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Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Friday, August 22, 2025. Where I’m going to have to allow a casual dining exception to The Ankler’s 2026 Dead Media Brand Halloween party costume rules (although we may need to move it up to 2025 at this point), as CRACKER BARREL’s old logo is going to need to be around supportive friends after being dumped for this new face lift gone wrong of a logo. Forget all of the overinflated right-wing hubub — this is just an affront to branding.
Unless of course, CRACKER BARREL’s agency directive here was “Hey, can you remove all sense of personality and history from our brand that our fans love, and make it look like something that could also be a low-cost hotel chain? Thx.” Or perhaps that was the likely directive the company gave to the AI bot that seemingly created this logo. But MS NOW, VERSANT and others — at least the casual dining category is demonstrating that clearly it’s the branding agency business as a whole that’s in the crapper in 2025 (although you don’t get a pass for still taking their recommendations, while paying healthy sums for them, no doubt) . . . and kudos to the new WARNER BROS. and DISCOVERY GLOBAL companies for the best new brand choice decisions in 2025 to date.
THEN: Tickets are now on sale here for the first Dawson’s Creek cast reunion event ever on Monday, Sept. 22, in NYC at the Richard Rogers theater, where there will also be a live reading of the show’s pilot episode.
AND: Mariah Carey will be the next Gen X artist getting a career award (the Video Vanguard award) at the MTV VMAs next month on CBS, joining Busta Rhymes and Ricky Martin. She will also perform a hit medley. AH: The BETMGM gambling app is swapping out Jamie Foxx for Jon Hamm as the new lead in the ad campaign this fall. SPEAKING OF: A new study from ad biz research firm EDO shows that ads in NFL games are far more effective at driving brand search engagement with audiences vs. other broadcast and cable TV programming. No word on how much of that search is for “How many times is that same f’ing SUBWAY ad airing in the LIONS game this week!?” ALSO: DISNEYFOX’s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will open the AFI Fest in L.A. on Oct. 22 (two days before it hits theaters). It’s playing the NYFF on Sept. 28. SO: Yeah, two sides of the celebrity news coin yesterday:
PLUS: If you’re a CHARTER cable TV customer (and not a skinny bundle) — you now get free HULU and ESPN D2C as part of your subscription (in addition to DIS+, and services from other companies). Kudos to the WSJ’s Joe Flint for putting in the work for the rest of us . . . but Joe, don’t leave us hangin’ on how it went!
FINALLY: Just a little shout out for a show from my HBO/CINEMAX days that’s seeing some life 10+ years later — someone I worked with on the Soderbergh-directed medical series The Knick from gave me a heads up that the show has been entering the top echelons of the Top 10 on HBO MAX across most of Europe this week. If you loved The Pitt and want to see what ER care and medicine overall were like at the turn of the 1900s in NYC, I highly recommend it here on HBO MAX (Clive Owen starred, but it also features Andre Holland and Eve Hewson in what I think were their first major TV roles). WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLLOk, with KPop Demon Hunters not coming until tomorrow (and Sunday), let’s do a Friday poll. The numbers going into the weekend are 1,750 theaters and 1,150 sell-out screenings. Now . . . NETFLIX doesn’t release any info to industry system COMSCORE #Boooo #Fail 👎, so we’ll see how this goes in terms of reports on Sunday. Unusual territory here as well in the release itself (no Thurs. or Fri. revenue, etc.). I’ve seen a $15M number out there but also potentially $20M, so let’s just go 3 tranches and a bonus choice.
NEW PODSpeaking of another new round of looming sports media deals . . .
CLARIFICATION FROM YESTERDAY: Lord-Miller is producing the Archie pic at UNI, not directing (2 of the 3 trades had the correct detail, alas, I read the 1 that did not). 🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
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