producer of 100 Foot Wave, the HBO series that won the award for best documentary or nonfiction series. Her credits as an executive producer also include Theater Camp, The Mauritanian, Spencer and the upcoming HBO doc It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley. The story. |
'FTWD' Creator Dave Erickson Sues AMC for Profits ►More legal woes. THR's Winston Cho reports that AMC has been sued over its handling of profit payouts for Fear the Walking Dead by creator Dave Erickson, who accuses the network of breach of contract for shortchanging him backend payments. The lawsuit, challenges the structure through which Erickson’s profits for the series is calculated, alleging he’s not on equal footing as other participants. His latest statement shows a $185m deficit, essentially making it impossible for him to break even, according to the complaint. The case opens a new chapter in labyrinthine litigation involving The Walking Dead that’s put a spotlight on AMC’s accounting practices, dealings with talent and conflicts of interest that arise with vertical integration when the producer of a TV show also distributes it via an affiliated entity that pays a license fee. The story.
—Suit filed. Ashley Flowers’ true crime podcasting giant Audiochuck has been sued by the hosts of a show under its umbrella, who accuse the network of shortchanging them their share of ad revenue under its former deal with SiriusXM. The lawsuit, unsealed on Wednesday in New York federal court and brought by productions banners for Anatomy of Murder hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger, brings claims for and related to breach of contract. It seeks at least $20m. Flowers, host of hit show Crime Junkie , has built a podcasting around mystery-centric and true crime content. Her Indianapolis-based company employs a team of 100 and is home to more than 18 original shows. It had signed an exclusive deal with SiriusXM in 2021, giving it exclusivity on ad sales for Crime Junkie, plus all the shows in the Audiochuck network. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 Creative Artists Agency has acquired Beanstalk, a firm focused on brand licensing and management for major companies. The deal will see Beanstalk, which was founded in 1992, integrated with CAA Brand Management. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Beanstalk and CAA Brand Management work with companies and brands on licensing arrangements that extend their reach (i.e., apparel, jewelry and home goods, or collaborations into other product categories). Beanstalk’s clients include P&G, Kellogg’s, The Met and Audi, among many others, while CAA Brand Management’s clients include Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Formula 1. The story. |
NBC, Netflix Snag MLB Rights as League Inks New TV Deals ►🤝 Rights deal. 🤝 Fresh off a record-smashing World Series, Major League baseball has finally inked long-awaited new media rights deals with NBC, Netflix, and ESPN. The new rights packages came about after MLB and ESPN broke up this year after 35 years of national games on the cable sports giant. The new deal will keep ESPN in the baseball business, but its flagship Sunday night games will move to NBC Sports, which will now have year-round live games that night: Sunday Night Football during the NFL season, NBA games once the NFL season is over and baseball in the late spring and summer. NBC is also getting ESPN’s Wild Card rights.
The MLB deal with Netflix, initially thought to be just for the annual Home Run Derby during the All-Star break, is somewhat more extensive than that. The streamer will also have MLB’s opening night game and a revived Field of Dreams game next year in Dyersville, Iowa (where the 1989 Kevin Costner movie was filmed). NBC Sports and Netflix will each carry one special event game per season in 2027 and 2028. MLB’s agreements with ESPN, NBC Sports and Netflix run for three years, bringing them into alignment with existing rights holders Fox Sports, TNT Sports and Apple TV. The story.
—The Ballad of Bill and Jordon. Vice TV's sports docuseries Out of Bounds has revealed its early lineup. The series will first tackle current UNC Tar Heels and former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and his very online relationship with girlfriend Jordon Hudson, 49 years his junior. Subsequent installments of Out of Bounds, a Vice Studios production in association with the Intellectual Property Corporation, will investigate the bizarre behavior of the seven-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Antonio Brown; a third two-hour documentary is dedicated to sports gambling. Vice TV elected to go with the Belichick story after a planned Hard Knocks series on North Carolina fell apart. A subsequent Hulu docuseries about Belichick’s first season as a college football coach also failed to come about. The story. |
'Stargate' Reopens With New Series at Prime Video ►Gatekeeping. Amazon Prime Video is bringing the Stargate back online. The streamer has ordered a new series in the beloved sci-fi franchise. The show, titled Stargate, comes from Amazon MGM Studios (which owns rights to the franchise) and creator and showrunner Martin Gero, who has worked as a writer and producer on the three previous live-action Stargate shows. Stargate began as a 1994 feature film written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich and directed by Emmerich. It spawned three series — Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe — along with two direct-to-DVD feature films, a short-lived animated show and a 2018 web series. The new Stargate will be the first TV series in the franchise since Stargate Universe concluded in 2011. The story.
—🤝 Together again. 🤝 Former Paramount co-CEO Chris McCarthy and the prolific Yellowstone and Landman creator Taylor Sheridan will be reuniting at NBCU. McCarthy will help produce shows for NBCU and manage the company’s relationship with Sheridan, who is set to move his film deal to NBCU next year, and his TV output deal in 2029. Together, they’ll have to come up with a whole slew of new shows: Sheridan’s existing series will remain Paramount property. There, Sheridan’s universe of hits also includes Yellowstone prequel 1923 and its prequel 1883. He’s behind the Sylvester Stallone-led Tulsa King, its own spinoff Nola King, and other series like Special Ops: Lioness and Mayor of Kingstown. Sheridan’s next film, an action-thriller called F.A.S.T., is set up at WB. The story.
—Don't praise the machine. In its latest use of generative AI, Amazon has unveiled a Video Recaps service to visually sum up previous seasons for Prime Video viewers of popular shows like Reacher and The Girlfriend. The AI-powered tool, now in its beta testing phase on select Prime original series, uses narration, dialogue and music to recall earlier seasons of a TV series. Amazon is betting AI can identify key plot points for a series to be synchronized with a voiceover narration and dialogue snippets. The goal is to allow fans to jump back in after possibly a long layoff between seasons and cliffhangers with a quick visual recap of characters and potentially complicated storylines. The story.
—🤝 BookTok rejoice! 🤝 Crave’s Jacob Tierney-created adaptation of Rachel Reid’s gay hockey romance novel, Heated Rivarly, has sold to HBO Max in the U.S. and Australia, Bell Media announced Wednesday. The six-episode series centers around two rival professional hockey players – Canadian-born Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) of the fictitious Montreal Voyageurs and Russian-born Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) of the fictitious Boston Bears – as they navigate a secret fling that lasts years. Letterkenny alumni Tierney and Brendan Brady are showrunning the series from Accent Aigu Entertainment. The story. |
'Wicked: For Good' to Cast Record $200M-Plus Opening Spell ►There’s no place like the box office. Universal's Thanksgiving tentpole Wicked: For Good is all but guaranteed to bring the struggling box office back to life with a record-setting Thanksgiving feast in the $120m-plus range domestically and north of $200m worldwide. That would be the best start for a Broadway musical adaptation ever. The studio, in trying to manage expectations, have said anything around $115m in North America would be a huge victory. Wicked: For Good hits cinemas in North America on Nov. 21, the weekend before Thanksgiving. It’s also opening day-and-date around the globe. Disney’s Zootopia 2 is the other big holiday offering, and opens on Wednesday, the eve of Thanksgiving. The animated sequel is also tracking for a huge five-day debut of at least $125m. The box office report.
—🏆 The mature choice. 🏆 The 2026 Movies for Grownups Awards nominations have been revealed, with Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed One Battle After Another scoring a leading eight nominations, including for best picture. The Warner Bros. film is also up for best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), supporting actress (Regina Hall), supporting actor (Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn), best director and screenwriter (Anderson) and best ensemble. For best picture, OBAA faces off against triple nominees A House of Dynamite and Sinners, double nominee Train Dreams and Hamnet. The nominees.
—📅 Dated! 📅 Glen Powell is heading back to theaters early next year as the lead of a freshly titled A24 feature. The studio is set to release writer-director John Patton Ford’s How to Make a Killing in theaters Feb. 20. Margaret Qualley and Ed Harris also star in the thriller film that previously had been titled Huntington. How to Make a Killing is inspired by director Robert Hamer’s 1949 British crime movie Kind Hearts and Coronets. The new film centers on Becket Redfellow (Powell), who has been cast aside by his phenomenally wealthy family and will go to any lengths necessary to ensure his inheritance. The story.
—That was quick! The 2025 jewel heist from the Louvre Museum in Paris has grabbed headlines and the world’s attention since October. Now, R.J. Cutler and Laurent Bouzereau (Music by John Williams) are developing a doc that will explore the theft and the search for the criminals, as well as the public obsession that followed. The project will focus on the jewel heist that took place on Oct. 19 and saw men disguised as construction workers break into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon through a second floor window and shatter display cases, grabbing pieces of the French Crown Jewels, including tiaras, necklaces and other jewelry valued at over $100m. The men then fled on motorbikes. The story.
—🎭 Filling out. 🎭 Danielle Deadwyler, Billy Barratt, Alfred Molina, Tim Meadows, and Dolly De Leon have joined the cast of A24 drama The Chaperones. Plan B and Icki Eneo Arlo, the Robert Pattinson-fronted banner, are producing the feature that has indie darling India Donaldson directing. David Jonsson, Cooper Hoffman and Paul Dano are toplining the drama, centered on a drug dealer and his two slacker buddies hired to transport a troubled teen across the country. Hoffman is one of the “chaperones,” a young man who is aggressive and reckless. Jonsson is Hoffman’s partner, a reluctant participant in the chaperoning business. Dano is the drug dealer. The story. |
Danes and Rhys on the Liberation in 'Beast in Me' Finale ►"Is it karmic justice? A happy ending?" For THR, Max Gao spoke to Claire Danes and Welsh dreamboat Matthew Rhys about the finale of Netflix's The Beast in Me. The actors dive into the morally complex ending of Gabe Rotter and Howard Gordon's thriller and the prospects of another season. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—"People do need to feel hope ... as long as these two women have each other, they'll be okay." THR's queen of chat Jackie Strause spoke to showrunner Charlotte Stoudt about the season four finale of Apple TV's The Morning Show. Stoudt discusses the daunting torture scenes, the dark-yet-hopeful finale and how she's plotting season 5. Warning: Spoilers! The interview. |
TV Review: 'The Assassin' ►"Starts off fun, but gets dumber as it goes along." THR's chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg reviews AMC+'s The Assassin. Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore star in this series about a killer for hire and her journalist son, set in and around various photogenic European locales. Also starring Gerald Kyd, Shalom Brune-Franklin and Devon Terrell. Created by Harry and Jack Williams. The review.
In other news...
—Jumanji 3 reveals first look: Dwayne Johnson pays tribute to Robin Williams
—Charli XCX stymies fans with cryptic trailer for A24 The Moment
—IDFA Forum Awards winners unveiled in Amsterdam
What else we're reading...
—Derek C. Blasberg has an eminently readable oral history of L.A. nightlife in the early 2000s [VF]
—Robert Hart and Dominic Preston report that the EU has caved to Big Tech and is scaling back its landmark privacy and AI laws [Verge]
—The X-Files is often held up as a TV writer talent factory, Alan Sepinwall wonders which other shows have coaching trees that can compete [Ringer]
—Jason Horowitz reports on the worrying and growing popularity of fascist dictator Francisco Franco among young Spaniards [NYT]
—Dhruv T. Patel and Cam N. Srivastava report that Larry Summers will not finish the semester of teaching as Harvard investigates his Epstein ties [The Crimson]
Today...
...in 1992, 20th Century Fox unveiled Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in theaters, where it would go on to gross $358m worldwide. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Andrea Riseborough (44), Joel McHale (54), Kingsley Ben-Adir (39), Jerry Hardin (96), Rajkumar Hirani (63), Joe Walsh (78), Sean Young (66), Ming-Na Wen (62), Divya Khosla Kumar (38), Bo Derek (69), Jeremy Jordan (41), Richard Masur (77), David O'Donnell (51), Nadine Velazquez (47), Callie Thorne (56), Jacob Pitts (46), Dan Byrd (40), Jaina Lee Ortiz (39), Rodger Bumpass (74), Veronica Hamel (82), Margo Stilley (43), Oakley Lehman (50), Sabrina Lloyd (55), Joshua Gomez (50), Justin T. Woods (44), Halley Feiffer (41), Amelia Rose Blaire (38), Darcy Donavan (40), Ned Vaughn (61), Cody Linley (36), Michael Friedman (54), Marisa Ryan (51), Mason Versaw (25), Hannah Kepple (25) |
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