The Hudson Valley gets a Soho House

America's FIRST countryside Soho House (lol)

Apple really fumbled the ball by abandoning Photo Booth updates.

NEWS:

• Taylor Swift sold $26 million in AMC movie tickets in one day. Her “Eras Tour” concert film, which opens on Oct. 13, has broken presale records at AMC theaters — besting the benchmark previously held by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($16.9 million). The economics of the deal are cool (thanks for the tip from friend of the letter and fellow newsletter writer, Teddy Kim).

  • Since she paid for the movie herself (rich) she owns the entire thing and doesn’t have to wrangle a studio to market/distribute/provide any related service - it’s just the piece of IP sitting in her vault - like her new masters!

  • In releasing NOW she can double down on this advantage. Theaters like AMC (where you’re going for “what’s out now”) are like California when no water because of well… no movies in the movies pipe  —> no actors acting, no writers writing

  • So AMC caved and gives her a bigger piece of the sales pie, to get people in the theaters, and popcorn in mouths

• Travis Kalanick, Uber co-founder and former CEO, is having some having a scary 👻 time with ghost kitchens. His start-up CloudKitchens has sacked workers this year and closed locations as it attempts to rein in its expenses amid low occupancy at a number of its warehouses, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ghost kitchens are WEIRD and ominous to me, but Travis is also known for being a beast and driving crazy high momentum and pace of growth at all his companies so I don’t know.

• SkinnyDipped, my depressing Meta office snack of choice, closed a $12mm Series A. Amy Schumer, Mark Wahlberg, Becky G, Post Malone, Tan France, Odell Beckham Jr. and Frances Tiafoe (saw him last week at the Open 😎 ) have backed the company in this round. My problem with SkinnyDipped is that they’re really just flavor dust and it’s a little sad. However, they are one of the last CPG brands that proudly owns the early-2000’s “Skinny” marketing, so I respect their commitment to the bit. As my news-centric group text said this morning “Airport food. Hudson News-coded.”