Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on WEDNESDAY August 25, 2021.

Where Kanye West is apparently now petitioning to legally change his name to YE… and is also re-building a version of his childhood Chicago home in SOLDIERS FIELD for the latest of his new album “listening parties” tomorrow night.

2 performances in Atlanta? Sure we can call it a “listening party”, but 3 performances in 2 cities and a set? Got news for ya YE, you’re on tour.

West Sub Ever @WestSubEver

News * Kanye is rebuilding his Chicago home in the stadium.

AND: The WME Agency is bringing all employees back to work 5 days a week after Labor Day on Tue Sept 7. Vaxx required, as are masks in accordance with the LA indoor mask mandate.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

Gritty definitely came out of the OBLIVION zone. via Giphy

Jake Gyllenhaal to star in movie based on graphic novel by Robert Kirkman (“The Walking Dead”) and Lorenzo di Felici

Called “Oblivion Song” , about a guy who makes daily trips to save people in an apocalyptic hellscape called Oblivion, after the government has given up on it. Oblivion = a part of Philly that was lost a decade ago with 300,000 people.

As a GIANTS fan, I’ll take the half-classy route and resist saying anything about Oblivion and the part of town that houses LINCOLN FINANCIAL FIELD and the upcoming EAGLES season.

No studio/streamer attached as of yet, Jake also producing. /THR

ALSO IN MOVIES

“Matrix 4” now officially called “Matrix: Resurrections”. WB shows trailer at CINEMACON… but not showing the rest of us 🙄. DEADLINE has a description here in case you wanna read a play-by-play of a trailer.

📺 THE TV SET

50/50 they do an alt-take on this in the show. via Giphy

PEACOCK sets Maya Rudolph & Andy Samberg to host “Baking It”

6 episode Holiday Baking competition series, from the producers of “Making It” (Amy Poehler & co). Competitors will be teams mostly with some sort of family relation, and the judges are 4 grandmothers, naturally. /Variety

ALSO IN TV

ABC adds Logan Marshall-Green to “Big Sky” Season 2. Character details in the link for any fans of the show. Or Logan too of course. /Deadline
SHOWTIME renews "Your Honor” for a Season 2, with Bryan Cranston returning. And also “Desus & Mero” for Season 4 in 2022. /Deadline
HBO cancels their skater-culture show “Betty” after 2 seasons. /Variety
NBC casts their “Annie” for “Annie Live!” this December - 12 year-old Celina Smith, who is on a Tyler Perry produced NICKELODEON show “Young Dylan”. Taraji P. Henson, Harry Connick Jr., Nicole Scherzinger, and Tituss Burgess already cast. /THR

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

SPOTIFY now allows US podcasters to charge subscriptions ranging from 50¢ to $150 a month

And cue the creation of “The $150 A Month Podcast” by someone out there. Probably me. Podcasters keep all of their revenue until 2023, when SPOTIFY will then take a modest 5% cut, and any US podcaster can now start their own subscription podcast using the SPOTIFY-owned ANCHOR podcast hosting service.

But perhaps more importantly - podcasters will now also get a list of the email addresses for their paying subscribers (unless a subscriber opts-out). So just in case there was any doubt that SPOTIFY is coming for APPLE’s Podcast listening dominance crown…

All of this will roll out to international users by around the end of September. /Variety

ALSO: SPOTIFY posted their top 20 songs and top 10 podcasts of the Summer. A lot of Rodrigo and Rogan as you might expect - now there’s a power duet idea…

TIK TOK & SHOPIFY teaming up to allow users to buy things in TIK TOK

TIK TOK accounts who also have SHOPIFY accounts will soon be able to add a Shopping tab to their profiles, backed by SHOPIFY e-commerce software.

Those TOK Creators can also put direct purchase links to products in their posts… which I’m sure the Chinese government definitely won’t track now that they have a financial stake and a seat on the board of the company 😳. Ahem.

Currently in pilot phase, including Kylie Jenner’s makeup brand KYLIE COSMETICS 💅 but should go wider soon. No word if TIK TOK will look to take a cut of the sales action at some point, although SHOPIFY is handling all back-end on the transactions so it may just be a matter of them giving TOK a cut of their margin.

Canada-based SHOPIFY currently works with 1.7 million online businesses. /NY Times

ONLY FANS does 180 on porn, restores sexually explicit content policy

Essentially back to business as usual, no October 1 ban to worry about as it seems “the banks” have altered their policies. /Variety

This comes one day after their CEO threw said banks under the bus more clearly, saying ONLY FANS would “absolutely” allow porn content to continue on the site again if banks would agree to process the underlying financial transactions.

It seems that resonated, perhaps especially once banks considered any collateral damage that may come from the public looking deeper at other folks banks currently do business with…

The OF CEO also cited a current stat yesterday of paying out $300 million in payments to 1 Million creators every month. Not YOUTUBE money… but $3.6 Billion a year ain’t nothin, and that’s higher than recently reported 💰💰. /Variety

ALSO IN MEDIA

T-MOBILE adds free year of APPLE TV+ for most new and existing customers (Magenta & Magenta+ plan customers for any T customers out there). This is in addition to the free NETFLIX that they already get.
- No actual number of potential new customers indicated, but T-MOBILE has over 65 Million monthly paying subscribers, so talking at least 35+ Million with access. /Variety

ESPN boots Max Kellerman from “First Take” - He’ll now shift to doing 4 hours a day on ESPN RADIO, and host another TBD show. Stephen A Smith will now be the face of “First Take” with a rotating list of co-hosts. Think it’s wisest to hold off on a “Jeopardy!” comment here right? 🤐 /Deadline
TUBI offering 10 “Sports on TUBI” streaming channels in partnership with FOX SPORTS. Will be themed by sport based on existing rights that FOX SPORTS has (so an MLB channel, NFL, Pac12 etc and a FOX SPORTS channel of course). But basically they’ll show reruns of “classic” games, highlights and talk shows - no marquee live sports events. /Deadline
TV maker VIZIO gets $100 Million in upfront Ad spend commitments to reach their 14 Million SmartTV users. Which is not a crazy amount on its own… but that’s 4X from last year. /AdAge
ALLURE names new Editor-In-Chief, Jessica Cruel - their former Media Content Director. /WWD

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

AMC MOVIE THEATERS back to its old ways… +22% for no apparent reason, except for perhaps movie theater biz cheerleading coming out of CINEMACON?

But more likely because of REDDIT traders feeling like it’s February again, as GAME STOP was +27%

IMAX & CINEWORLD (Regal Cinemas) also up a more modest 5%

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

FXX “Archer” - Season 12 premieres at 10p with 2 episodes. Season has 8 episodes total.

FX “AHS - Double Feature, Part 1: Red Tide” premieres at 10p. (also hits HULU tomorrow)

NETFLIX "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed" documentary. Click Here to Watch or Add to your List

NETFLIX “Clickbait” limited series - Kidnapping thriller with Adrien Grenier and Zoe Kazan. Click here to Watch or Add to your List

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🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

NETFLIX “The Starling” movie trailer. Melissa McCarthy & Chris O’Dowd as a couple who lose a baby at birth, with Chris entering full-time institutional help, and Melissa getting unexpected help from a former psychologist turned veterinarian played by Kevin Kline. Looks good! In theaters Fri Sept 17, on NETFLIX Sept 24.

SHOWTIME “Yellowjackets” series trailer. The plane of an 80’s girls high school soccer team crashes in the forest, and some… “Alive” kinda stuff with an even darker twist goes down. Secrets now being revealed in present day, with Melanie Lynskey, Tawney Cypress, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis. Premieres Sun Nov 14

DISNEY+ “Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to LA” trailer. Billie Eilish plays her new album at an empty HOLLYWOOD BOWL, along with Gustavo Dudamel & The LA Philharmonic for some songs, and other cool visual and thematic elements involved. Premieres Fri Sept 3.

TRU TV“Tacoma FD” Season 3 trailer - New season of the series from a couple of the BROKEN LIZARD guys. Premieres Thu Sept 16

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

Gotta go out with THE STONES today... An official end to an era in pop culture with the passing of Charlie Watts.

“Waiting on a Friend” definitely one of my favorites and seems like the right song for today.

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The Wakeup

SPOTIFY expands Podcast subscription options…