David Ellison’s New Right-Hand Man

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Paramount CEO David Ellison has recruited Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz as his co-CEO to run the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery super studio.

The Big Picture: A district judge just formally approved Paramount’s settlement with 12 state AGs, finally clearing the path for the studio’s historic $111 billion merger with WBD to finish — with the deal set to be finalized on Tuesday. By hiring Kreiz, a seasoned media operator, Ellison is prepared to make some serious operational decisions right away.

Behind The Scenes: Ellison believes two chiefs are better than one.

Closing Thoughts: Ellison noted that Kreiz’s hiring brings “complementary strengths, with clear reporting lines.” That extra suit in Kreiz brings decades of experience running public companies and media firms, including founding Maker Studios, a stint as CEO of Endemol, and, of course, running Mattel… where Kreiz was instrumental in beefing up its studio division. That led to Warner Bros.’ biggest hit ever at the box office — Barbie.

Coming Soon: Although they’ve been mired in limbo, expect the Barbie sequel deals to get finalized once Ellison and Kreiz officially take control of the studio.

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Neon announced that it’s making an “open-source” horror anthology film adaptation of the viral internet phenomenon SCP Foundation.

Why It Hits: Riding the YouTube-bred horror wave (which it helped launch with Backrooms), A24 announced it was making an SCP Foundation movie… but that turned out to be news to the SCP community, which builds on the IP via a Creative Commons license. That means no one can exclusively control the rights to the universe, which would typically be a non-starter for any movie studio. But Neon may have found a nifty workaround.

Between The Movies: Neon may be developing a whole new way to make a major motion picture.

Final Credits: Here’s the real kicker — both Neon and A24 plan to release their SCP movies next year, creating this generation’s first instance of dueling movies being made from the same public IP (Snow White has been in this debacle before).

But with Neon seemingly having won over the SCP community, the internet groundswell may already favor its adaptation… meaning A24 might need to land a very buzzy filmmaker to keep interest high in theirs (if it moves forward at all).

The Future: If Neon really does lean into the open-source nature of the SCP Foundation for its film, the studio could make something truly original — the first movie to be continually iterated on in public.

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30% of you voted I’m retired or not currently working in yesterday’s poll: How often do you use AI for work?

“I’m too frightened to use AI. Using a computer took a lot of ‘getting used to!’”

“I work in the larger world of fine arts, and AI is a dirty word at our company. If we could remove the ‘helpful assistants’ that are increasingly embedded in all of the platforms we use, we would.”

“I’m convinced my boss is actually AI, so I could potentially be using it with each interaction I have with him.”

“I mainly use it for research purposes, copywriting, and creative help. I’m still in control of the creative direction, but I’ll see what creative ideas it can come up with.”

“I’m mostly with clients, but I use it to review emails or other promotional materials. It’s not always accurate and needs to be edited or rewritten back to my original wording, or I don’t like the verbiage AI chooses.”

“I’m an account manager and use AI daily for a wide variety of things, whether it’s to simplify complex tasks, like organizing data and generating in-depth data analysis, or something as simple as writing an email I’m not sure how to properly word.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🤖 The White House revealed the accord President Trump and several of the biggest CEOs in AI devised to guardrail the tech… and it spelled “United States” wrong.

🏠 Apple is angling to make your home a lot smarter with a new ecosystem of smart-home devices.

👓 Amazon delivery drivers’ new smart glasses will reportedly take pictures almost constantly.

🥡 DoorDash introduced an AI agent that you can text to order food.

👕 13-year-old designer Designs By Leaf scored a collab with KidSuper and Slawn.

🚗 You’re not crazy. A new study found that you’re waiting about 20% longer for an Uber.

📱 Facebook has launched a standalone community app for Groups called Forum.

🤳 Instagram’s Edits app is rolling out an AI assistant to make you better at posting.

😔 Reddit is dropping support for RSS feeds to combat large-scale AI scraping.