Covid-19 has drawn renewed attention to an under-appreciated industry.

I join Ben Thompson’s Stratechery for a podcast on digital theme parks, Bob Iger and the fallacy of Netflix v Disney and Content v Distribution

An essay on theme parks, platforms, and the importance of hugs.

What’s happening to Pay-TV in 2020 isn’t just more OTT competition and higher prices. It is instead something new and unprecedented in media: the systemic undermining and defunding of a business with years and years of life left

After decades of fan petitions and dreams, it’s clear that video game publishers, Hollywood, and general audiences are finally ready for gaming IP to be adapted to film and TV. Why now and what does this mean?

Here, I touch on how each service will initially and then need to position themselves, the flaws of the “race to scale” and the overlooked importance of execution, why Disney+ was so successful, and more.

The most popular narratives hide the truth of competition, scalability, and monetization.

Blockbusters like ‘Avengers: Endgame’ are setting new records, while movie tickets sold per person have hit a 92-year low.

It’s all been leading to this.

There’s a reason every Big Tech CEO has a well-worn copy of “Snow Crash” in their office.

It’s replicating the most lucrative entertainment businesses on earth… and then adding a lot more.

For all of Disney’s success in the media industry and with Disney+, its SVOD lessons are remarkably conventional and broadly applicable

J.J. Abrams takes few risks in the final installment of the Skywalker trilogy. That is no bad thing

Getting the franchise right is crucial to Disney’s future in theme parks, toys and streaming.

After a long, arduous day of staring at your computer screen at work, sometimes nothing feels better than staring at your computer screen at home. But who owns that screen? We dive into the streaming wars to find out.

Co-written with Hulu’s former Head of Content Acquisition Alex Kruglov.

If media matters to consumers, but they won’t spend a lot on it, the efficient use of content is to drive other businesses that have better (and bigger) economics. And this is exactly what’s happening.

The new streaming service is an important cog in the Disney machine

For millennia, the most popular stories on earth were epic tales of Gods and heroes. Five thousand years later, human culture remains similarly transfixed, albeit on a more modern epic: the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The epic story form had never faced a foe as potent as the novel or cultural modernity. Yet after centuries of decline, the appeal of expansive imaginary worlds remained. Then suddenly, it came roaring back.