Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:

• A tale of a remarkable Silicon Valley marathon 

• The very finest fellowships for tech moguls 

• Plus: Hasan Minhaj’s digital reinvention; a funny dog story; and a beachside riddle.

Nimona and Ballister Boldheart seem unlikely to secure a place among cinema’s most remembered pairings of animated characters. Honestly, what a damn shame.

The pair form the heart of last year’s very charming film “Nimona,” which is based on a beloved graphic novel. Nimona, a teenage shape-shifter (voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz), and Ballister, a courageous commoner eager for a knighthood (Riz Ahmed), exist in a world in which the Middle Ages have lasted into the future—where crossbows shoot laser bolts while knights charge about on horse-shaped hovercrafts. And, like many a noble hero, Ballister faces dire heartbreak: After he’s framed for the queen’s murder, his boyfriend is the one sent to arrest him. (With a gay Sir Ballister and an identity-fluid Nimona, the movie wears its queer vibes in a proud but unannoying manner.)

I bring up “Nimona” not just to recommend the picture, which quietly received an Oscar nomination for best animated feature, but because of what its journey says about the vicissitudes of Hollywood—especially for independent production companies. 

“Nimona” was financed by Annapurna Pictures, the studio created 13 years ago by Megan Ellison, daughter of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison—and sister of Paramount’s soon-to-be new owner, David Ellison. It’s one of only two movies Annapurna put out last year, and neither made much of a splash. That’s a much different experience than what Annapurna enjoyed when it initially skyrocketed to prominence, making auteurish movies like “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Her” and “American Hustle.” The list goes on: “Phantom Thread,” “Foxcatcher,” “Vice,” the Adam McKay–directed Dick Cheney biopic. 

Then came a number of flops and Annapurna’s misguided decision to expand and begin distributing its own movies. Losses mounted, and the studio staved off bankruptcy only by dint of Papa Ellison’s deep pockets. In 2019, Megan left Los Angeles and reportedly decamped to Hawaii for nearly two years. Annapurna has since mostly pivoted to videogames—really!—and Megan financed “Nimona” as a passion project, not as a real box-office contender. 

That reversal of fortunes might make for tense family conversation in the Ellison household. David Ellison, in contrast, is now riding high. His production outfit, Skydance Media, which he started in 2010, has lasted longer in the spotlight than his sister’s studio largely because it has focused on a very different business model: releasing popcorn blockbusters, including recent installments in the “Terminator” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises.

David seems to have a better idea of what drives people to movie theaters than his sister, and Paramount will need all of his capitalistic smarts to right itself. (To give Megan credit, I prefer her taste in films and filmmakers.) 

David must also possess an enormous reservoir of chutzpah: He had a front-row seat to his sister’s career implosion, which eventually drove her into self-exile, and he still had enough confidence in himself to further widen his ambitions and spend $8 billion on a studio that has languished in Hollywood’s castle dungeons for years. 

Vice President Abram Brown is also Weekend of The Information’s editor section. You can reach him at [email protected] or find him on X.

The Big Read

The Epic Corporate Marathon of Strava, Cult-Favorite Fitness App

When I visit a city for the first time, I quickly fire up Strava, a location-based fitness-tracking app. Many people record and publicly share their exercise routes—running, biking, canoeing, kayaking and more—on Strava, so the app can display the most popular places for those activities. I’ve found it especially helpful in foreign cities where the patterns of life are different: By looking at Strava, for instance, I knew to run down Avenida Santander in Cartagena, Colombia, and shoot up north past Higashi Hongan-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. 

On Strava, I’m a lurker, not a poster, but many other people use the app as a pseudo social network, the outcome of a very 21st-century trade-off: We’re increasingly comfortable sharing our locations with total strangers if we can identify some technological benefit to doing so, like striking up new friendships with other athletes you spot posting on Strava. That’s what 23-year-old Courtney Kitchen did recently when she saw another young woman running at roughly her pace in a Philadelphia half-marathon: “Turned out that we lived a town over from each other.”

There’s a remarkable business story here, as our Annie Goldsmith explains in this week’s Big Read. Strava has endured six CEO changes and has still managed to push toward profitability and a billion-dollar valuation. “My focus at this moment is Strava just needs to move more quickly in providing more value to its users,” the app’s new CEO, Michael Martin, told Annie.

The Top 5

Silicon Valley Moguls’ Favorite Fellowships

Those fancy mid- and later-career fellowships you see colleagues and friends doing—are they really worth it? 

They sure attract plenty of big names, like Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings and Marissa Mayer, and many people do walk away from the experience singing its praises. Hastings, for instance, told our Julia Black about his time completing the multiyear Henry Crown Fellowship from The Aspen Institute. The fellowship takes its small class (20 or so people) around the world over two years for educational seminars. The experience “opened a door for me to Machiavelli, Aristotle, [“The Great Game of Business” author] Jack Stack, Martin Luther King and others that proved instrumental in my growth as a leader,” Hastings told Julia.

Following: YouTube’s New TV Star 

The greatest mystery this fall may not be who will win the White House: It’s what will happen to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” since Jon Stewart has promised to extend his return only through the fall elections. 

Maybe Hasan Minhaj can generate enough buzz off his new YouTube show to wedge himself back into the conversation—and consideration—about who should permanently host the program, a role he has long coveted. “Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know” seems to offer a pretty clear picture of what a Minhaj-helmed “Daily Show” would look like.

In the first episode, which came out earlier this week, Minhaj interviewed Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a half-hour-long conversation that meandered pleasantly through Democratic party intrigue, professional wrestling, Gaza—and one big newsy topic: How old is too old to be president? In her answer, Warren defended President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. “I talk to the man,” Warren said. “The man is sharp. The man knows what he’s talking about. He does the job.” Surely Minhaj must feel some sympathy for Biden. After all, he too was passed over for his dream job more than once.—A.B.

Playing: Sherlocks at Sea

To cope with the latest summer heat wave, I’ve been staying indoors and playing “Return of the Obra Dinn,” a gorgeous hand-drawn game that’s a mix between Lovecraft, a point-and-click detective-style puzzle and a classic yarn of hubris at sea. (I’ve been playing it on Switch, but it’s also available on Mac, Windows, PlayStation and Xbox.)  

In the game, you play as an unnamed insurance appraiser for the East India Company when a merchant ship that’s been missing for five years, the titular Obra Dinn, washes ashore in 19th-century England without its crew. You’re tasked with figuring out what happened and noting the specific fate of each of the 60 passengers.

Luckily, you have some tools at your disposal, like a mysterious pocket watch that allows you to see the exact moment someone died. Gameplay mainly involves jumping between these memories to piece together the mystery and figure out who (or what!) killed whom, and why. 

When flashing back to a corpse’s final moments, you get to hear a brief snippet of what the person heard just before they perished. Sometimes you might hear a detail that instantly advances the investigation, like the deceased’s name, their relation to someone else on board, or an accent that gives away their identity. Other times you might hear a suspicious sound or snippet of conversation to file away for later.

As a big detective and puzzle game fan, I love how “Return of the Obra Dinn” requires a rigorous investigation to advance the plot. In many titles in the genre, you’re merely clicking around for clues. “Return of the Obra Dinn” isn’t easy, and I prefer to play with another person and tackle the tougher scenes as a pair. It is oh so satisfying when you get things right.—Paris Martineau 

Watching: A Dramedy from Down Under 

“Colin From Accounts,” an Australian streaming series available on Paramount+, is not what the title might suggest. Colin From Accounts is the name given to a dog that plays an important but peripheral role in bringing together the romantic pair—a real-life married couple, Patrick Brammaell and Harriet Dyer—who make this series an unexpected treat. The show’s humor is edgy and different from the usual fare we see served up on television nowadays. Dyer’s version of sleepwalking, and her interactions with her mother, are delightful. Do not miss this one.—Martin Peers

Final Thought

So is that technically inflation—or deflation? *hiccups*