Ankler Agenda

Last month, when asked about Disney’s seemingly endless rounds of layoffs, Dana Walden called it an “exaggeration” to suggest the company was cutting jobs every six months.

Technically, she’s right. It’s happening a lot more often than that.

Disney has already gone through five rounds of layoffs this year. And now an even bigger bloodletting may be coming, with some departments reportedly being asked to cut costs by as much as 20 percent — even as the company’s financial results look pretty good.

So what exactly is new CEO Josh D’Amaro‘s plan? And who survives it?

Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey examine the disconnect between good numbers and tough announcements, and unpack the strategy behind Disney’s latest cuts, the potential shakeup of its sprawling TV empire and D’Amaro’s aggressive bet on AI. (Elaine was at Disney this week, where every single company in its latest accelerator class was AI-focused.)

They also examine the ambitious “One Disney” plan to bring D’Amaro’s three pillars — streaming, movies, theme parks — into a single ecosystem, and what that means for the executives, divisions and thousands of employees potentially caught in the middle.

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How do you solve a problem like Netflix Film, and who is best positioned to figure it out?

“As currently constructed, it’s an impossible job,” Richard Rushfield tells Elaine Low and Sean McNulty on this week’s pod. The problem? Netflix wants to churn out 30-plus movies a year, deliver the next KPop Demon Hunters, compete for Oscars and somehow make films that actually become cultural events. And it’s increasingly failing at that last part. Netflix, Richard warns, is “starting to look like the Walmart of streaming” — and losing market share in the process.

With Dan “Lego” Lin out after just two years, Rice faces a fundamental choice: Does Netflix need more crowd-pleasing programmers (even if the mission is now steaks, not gourmet cheeseburgers), bigger theatrical swings or the kind of movies that restore its reputation as Hollywood’s most exciting disruptor? Or, frankly, all of the above?

Two years ago — with prescience and accuracy that would make the prediction markets blush — Richard said Lin should get the top job. The suggestion was so unexpected that even Netflix itself hadn’t thought of the prolific producer until Richard’s column. Now Richard’s back with his crystal ball. Obvious contenders include former Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, along with veteran Emma Watts. But Richard has a much more provocative proposal about who ultimately gets the job.

Take a listen to find out Richard’s surprise picks — and whether he’s about to call Hollywood’s biggest hiring decision right for a second time.

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To hear Ted Sarandos tell it, things are going great at Netflix.

“Our business and our business flywheel are working,” the co-CEO said on this week’s earnings call — a week after laying off a thousand employees, and unceremoniously firing content chief Bela Bajaria, whose sudden perp-walk out of the company’s HQ has shaken even an industry accustomed to volatility.

So while revenue was up, engagement was up and churn was down, strange things are afoot at Netflix — and it’s now legacy studio operator Peter Rice‘s job to sort things out; to turn some of Netflix’s “doubles and triples,” in Sarandos’ words, into home runs.

Is Netflix simply pivoting to a new growth era, or is the underlying streaming game going the way of basic cable did 10 years ago — disrupted by a player taking audience, in this case, YouTube.

Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey tackle that question and more this week — reading between the lines of the earnings call. What challenges does Rice face (local-language production, anyone)? How does the gutting of women and people of color from the top of the Hollywood food chain impact what stories are told? And are gourmet cheeseburgers still the right business model for Netflix?

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Steve Hilton has been talking with David Ellison, Ted Sarandos and Trump Hollywood ambassador Jon Voight about how to bring production back to California. And the Republican candidate for governor has a big idea: blow past the state’s existing film tax incentives with an uncapped credit that could reach 40 percent, covering everything from stars’ salaries to animation and postproduction.

“We cannot let it collapse,” Hilton tells Elaine Low in a wide-ranging interview about Hollywood’s economic crisis, his conversations with industry power players and why he believes California is driving businesses away. He also calls the state’s now-settled legal challenge to the Paramount-Warner merger a “politically motivated stunt” and defends his campaign’s use of AI-generated political ads — even as he insists he’s on the side of Hollywood’s artists and creators.

But Hilton isn’t the only candidate promising a Hollywood rescue. With Election Day nearing, Matt Hamilton of L.A. Material joins to break down the increasingly bitter Los Angeles mayoral race between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, the lingering Spencer Pratt effect, and Democrat Xavier Becerra‘s proposal to force streamers to reveal more of their closely guarded viewing data. The question for an industry desperate for help: Who’s offering an actual plan — and who’s just campaigning?

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David Ellison has an ambitious pitch for Hollywood: Skydance will spend more on content than Netflix or Disney, crank out roughly 190 series and 30 movies a year, find at least $6 billion in savings and pay down its mountain of debt. All while keeping the creative community happy. How, exactly, is all of that supposed to work when even Wall Street doesn’t see it?

Ellison and new co-CEO Ynon Kreiz opened the Paramount lot to reporters Tuesday to sell their vision for the new lockup — and to explain why the old one needed blowing up. “The businesses didn’t disrupt themselves over a decade ago,” Ellison said of Paramount and Warners (just please sunset the moniker “WarnerMount,” he implored). “They didn’t transform, and they held on to the past for too long.” Now he’s betting the combo can create the scale to compete without sacrificing investment. Kreiz’s formulation: “Content is a spend, but you can also see it as an investment.”

Is it magical thinking?

Elaine Low and Sean McNulty break down what this means in practice: where the promised $6 billion in efficiencies might come from, whether three TV studios and a thicket of film labels can really coexist, and how many jobs could disappear once the machinery underneath consolidates (with the help of AI). Sean’s useful metaphor for the new Skydance: a giant food court — lots of storefronts, but one kitchen in back — and how that reveals where the first wave of layoffs will start.

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The new Paramount is taking shape fast. On the eve of the Warner Bros. deal concluding, David Ellison is bringing in fresh blood — and bloodletting. Former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz boards as the surprise co-CEO, charged with day-to-day management and integration (read: layoffs). And after months of heated rivalry between Cindy Holland and Casey Bloys over who would control the combined company’s original-content future, we have an answer: it’s Casey at the bat.

Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down what those choices reveal about Ellison’s coming structure at the combined company, soaked in debt, and who could be vulnerable next. Then: hundreds of layoffs hit Disney as Josh D’Amaro prepares to take over, with ominous promises of more technology (read: AI?) raising a bigger question: Is this only the beginning?

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Mike Schur calls Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. a “nightmare scenario” for Hollywood — and now that David Ellison has cleared the biggest obstacle to getting the deal done, he’s even more alarmed about what comes next. “It’s gasoline on a fire,” the Parks and Recreation co-creator and Dig producer tells Elaine Low, pointing to an industry already hollowed out by years of consolidation. “I hate to be doomsday-ish here… but the ecosystem is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.”

What does that nightmare look like? Fewer buyers, fewer jobs and ultimately fewer kinds of shows getting made — and, Schur fears, even HBO may finally be vulnerable after surviving one corporate owner after another.

One of the loudest voices against the merger, Schur is particularly skeptical that the concessions Paramount made to Rob Bonta and 11 other state AGs will provide much protection. “All of these provisions, they’re only meaningful if they’re enforced. Who’s enforcing this?” he asks of the proposed consent decree. He has equally sharp words for Ellison’s suggestion that Paramount could leave Los Angeles amid the antitrust fight. “This person wants to win the hearts and minds of this industry that he is now the most important player in, arguably — and his opening salvo is, ‘Give me what I want, or I’m going to Nashville,’” Schur says. “This is not a good way to earn our trust or respect.”

Plus: Elaine and Natalie Jarvey dig into what Ankler staffers are watching closely through the fall across the TV and film business, from DC superhero-horror film Clayface to Mark Rober’s new show on Netflix.

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So after months of big talk about only settling for structural remedies, i.e., selling off assets, what did California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the 11 other state AGs suing Paramount Skydance wind up getting? Less than you think. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Lesley Goldberg break down the settlement terms — loopholes, fine print and all — and what they mean for the future of Hollywood, including looming mass layoffs, the fate of three TV studios and why the promise of 30 films a year may not be what it seems. Then: Can a Paramount+–HBO Max superstreamer finally give Netflix a real rival?

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A dire warning from Anthropic and OpenAI that increasingly autonomous AI agents could launch cyberattacks – or worse – has an especially chilling implication for Hollywood, where studios and streamers are rapidly weaving AI into their businesses. "Imagine a world in which there are thousands of Sony hacks happening in real time," Reel AI columnist Erik Barmack tells Elaine Low and Sean McNulty. "You could take down the entire industry. Confidentiality, protections, the secure release of IP – all of those things could be harmed."

And while the guilds fight generative AI and Hollywood hashes out rules for how the technology can be used, Erik says the industry may be focused on the wrong threat: "What happens when recursive learning gets better and better, and these agents go off and do thinking on their own?"

Plus: There may finally be momentum behind a federal film and TV tax incentive. Rep. Laura Friedman tells Elaine that lawmakers from both parties are working with Hollywood's guilds and Jon Voight – Donald Trump's special Hollywood ambassador, whom she describes as a key bridge to the president. Friedman says she hopes the proposal can move by year-end – and describes the unusual bipartisan effort as giving lawmakers "an extra sort of joy" in working together: "We're still one country."

00:00 Intro

00:24 Welcome To Ankler Agenda

01:35 Paramount Vs. State AG Showdown

03:00 Did Bari Weiss Sink 60 Minutes?

04:46 Ai Leaders Sound The Alarm

05:53 The 1,200 Agent 'Collective'

08:21 Hollywood's Big AI Bet

09:41 Bots That Lie And Hack

10:49 The Next Sony Hack, Times 1,000

12:59 Will A Slow Down Actually Happen?

13:41 Guilds Fighting The Last Battle

15:20 Studios Vs. Big Tech Power

17:44 Bring Back The Landline

18:40 Next: Rep. Laura Friedman

19:01 Hollywood's Economic Freefall

20:40 143,000 Jobs On The Line

21:51 From Film Producer To Congress

24:38 Inside The Bill And The Timeline

26:30 Jon Voight's Role As Trump's Bridge

29:05 Bipartisanship In A Polarized Era

31:05 Selling It To Non-Hollywood States

32:28 California's $750 Million Fight

34:30 The Goal: Every Soundstage Full

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Inside President Macron’s summit, where Ted Sarandos, Dana Walden and Hollywood power players attended — very quietly

French President Emmanuel Macron summoned some of the biggest names in global entertainment to the south of France this week to talk about nothing less than the future of cinema — and Hollywood came. Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Disney’s Dana Walden, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley and other industry heavyweights attended the first-ever Lumière Summit, co-hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, as filmmakers, executives and government leaders grappled with AI, the attention economy and the threats facing traditional entertainment.

“He did something that I think people who work in the entertainment industry in the U.S. have been really hungry to see happen,” says Ankler EIC Janice Min, who stops by the pod after attending the summit at the invitation of the French government. “Somebody in charge saying things about an industry that’s struggling.”

But if France was eager to lead the conversation, Hollywood’s own leaders were considerably more cautious. Sarandos and Walden were seen but not heard, while Sony’s Tom Rothman and a very pointed George Clooney were among the few major American figures willing to speak freely. “No one’s saying Trump, but it’s kind of about Trump,” Janice says of the geopolitical undercurrent running through the gathering. “It was great that Hollywood showed up — and it was revealing that a lot of them didn’t feel like they could take the stage.”

Plus: Thanks to Widow’s Bay, Apple TV leads the pack ahead of the primetime Emmy telecast, and Natalie Jarvey crowns a winner in the Ankler Agenda summer box office draft.

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