Vimeo’s off the menu; Paramount sharpens knife for Warner.
Consolidation, collapse, creation. Welcome to the hungry games.
Vimeo finally got eaten by Bending Spoons (yes, that’s a real company). Fujifilm storms into the cinema kitchen with an 8K medium-format beast, while a pocket-sized VFX app serves blockbuster effects straight from your phone.
Paramount is circling Warner like a main course at the mega-merger buffet, whilst doubling down on Star Trek for dessert.
At TIFF, midnight horror bites collide with Colman Domingo’s awards-season heat, even as AI threatens to resurrect Orson Welles and cook up an animated feature of its own.
This week, cinema’s past, present, and future all sat at the same crowded table.
Here’s what cut through the feast.
Headlines at a Glance
‘Andor,’ ‘Arcane,’ and ‘Severance’ Lead Creative Arts Emmy Winners: The Creative Arts Emmy Awards saw big wins for the critically acclaimed series.
New ‘Star Trek’ Projects Unveiled for 60th Anniversary: Paramount announces a slate of new projects to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the iconic franchise in 2026.
Beeble Camera App Wants to Be a VFX Studio in Your Pocket: A new app aims to bring powerful visual effects tools to mobile devices.
OpenAI Hopes Animated 'Critterz' Will Prove AI Is Ready for the Big Screen: The movie is an adaptation of a 2023 short film made using AI tools.
TIFF Buzz Report: Hamnet Wins TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, Cementing Its Awards-Season Momentum
Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons Restoration: Nearly 80 years later, AI is being used to reconstruct the long-lost 43 minutes of Welles’ butchered follow-up to Citizen Kane.
F1 (starring Brad Pitt) has overtaken Mission: Impossible to be the top-grossing Hollywood film so far in 2025.
Paramount Eyes Warner in Mega-Merger Bid
Paramount Skydance was only born in August. And it may already be swinging for the crown.
Reports say David Ellison is prepping a cash takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery. If it lands, the deal would stitch HBO, Warner Bros studios, CNN, DC, Paramount+, Pluto TV, and more into one empire.
Wall Street loved the rumor: WBD stock jumped nearly 30%. But actually pulling it off is another story. Both companies are drowning in debt. Regulators will circle. And the logistics of two streaming platforms, two studio infrastructures, two Hollywood cultures will be a nightmare to untangle.
Still, the ambition is clear. Paramount Skydance wants dominance.
And in a moment when media consolidation is accelerating, this is a shock-drop that could rewrite the industry at every level.
From who makes the shows to where you watch them.
Vimeo Sells to Bending Spoons
Vimeo just got scooped up by Bending Spoons for $1.38B, A long fall from its $8.5B IPO in 2021.
On paper, this looks like a rescue. The Milan-based firm has a rep of or buying faded tech brands (Evernote, WeTransfer, Meetup). And running them through a private-equity playbook of ruthless cost-cutting and aggressive monetization.
The results haven’t been pretty.
Mass layoffs. Stripped-down features. Communities left for dead. For filmmakers who once swore by Vimeo as the creative class’s home base, it ain’t looking good.
And let’s not pretend Vimeo was in great shape before this. Billing controversies, support black holes, even an EU exit so badly handled that staff ended up pointing users to a speculative newsletter post for answers.
Not long ago, the “Vimeo Staff Pick” was the holy grail of shortform filmmaking but in 2025, does anyone actually care?
Bending Spoons insists it’s more than an efficiency machine, pointing to improvements in Evernote as proof. But its track record suggests Vimeo’s future hinges less on creator trust and more on balance-sheet discipline.
Then there’s the AI question.
Vimeo promised not to use user videos for model training. But WeTransfer’s clumsy TOS update earlier this year fueled suspicion that Bending Spoons sees archives as training goldmines.
So far, the deal raises more questions than answers. And the dream of Vimeo as a vibrant creative hub feels further away than ever.
More platform news
Tariffs and TikTok Dominate U.S.–China Trade Talks: Another round of negotiations is underway, with Washington weighing both economic pressure and TikTok’s future in the U.S. spotlight
Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror) is creating a new crime thriller for Netflix, starring Lena Headey, Georgina Campbell, and Paddy Considine.
Fujifilm unveils its first ever cinema camera
Enter the ETERNA 55:
Fujifilm’s first true cinema camera, and a clear signal they want to dance with the big boys. At its core: a 4:3 open-gate 102MP sensor, nearly three times taller than Super 35.
That means flexibility for anamorphic, reframing, and heavy VFX work.
It comes loaded: dual-base ISOs, variable electronic ND, hot-swap power, full ProRes and RAW recording without an external box. And, true to Fuji form, the film simulations are baked in so shooters get a quick shorthand that feels like 35mm stock.
The body is built for set life: ~2kg, V-mount power, side-mounted monitor, with matching lenses like a 32–90mm zoom tuned for the big sensor.
It’ll cost you around $16,499. Ships October 2025. Which raises the obvious question: who is exactly is this for?
It’s not competing with Arri, Venice, or RED. But it’s also too expensive to sit alongside prosumer cams like Sony’s FX3 or Blackmagic’s lineup.
That leaves the ETERNA 55 in a strange no-man’s-land. Technically impressive, but no clear audience.
Cut of the Week: OK Go “Impulse Purchase”
LA-based Indie rockers, OK Go, have been reinventing the music video for almost two decades ever since they turned a row of treadmills into internet history with Here It Goes Again back in 2006.
From Rube Goldberg contraptions to zero-gravity choreography on a parabolic flight, their visuals have always lived somewhere between stunt and science experiment.
But for all that innovation, they’d never gone fully animated… until now.
“Impulse Purchase” is the first.
An official co-production with Blender Studio, the video is directed by BAFTA winner Will Anderson and designer Lucas Zanotto, with frontman Damian Kulash literally puppeteering the animation through live face-capture.
No painstaking keyframes here. The performance is mapped in real time into a constantly mutating 3D world. It’s glitchy, playful, and unmistakably OK Go.
And the kicker: it’s completely open source.
All of the Blender files and tools are free to download, so anyone can build their own versions. Kulash called the project “weirder, more wonderful” than he’d imagined, and Blenderheads are already running with it.
Creator News:
YouTube rolls out its multi-language audio dubbing feature to all creators after a two-year pilot.
Kai Cenat’s “Mafiathon 3” hit a milestone, crossing 300,000 Twitch subscribers during the event.
ZEvent 2025, a huge French streamer charity event, raised over €16 million in four days from 325 streamers on Twitch.
YouTube & Creators HQ launch the first YouTube Academy in MENA (Middle East & North Africa), aiming to support skills & sustainable creator careers in the region.
#TeamWater MrBeast, Mark Rober & thousands of creators from ~115 countries raised $40M for WaterAid to bring clean water to 2M people.
Retail Therapy
TCL PlayCube Projector: $799
A cube-sized projector that fits in your hand but throws up to a 120-inch display. Perfect for backyard screenings, travel setups, or flexing your Letterboxd watchlist on a wall.
Birdfy Smart Bird Feeder: $124
A Wi-Fi bird feeder with a built-in HD camera that auto-records feathered visitors, IDs the species with AI, and pings you when a cardinal (or just another pigeon) shows up.
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