Happy Tuesday, party people. A police officer in Phoenix got quite the surprise this past weekend when he pulled over a car driving on the wrong side of the road… only to discover that there was no driver. It turns out it was a driverless Waymo vehicle that got confused by “inconsistent” construction signs and blew a red light. When the officer approached, he was connected to customer service. The dispatch records show that the officer was “unable to issue citation to computer.” Hilarious and dangerous.

In other news… Skydance finally clinches Paramount, AI is turning websites into a war zone, and Hannah Montana may have crafted the current pop landscape.

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• YouTube – Agatha All Along 

• X (Twitter) – Cartoon Network

• Google – Lewis Hamilton

• Reddit – The Devil Wears Prada

• TikTok – “Mamushi (feat. Yuki Chiba)” - Megan Thee Stallion 

• Spotify – “Sandpaper (feat. Bruce Springsteen)” - Zach Bryan

.ENTERTAINMENT.

Skydance prevails in Paramount takeover

The Future. After a drawn-out negotiation, David Ellison’s Skydance (backed by RedBird Capital’s biggest investment ever) has officially made a deal with Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone to merge with Paramount. The hope is to supercharge Paramount from a media behemoth in decline to a next-generation power player. Under the talent-friendly Ellison, who is very young compared to his Hollywood CEO contemporaries, Paramount could usher in a New Hollywood era as it did in the 1960s.

Movie mountaintop
David Ellison’s dream of being a movie mogul is about to come true, thanks to an $8 billion deal for Paramount Global.

• Terms: Skydance and RedBird will buy National Amusements for $2.4 billion, purchase $4.5 billion in Paramount shares, and pay $1.5 billion of the conglomerate’s $14 billion in debt.

• Insurance: Paramount has a 45-day go-shop period to entertain other deals, but it’ll have to pay a breakup fee of $400 million if it decides to go with a different buyer.

• Leadership: Once the deal closes by next summer, Ellison will be made Chairman and CEO, and Jeff Shell, the former CEO of NBCUniversal, will become president.

• Vision: Ellison wants to keep the empire together, invest more in theatrical movies and in Paramount+, focus on cash flow for Paramount’s linear TV assets, and pinpoint $2 billion in cost savings. 

Ellison also believes that Paramount “really needs to make the transition to being tech-hybrid as a company.” In that vein, he’ll be leaning on Oracle (run by father Larry Ellison) for AI capabilities that drive productivity, lower costs, level up its streaming capabilities, and innovate its animation and gaming divisions.

Welcome to “New Paramount” — the actual working title of Ellison’s new empire.

84.2% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Do you think more retailers should create affordable housing in cities?

“Everyone should have affordable housing options, and if retailers can help, then why not?”

“The classic town structures for eons have been residences located above businesses — whether in the Middle Ages or NYC. Makes total sense, and the housing crisis is very real.”

“Yes, as long as it creates opportunities and doesn’t displace those they are trying to help.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT ARMOIRE.

Dress to the nines all the time

Want to keep up with fashion without spending your life savings?

Check out Armoire — a female-founded clothing rental service for women. It’s the best way to look chic without breaking the bank or having to build an extra walk-in closet just to fit your latest fits.

Here are some things about Armoire we think you’ll adore:

• They make stunning recs based on you and your preferences.

• Their collections are on point and make putting together your wardrobe less overwhelming. 

• They offer free (and fast) shipping. So, you can plan last minute-ish outfits for random appointments, dates, or girls nights out.

• You can buy anything you’ve loved for a steep discount off retail value.

Choose from three monthly plans starting at $89/month. Use the code thefutureparty for up to 50% off your first month.

Media, Music, & Entertainment

• AMC Theatres, the biggest chain in the US, reported that the July 4th holiday week was its biggest week of the year so far, with $122.6 million in ticket sales across 4.2 million moviegoers. [Read More]

• Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” landed atop the Billboard Hot 100, making him the first Black artist to have a single top the Hot 100 chart and the Hot Country Songs chart. [Read More]

• Was the current generation of pop stars pretty much all inspired by the Disney Channel show Hannah Montana? Rolling Stone argues yes. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Wayfair opened its first large-format physical retail space near Chicago… and it makes Ikea stores seem small. [Read More]

• Nike’s Jordan Brand designed the uniforms for France’s Olympic basketball team and is releasing a capsule collection on top of it. [Read More]

• Pusha T, rapper and long-time friend and collaborator of Pharrell, has been named Louis Vuitton’s newest ambassador. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• Apple is temporarily allowing Fortnite-creator Epic Games to open a third-party app store on iOS. [Read More]

• EV startup Lucid delivered a record 2,394 sedans last quarter, showing that some startups are still succeeding amid the EV-market slowdown. [Read More]

• The US military is testing an AI assistant for Special Forces soldiers — sort of like Iron Man’s Jarvis. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• Night, the creator management firm, has let go of its entire Night Studios team in charge of turning influencer-generated IP into premium content for companies like Netflix and Amazon. [Read More]

• YouTube is rolling out a new tool called “Erase Song” so that creators can get rid of copyrighted music from their videos without deleting all of their video’s audio. [Read More]

• Cannes Lions may be the new VidCon, argues The Information. [Read More]

.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Bots battle for online data

The Future. To power AI systems, firms are on a mission to vacuum as much data as possible… and many media and news companies are not happy about it. While several lawsuits make their way through the courts, some are turning to security bots that can fight these AI-scraping bots. While many publishers are opting to simply license their content to AI firms, the software battle could damage the development of AI image and video generation tools.

Information trenches
The robot war is already happening behind the scenes of your internet browser.

• For decades, companies respected when a website had the code “robots.txt” in its code, which was like an unofficial “No Trespassing” sign for scraping its content.

• But AI firms, whose systems are built on collecting vast amounts of data, have been ignoring that code and scraping everything.

• And those firms aren’t even hiding the flagrant scraping (even of copyrighted material) — Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has called anything on the open internet “freeware,” and anyone can “copy it, recreate with it, [and] reproduce with it.”

So, some companies are fighting back with their own AI. Software security firm Cloudflare, which one in five websites use, debuted a tool that identifies and stops bots from harvesting site data.

This bot battle isn’t siloed to the world of digital information. It’s also happening in social media moderation, cybersecurity defense, and finance. Oh, and actual war.

• Read: Fast Company interviews Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Rob Brewdow about the ins and outs of designing the Star Wars universe and de-aging Harrison Ford in the latest Indiana Jones installment.

• Listen: Decoder sits down with Canva CEO Melanie Perkins about how the company is taking on Adobe by rolling out similar tools at a much cheaper price.

• Watch: Creative Screenwriting chats with Inside Out 2 writers Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein about how they crafted the biggest movie of the year.

Marketing schools should now teach community building.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today, on an extra special bonus episode of Future Forecast, our hosts Boye and Chris sit down with Larry Fitzgibbon, the co-founder and CEO of Tastemade. Tastemade is an independent media company that creates award-winning video content and original programming in the food, travel, and home & design space.