A24 fans respond to Google's $75 million investment.

"The A24 subreddit is in full meltdown."

Good afternoon, everyone.

I’m writing this from a warm, sunny room an hour outside of Cannes. I’m wearing my favorite big Knicks t-shirt, my hair is wet, I’m not going out tonight (but if you are, you should go to Foster Kamer’s secret party), and the only logo in my eyesight is for a local cookie business called Macaron de Nice. Great brand site and story. I ate a few violet-flavored (rare flavor to come across) ones while watching happy people splash around in the ocean and sleep underneath colorful umbrellas. As someone said in one of my X group chats today, “God bless the South of France, truly.”

Today’s newsletter includes: Teddy Kim on Google’s $75 million investment in A24, John Early’s new fragrance, and Caroline Calloway’s new Air Mail gig.

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Reddit reacts to A24’s Google deal.

Stay Tuned is a Feed Me guest column about film and entertainment, written by Teddy Kim.

Google invested $75 million into A24 as part of an AI research partnership between the two companies. A24 gets access to Google DeepMind’s researchers and infrastructure to develop new tools for production and distribution, while Google gets none of A24’s library or data.

I’ve been surprised by the backlash considering comparable media/AI deals that have already happened involving the likes of Disney and Netflix. But the A24 subreddit is in full meltdown with a megathread devoted to the investment and screenshot posts of dedicated fans canceling their AAA24 memberships. I suppose the hardcore A24 fan demo is exactly the demo that’s most hostile to AI, seeing it as a threat to artists and the entire creative process and economy. They’re not exactly alone, with Backrooms director Kane Parsons recently saying he’d get rid of generative AI forever if he could.

“It’d be ironic if this whole affair ends up generating a Streisand effect for the movie, driving more people to see it. The most effective thing Amazon probably could have done was to keep it, tangle it up in delays, and release it quietly without much marketing.”