🎬 100% Tariff on Films

👋 Good morning! India is about to make IMAX look like a smartphone screen. Indian producers Abhishek Aggarwal and Vikram Reddy just announced plans to build the world's largest cinema screen in Nagpur, India. The mega-project, unveiled at WAVES 2025 (India's premier entertainment industry conference), aims to "revolutionize the cinematic experience" according to the filmmakers. No specs on the exact dimensions yet, but the screen will reportedly dwarf anything currently in existence.

Welcome to The Dailies—the M/W/F briefing that drops essential industry intel straight into your inbox. Grab your coffee and we’ll get you caught up. Forwarded this email? Sign up here. 👈👀

🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:

• Box Office Breakdown

• 100% Tariffs Incoming

• Marvel Hits the Reset Button

• California’s Animation Exodus

• Crowd Funding Becomes Crowd Investing

• Last Looks: 👀 Bite-sized scoops on developing stories/projects

• Video Village: The latest trailers

• Call Sheet: The week ahead

• Martini Shot 🍸

But first, let’s take a look at what happened at the box office this past weekend!

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ Marvel’s B-squad kicks off the summer season…

1. 🦸‍♂️ Thunderbolts*: 🆕 $76M domestic opening, $162.1M global. Marvel's B-squad comes in the top spot with decent numbers. Audiences actually liked this one (A- CinemaScore), unlike February's ‘Brave New World’ disaster.

2. 🧛 Sinners: (Wk 3) $33M domestic weekend (-28%), $179.7M domestic total, $236.7M global. Turns out people REALLY like Ryan Coogler's vampires. Such a small drop is practically unheard of for a third weekend, especially after losing IMAX screens to ‘Thunderbolts*.’ IMAX is bringing it back on 70MM screens May 15th.

3. 🐓 A Minecraft Movie: (Wk 5) $13.7M domestic weekend (-40%), $398.2M domestic total, $873.4M global. Closing in on that coveted billion-dollar club globally.

4. 💼 The Accountant 2: (Wk 2) $9.5M domestic weekend (-61%), $41.2M domestic total. Ben Affleck's number-crunching hitman took a hefty second-weekend tumble.

5. 🎮 Until Dawn: (Wk 2) $3.8M domestic weekend (-53%), $14.4M domestic total. Sony's video game horror adaptation is dying a quick death at the box office.

6. 🕵️‍♂️ The Amateur: (Wk 4) $1.8M domestic weekend (-51%), $36.9M domestic total.

7. ✝️ The King of Kings: (Wk 4) $1.7M domestic weekend (-61%), $57.7M domestic total.

8. ⚔️ Warfare: (Wk 4) $1.3M domestic weekend (-52%), $24M domestic total. A24's arthouse actioner still clinging to screens.

9. 🏄‍♂️ The Surfer: 🆕 $725K domestic opening from 1,085 theaters. Critics loved Nicolas Cage's Cannes festival hit (86% RT), but audiences didn't show up.

10. 🤠 Rust: 🆕 $25K domestic opening from 115 theaters ($217 per screen). Alec Baldwin's controversial western flopped in theaters with its simultaneous PVOD release strategy.

The Big Picture: Hollywood's summer season (aka money-printing season) kicked off with a healthy $145.4M weekend. While ‘Thunderbolts*’ didn't break records, its $76M launch combined with ‘Sinners’ remarkable hold has theaters optimistic. The road ahead looks promising with ‘Lilo & Stitch’ and ‘Mission: Impossible’ arriving on Memorial Day.

CLOSEUP
🎬 Hollywood just got a curveball from the POTUS…

Yesterday, President Trump announced a plan to impose a 100% tariff on movies filmed outside America. The commander-in-chief took to Truth Social, claiming the "Movie Industry in America is DYING" due to "a concerted effort by other Nations"—which he's labeling a "National Security threat." The move comes just one month after China announced plans to "moderately reduce" Hollywood imports in response to Trump's broader tariff agenda.

This "America First" policy could affect numerous A-list productions currently or recently filming abroad:

• Marvel's ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ (London)

• ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ (London)

• ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ (New Zealand)

• ‘Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow’ (London)

• ‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’ (various global locations)

• ‘Ballerina’ (Czech Republic)

• ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ (UK, planned)

Looking ahead… The devil's in the details, and right now, there aren't many. Studios are in limbo waiting for clarification. Will completed projects get grandfathered in? Is "partially foreign" still foreign enough to get hit? With billions in spending hanging in the balance, both Hollywood execs and international film hubs are holding their breath.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Marvel reset, animation exodus, and crowd investing…

🦸‍♂️ Marvel's streaming-era hangover is getting its first remedy. Disney's superhero factory is hitting the reset button after Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige admitted their content felt "more like homework than entertainment." The culprit? Disney's growth-at-all-costs streaming strategy led to an overwhelming flood of interconnected Marvel shows on Disney+. Industry insiders dubbed it the "no new fans club"—only die-hard viewers could keep up with the increasingly complex storylines. At peak production, Marvel's production schedule became so overstuffed that executives couldn't properly review content while season budgets ballooned to $200M. Marvel's now scaling back annual releases and focusing on standalone stories casual viewers can actually follow. 'Thunderbolts*' strong A- CinemaScore debut is the first test of this reboot, which Marvel hopes will prime audiences for upcoming ‘Avengers’ films. That mysterious asterisk? It hints at a franchise rebranding we won't spoil, but represents Marvel's desperate bid to start a new chapter and reclaim its former box office glory.

📉 California's animation exodus is going from bad to worse. While global animation is booming (projected to grow 117% to $898B by 2034), California's share of top animated productions has plummeted from 67% to 27% since 2010. A new report reveals the culprit: unlike 30 U.S. states and numerous countries, California offers no animation tax incentives. Because of these missing incentives, Disney moved 'Moana 2' production to Vancouver instead of keeping it in Burbank, a single decision that cost California 817 jobs and $87M in wages. Even classics like 'SpongeBob' now outsource key work. Industry experts warn this exodus threatens California's leadership beyond just cartoons—animation skills drive innovation across filmmaking. While California's animation jobs declined 5%, they grew 72% in British Columbia—taking tomorrow's creative edge with them.

🔪 Want to die on-screen in an Eli Roth film? Just invest $1M. Horror director Eli Roth is offering gruesome custom death scenes to top investors in his new venture, The Horror Section, which has raised $2.8M from nearly 1,600 fans since March. This isn't traditional crowdfunding—it's "crowd-investing," where backers become actual company shareholders who can earn returns or sell their stake later. Roth's "360-degree media company" will produce unrated horror films, graphic novels, books, podcasts, and live events, all self-distributed through Iconic Events, completely bypassing studios. The trend is catching on: Robert Rodriguez's similar crowd-investing company, Brass Knuckle Films, hit its $1.5M goal weeks ahead of schedule. For filmmakers, this creates a new revenue path outside the studio system while turning superfans into legitimate business partners who share in profits across all media.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• ‘John Wick’ creator Derek Kolstad will adapt Devney Perry’s upcoming romantasy novel ‘Shield of Sparrows’ for Amazon MGM. (more)

• James Cameron has tapped Martin Sheen to narrate the audiobook ‘Ghosts of Hiroshima,’ which Cameron will adapt into his first post-‘Avatar’ film. (more)

• Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are reuniting for an untitled romantic thriller at Amazon MGM Studios. (more)

• Angelina Jolie will star in ‘Anxious People,’ a comedy from director Marc Forster, based on the bestselling novel by Fredrik Backman. (more)

• Luke Wilson and Heather Graham will star in ‘Getting Rid of Matthew,’ a rom-com with Emma Roberts in talks to join and sales launching at Cannes. (more)

• Will Poulter, Kit Connor, and Manu Ríos will star in ‘Rapture’, a medieval zombie horror, with sales launching at Cannes. (more)

• The Andrea Iervolino Company has launched its new label Aventura, backing thriller ‘Deep Water’ starring Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley. (more)

• Jeremy Allen White, Mandy Patinkin, and Isabella Rossellini will star in Jeremiah Zagar’s family drama ‘The Painted Bride.’ (more)

TV Development 📺

• Julia Garner is set to star in and executive produce a Netflix limited series about the FTX scandal, playing Caroline Ellison. (more)

• Netflix’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ reboot casts Luke Bracey, Crosby Fitzgerald, and Skywalker Hughes as the Ingalls family. (more)

• Skydance has paused new spending on Jeremy Strong’s 9/11 first responders series ‘9/12’ amid growing uncertainty over its merger with Paramount. (more)

Renewed & Canceled ✅ ❌

• ‘The Equalizer’ is cancelled after S5 at CBS. (more)

Business 🤝

• Prime Focus Group is building a $400M entertainment hub in Mumbai, aiming to create a world-class production destination in Bollywood. (more)

Other News 🚨

• UK film production spend nearly tripled in Q1 2025 to £632M, driven overwhelmingly by big-budget inward investment titles. (more)

• President Trump has signed an executive order to cut federal funding for PBS and NPR, accusing them of spreading biased content at taxpayer expense. (more)

• Don’t read it—hear it. Screenplayer transforms any script PDF into audio experiences in minutes. (more)*

  _*sponsored

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CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead

• MONDAY: Upfronts season kicks off in NYC 📺🗽

• WEDNESDAY: Disney earnings announcement 📊

• THURSDAY: WBD earnings announcement 📊

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments