Disney

The channel blackout that cut off an eventual US Open finalist from legitimately watching the tournament he was playing in appears likely to end before Monday Night Football kicks off tonight.

Disney has amended its federal lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to only include claims about free speech. The entertainment giant will take its development contract disputes to a state-level court instead.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union announced that over 80 percent of the 18 in-house Visual Effects (VFX) crewmembers at Walt Disney Pictures expressed a desire to unionize. Their organizing follows a push at Marvel that started earlier this month and is in the midst of ongoing strikes by the actors’ and writers’ guilds.

The two may work together on the in-development streaming version of the popular sports channel, according to The Information. Amazon may take a minority stake in the network, the report says.

The Information reports that Disney, seeking a “strategic partner” for ESPN, has had talks with Verizon. This is a bad idea: mobile carriers are historically terrible at distributing content and software, because their only distribution idea is installing bloatware on midrange Android phones. You will recall that the entire thesis of the AT&T / Time Warner merger was distributing bloatware on midrange Android phones, a “vision deal” which produced a grayscale 4:3 Snyder Cut before collapsing into the arms of David Zaslav.

TSG, a major movie financier, is suing Disney for alleged breach of contract. TSG has helped finance a lot of movies in Hollywood over the years, including films at Sony and Warner Bros., and Fox, and claims that the folks at Disney “have tried to use nearly every trick in the Hollywood accounting book” to hold onto cash that TSG feels its owed.

Yesterday Bloomberg reported on what might be some of the most fascinating news around the contract negotiations in Hollywood right now: the names of the 12 studio execs meeting weekly to work out the AMPTP’s bargaining positions.

and wondered how an unlicensed two hour film could exist when even Disney had to negotiate with Sony to use the character in films. Sony, Disney, and Marvel are all very protective of the character so it’s a surprise to see this film still live. It’s also super unusual to see a fan film of this scope outside of the Star Trek fan film community, especially as the last time a Star Trek fan film attempted a project of this high a production quality level Paramount sued the creator.

And at the very least can we make the prices less confusing? We discuss why the numbers keep going up, plus why Apple should and shouldn’t buy Disney. Then we make sense of the backlash to Zoom’s AI policies, dig into Slack’s redesign, and spend a lot of time talking about fart apps. Because to get to the future, you gotta start with fart apps.

An analyst asked on yesterday’s earnings call, and Iger swore, “It’s just, it’s not something that we obsess about.”

Disney just worked out a licensing deal for ESPN and gambling, bringing in a couple of billion over the next ten years (and sending Barstool Sports back into control of Dave Portnoy for $1 and some non-compete agreements).

When the Screen Actors Guild joined the Writers Guild of America in striking against the AMPTP last month, Disney CEO Bob Iger called workers’ demands for better pay and a cut of streaming profits “disturbing” and unrealistic.

This rumor — that Apple might acquire Disney — has been around forever, and there’s nothing in this Hollywood Reporter story that makes me think it’s real this time. But the story does lay out a fascinating case for how it might work:

The entertainment giant is looking into ways it can apply AI across its entire business, according to a report from Reuters. A source tells the outlet that Disney could use AI to lower the costs of its movie and TV productions, while also enhancing experiences at its parks.

In a move highlighted by Hollywood’s ongoing strikes and reports of unsustainable working conditions during the production of Across the Spider-Verse, a supermajority of the more than 50 people in Marvel Studios’ visual effects crews signed cards saying they want to be represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

Mike White, who Disney appointed last year to oversee its metaverse ambitions, has left the company, according to a report from The Ankler.

The Wall Street Journal reports FanDuel and Fox are winding down Fox Bet, an app launched in 2019 that only ever was available in a few states.