It’s Tuesday and YouTube is trying to capitalize on its TV dominance and AI bid by introducing Gemini’s Ask feature to living room viewers. Users who are part of the test group will see an “Ask” button pop up on their TV screens, and can type or speak queries about the content they’re seeing.

A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

The reveal: Just a couple days after Markiplier headed to the Oscars on the back of his $50+ million run with self-funded and -distributed Iron Lung, our industry has another film announcement.

This one isn’t from an individual content creator, but from Dallas-based talent management company Night Media. As founder/CEO Reed Duchscher announced March 16, Night executive produced the upcoming indie comedy film Busboys, starring podcaster/comedian Theo Von and longtime Hollywood actor/comedian David Spade.

The movie follows Von and Spade as two hapless buddies trying to make it big in the world of waiting by working their way up from (you guessed it) busboying. It’ll go into Cinemark and Regal theaters April 17. Von, Spade, and Night are following the same distribution method paved by creators like Markiplier and Night clients Sam & Colby.

The background: How did this deal come together? Simple. Von signed his podcast, Last Weekend with Theo Von, to Rooster Teeth’s network The Roost in 2023. When Rooster Teeth’s owner Warner Bros. Discovery, shut the company down in 2024, Night stepped in and bought The Roost.

According to Busboys‘ director Jonah Feingold, Von and Spade came up with the idea, wrote the film themselves, and then shot it all during the Palisades Fire in 2025.

"This is what independent filmmaking looks like in 2026," he wrote, adding that Busboys is "one of [Night's] first theatrical narrative projects—and working with them has been one of the great experiences of my career."

You can check out Busboys’ trailer here.

INDUSTRY NEWS

The creator economy has seen enormous growth over the past few years—an industry-reshaping boom that’s now triggered a wave of consolidation. As a result, the creator economy saw a major uptick in mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships in the first half of 2025 (52, compared to 30 in the first half of 2024).

Now, a small agency representing some big talent is joining the wave.

North House Talent—a boutique agency founded by industry vet Noah Cohen and representing stars like Dalton Chandler—has unveiled a new partnership with Reign Maker Group.

That alliance points to a growing trend of small agencies joining forces with larger talent companies. The result: razor-focused, boutique-style creator support combined with a broader infrastructure of resources.

We sat down with Cohen to find out how North House plans to harness Reign Maker’s expansive infrastructure to “revolutionize” his agency’s work with creators. Check out that interview here.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Gospel Stats’ Weekly Brand Reports often seem to revolve around a theme, with STEM video essays and “this vs. that” challenges frequently pervading the public consciousness. This week, however, the sponsored rankings feature a veritable hodgepodge of sponsored content.

🥇 #1. MrBeast Gaming x Feastables: 1 Minute vs 10 Year Build Challenge (27.7M views)
MrBeast returns with another gaming competition--but this time, it's less survival strategy and more artistry. He pits a handful of expert Minecraft architects (who also all happen to be real-life architects too) against one another with varied time limits, promising that whoever's build is chosen as the best will get a crisp $10,000. These builds are as extreme as it gets—and spoiler: more than one person wins $10K.

🥈 #2. Ludwig x Samsung: #PlayGalaxy Cup: PUBG MOBILE Global Open hosted by Samsung Galaxy (16.7M views)
Mobile gaming is bigger than ever, and Ludwig is smack in the middle of it. His two-hour sponsored livestream follows him onstage emceeing the first #PlayGalaxy Cup, showcasing PUBG MOBILE gameplay on Samsung’s S26 Ultra. LAN and PC have long been the kings of esports tourneys, but as mobile games continue to grow, we suspect there will be more phone-based events like this one—and if those events are savvy, they’ll follow in Samsung’s footsteps and tap a creator to host.

🎰 #2,489. White House on the Hill x Anker: We Gave our Tiny Quail Pedicures (43.5K views)
This week's bonus video is therapy for us. Yes, we would in fact like to watch 15 minutes of itty bitty birds getting pedicures, thank you. What’s also interesting about this upload is that it’s brought to White House on the Hill's YouTube channel by Anker, which has nothing to do with avian husbandry directly. However, it is a fit for the farm life vibe, since its SKUs cover power banks and mobile chargers—all handy for homesteaders.

Check out the full branded ranking here and head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

WATCH THIS 👀

The grand finale: We love Bigtop Burger. In this Cinema Sins era of media, it can be tempting to take the easy route, to explain everything away by making plots as banal and unquestionable as possible. Why? Because taking artistic risks opens you up to people going “Wait, I didn’t understand” or “Why would they choose to tell their story that way when my way is better?”

But Worthikids cares not for your petty squabbles. A longtime indie animator with just over a million subs on YouTube, he’s best known for Bigtop, a webseries that at first appears to be about the small, normal, totally human crew of a clown-themed food truck dishing out mediocre burgers. Things get quickly supernatural, though, as owner Steve (voiced by Worthi) is menaced by rival food purveyor Cesare (Chris Fleming of COMPANY IS COMING fame).

Worthikids began posting Bigtop in 2020, and just wrapped up its third—and looks to be last—season with a heartfelt finale that reminds us plenty of artists are still out there, making whatever they want, without the need to explain it to anyone.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, James Hale, and Josh Cohen.