News that underscores that the conglomerate of Skydance-Paramount-WBDiscovery wants all the assets, and unlike the Redstones, has no interest in selling bits and pieces to reduce debt.

I can’t say I was enthusiastic about the prospect of Tyler Perry buying BET+ because it didn’t seem as if it would be large enough or have enough of an international distribution system to be viable. On the other hand, the announcement that BET+ will be ‘rolled in’ gives no comfort.

Now, I’m wondering if the Ellisons are going to want to get Simon & Schuster back.

Here’s an interesting piece about some of the concrete if prosaic realities that Skydance — that ate the larger Paramount and now is set to swallow the yet larger WB-Discovery — will need to contend with to serve its estimated combined 200 million subscribers.

For those of us who’ve experienced the unfortunately incapacity of the Paramount+ application, it’s clear that its tech stack won’t do. However, WB-Discovery HBO MAX isn’t state of the art either.

This idea of Paramount+/HBO Max integration is frankly “too new” to “contemplate how you can merge two streaming services of that size together,” Rayburn told THR. “There’s no way you would know.”

Here’s what we do know: “We … plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct to consumer subscribers,” Ellison said last week. “We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space.”

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/36676851

For those interested in creature models — both practical physical models and vfx — as well as anything Monsterverse or kaiju in general, this new AppleTV official featurette is a ‘must see.’

When to see it will depend on your interest in or willingness to be spoiled as it does give some things away about what’s upcoming in season two of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

It seems to make clear that Le Gran Dios de le Mar aka “Titan X” is a wholly new creation for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. There remains nonetheless much to speculate about.

Picking up on what seems to be a new trend in the adorable-but-horrific-creature category, I’m bringing this inter-franchise question here for lack of another community where it wouldn’t be off topic.

Lower Decks gave us the adorable bone-drinking, huge mouthed horror called Moopsy.

Now the Monsterverse has actually given us some big eyed, round-faced horrors called Scarabs that, when they look up at the heroes, seem actually cute, mouths full of teeth, shiny dark shells, and little tentacles notwithstanding.

Not sure this fits with Risa, so I’m hoping the admin will indulge me here.

In the spirit of great monster face offs : WHO WOULD WIN?!!

An interesting and analytical piece from Variety on the potential implications and risks of Saudi Sovereign funds financing $24 B out of the total $ 110 B purchase price of WBDiscovery.

There are a lot of angles to look at this from, especially with the current attacks/conflict/war in the region.

Here’s just one:

“Big sovereign investors negotiate the level of visibility they want into strategy and major decisions,” said New York-based lawyer and analyst Irina Tsukerman. “They automatically get ongoing access to leadership and leverage tied to future financing, even without publicly acknowledged voting rights,” she pointed out.

This casting announcement passed me last week — Paul Wesley will be in the recently greenlit third season of The Buccaneers, AppleTV’s historical romance drama loosely based on the popular novel by Edith Wharton.

It’s a bit of a milestone in SNW cast making new commitments in the absence of any confirmation of a sequel series.

Crossposting here to quark’s…

Well known comic publisher IDW, is getting into official/licensed TTRPG’s with a forthcoming Godzilla TTRPG funded by a Kickstarter campaign that’s already well surpassed its pledge objective.

From what I can see, IDW’s games line has only done tabletop board games up to now, and has relied on Kickstarter to create momentum as well as raise funds.

Star Trek Adventures, and other franchise TTRPGs, are published by UK-based Modiphius Entertainment. It sounds like IDW is trying to establish itself as a competitor.

Having posted Flix Patrol’s show specific ranking charts, I thought to look to see if Parrot Analytics has anything of interest available for public view.

What I found is their 2025 analysis of trends is now publicly accessible.

It tells a story of how the United States entertainment media production no longer dominates globally the way it did not long ago. Streamers that assume they can just make things to target the US market, and then free ride with revenues globally, don’t seem to be the ones to succeed in future. (Looking at you former Paramount owners and senior executives.)

The report’s top bullets:

Across TV, movie, and talent, 2025 reinforced several strategic realities:

• Audience demand is a leading indicator of value, not a retrospective metric.
• Global travelability increasingly determines upside, even for regionally rooted IP.
• Sustained engagement matters more than launch spikes for long-term economics.
• Fandom behavior has become a structural driver of performance, not a side effect.

Parrot Analytics is incorporated in the UK, and relies on diverse metrics beyond viewer minutes to construct estimates for the demand for a show or movie. They argue that this is a more effective tool for planning and marketing screen content than just past viewership but they certainly incorporate actual viewership numbers and demographics in their analysis.

So, it will be Larry Ellison, not the Saudis, who will be putting up the additional $40 billion to win the hostile takeover of WBDiscovery over Netflix.

And he’s going to allow investors some greater visibility into the Ellison family trust.

As someone who respected the way Americans once took antitrust mechanisms and actions deeply seriously, this doesn’t give much comfort.

This was the February earnings call event with CEO David Ellison and Paramount Presidenf Jeff She’ll speaking to investors.

A few things stood out:

• Paramount+ wasn’t mentioned in the article nor were the legacy IP franchises that the previous owners and management almost always stressed

• The underperforming film side of the conglomerate was called out

• Pluto is viewed as having been underdeveloped despite being an early free ad-supported streaming television leader and will be a priority

• investors are concerned about upcoming major pro sport licence renewals

• Despite being under investigation for allegations of providing insider trading information, Shell is still firmly in place as president of Paramount.

So this is something in the Paramount/Skydance acquisition sagas…

And it seems that the Ellison’s took on a President who was someone already under suspicion for misconduct at his last CEO position.

In 2023, Shell was terminated from his previous top job as NBC Universal’s CEO over allegations of inappropriate conduct involving a CNBC correspondent. Yet he found resurrection in Paramount owner David Ellison, who elevated Shell to his current post from an interim perch with private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, which helped Ellison’s Skydance Media acquire the studio.

🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

The admins of StarTrek.website have graciously responded to my request to host a Monsterverse community on Lemmy.

The great Toho franchise now has a home on the fediverse where we can share news and views.

Whether you’re a longtime fan, a newcomer or just Monsterverse-curious, please feel welcome to join in.

Find us at: https://startrek.website/c/monsterverse or https://startrek.website/c/monsterverse@startrek.website

The television expansion of the Monsterverse rolls on with the imminent launch of *Monarch: Legacy of Monsters* 2nd season — three weeks from now on February 27th!

I’m hopeful to persuade some folks here on Lemmy to embrace the Monsterverse and discuss the new season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters here. I’m open to modding a new community here on StarTrek.website as there has been for Dr. Who, and have been enquiring with the mods. Any interest here?

Apple released new key art as well as a Titan focused 2 1/2 minute full trailer this week.

Kurt and Wyatt Russell return in the principal role across time periods, Anna Sawai anchors the young generation.

And a prequel spinoff helmed by Wyatt Russell is already announced.

The Hollywood Reporter has the details and links.