We’re getting to the end of the week, which means that it’s time for a pick-me-up. While Spectre may arguably be the most forgettable of the Daniel Craig-starring James Bond films, this stunt was awarded the Guinness World Record for the biggest movie explosion of all time. Start your day off with a bang.

In other news… Legendary Entertainment wants to go big, creators wrestle with a potential TikTok ban, and TSwift’s new album hits a billion on Spotify.

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• YouTube – The Watchers

• X (Twitter) – Back to the Future

• Google – Meta stock

• Reddit – Wildcat

• TikTok – “Hell N Back (feat. Summer Walker)” - Bakar

• Spotify – “What Happened to You, Son?” - Belle and Sebastian

.ENTERTAINMENT.

Legendary Entertainment preps an epic future

The Future. Legendary Entertainment has evolved from a co-financier of blockbuster films to a full-fledged production studio that’s ruling Hollywood this year. Armed with plenty of cash and support from a huge private equity firm, expect Legendary to make a key acquisition in 2024 that could turn it into the next major studio like Warner Bros. Discovery or NBCUniversal.

Monster ambitions
Legendary’s next big story may be that it’s scaling its business ambitions.

• It’s behind the two biggest hits this year, Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (both distributed by Warner Bros.), which have racked up almost $700 million and $500 million, respectively.

• It may be the only studio with no net debt and with $500 million on its balance sheet — a major turnaround for a company that was bleeding $300 million a year before installing M&A attorney Josh Grode.

• Creatively, Legendary has focused on building its franchises across film, TV, comics, and video games — the MonsterVerse being a successful example.

And now it’s become a key player in Apollo’s bid for Paramount Global (Apollo acquired a minority stake in Legendary in 2022), with one of the firm’s strategies reported to be a merger of Paramount Pictures and Legendary (if it pursues a deal without Sony).

Even if Apollo isn’t successful in taking control of Paramount, Grode says that Legendary is now in the place where it wants to start making acquisitions itself.

84.8% of you answered No in yesterday’s poll: Are you a trade school grad?

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.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT SQUARESPACE.

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Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is officially the first album to ever clock a billion listens on Spotify in a single week. [Read More]

• Jarret Myer, Rich Antoniello, and will.i.am are combining Uproxx, HipHopDX, Dime Magazine, and other brands into the newly created UPROXX Studios. [Read More]

• Tubi is partnering with British streamer DAZN to launch several new sports FAST channels, including ones that cover women’s soccer and MMA. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Not so Gucci: fashion conglomerate Kering’s profits have fallen almost 45% due to the struggling financials of flagship brand Gucci. [Read More]

• Streetwear brand Aimé Leon Dore launched a golf line, underscoring how the sport is having a cultural moment. [Read More]

• Block is now allowing merchants who use Square to siphon up to 10% of their daily sales to be invested into Bitcoin. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• Coca-Cola has struck a landmark five-year deal with Microsoft to start using the tech giant’s cloud and generative AI tools. [Read More]

• The FTC has officially banned the use of non-compete clauses in employment contracts for all but the most senior executives. [Read More]

• Tesla announced plans to create an autonomous rideshare service on its app in the run-up to a larger robotaxi rollout. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• Threads now consistently has more daily active users in the US than X. [Read More]

• Mega-influencers unite: Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila and Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee are coming together for an espresso martini kit — one of the trending cocktails of 2024. [Read More]

• A new study by the American Influencer Council found that over half of professional creators get brand work from platform marketplaces. [Read More]

.CREATOR ECONOMY.

A TikTok ban would crater the creator economy

The Future. With President Biden signing the bill that forces ByteDance to either sell TikTok or face a ban in the US, the creator economy is reckoning with what life would look like without the platform. In short, it would be radically different. TikTok said that it would fight the legislation tooth and nail, but a ban would likely give Instagram a major surge in engagement. We imagine that Zuck is already popping champagne bottles.

Crisis countdown
By this time next year, TikTok may be long gone. That has creators and businesses scared.

• Many creators have followings only on TikTok, meaning that once the app is gone, their careers essentially start at zero — an “extinction-level event,” says James Nord, founder of the influencer marketing platform Fohr.

• That’s because many of them make money from TikTok-specific features, like recommending products on Shop or filming speculative ads for brands through Creativity Challenge.

• TikTok says that a ban would “threaten the income of at least tens of thousands of people in the US,” according to Wired.

Additionally, 33% of American adults now report having used TikTok, which shows that the user base is starting to age up and that more brands and businesses are using the platform to expand their reach.

If TikTok goes, so might their virality.

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT PROMPTS DAILY.

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• Read: THR breaks down the 2023 profits and revenues of every major Hollywood studio… and only one studio posted more profit than in 2022.

• Listen: WSJ speaks with David Allemann, the co-founder of footwear company On, on how technology will revolutionize sneaker design.

• Watch: Vox gets into the nitty-gritty of how fast-fashion companies like Shein and Temu are misleading customers about how bad their business practices really are.

The universe enters the metaverse.

JOBS OF THE WEEK

Explore a weekly curated list of the latest and greatest opportunities in business, tech, and entertainment. For more listings, check out the complete job board.

Creative Director
CAA
London, UK

Senior Manager, Product Innovation
Wasserman
Los Angeles, CA

Subscription Marketing Lead
Whiskers
Auburn Hills, MI

Senior Designer - Communications
McKinsey & Co.
New York, NY

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