🎬 Biggest Roadblock Yet

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👋 Good morning! After the viral chaos of the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest last month, copycat competitions for Paul Mescal and Jeremy Allen White are springing up faster than streaming services. In Chicago this weekend, mental health therapist Ben Shabad took home the crown (and $50 plus a pack of smokes) as the city's best ‘The Bear’ star double. At this rate, we'll need a multiverse movie starring nothing but professional impersonators of A24's leading men.

Whether you're a seasoned subscriber or a new arrival, we're thrilled to have you here. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we'll deliver the most important industry scoops directly to your inbox.

🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:

• MUBI’s Milestone Moment

• ‘Gladiator’s’ Roadblock Strategy

• Netflix’s Fight Night Glitch

• Streamers Break Up the Binge

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

• Video Village: The latest trailers

• Martini Shot 🍸

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

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
🎟️ ‘Red One’ falls short, but help is on the way…

1. 🎅 Red One: Amazon/MGM's massively expensive holiday action flick (costing $250M to make, $100M to market) opens to lukewarm $34M. While it's the biggest opening for a streamer-produced film (beating Apple's ‘Killers of the Flower Moon's’ $23.2M), it's one of The Rock's lower openings. International adds $50M for $84M global, but with that price tag, even Santa's magic might not make this profitable. But for Amazon, it's a write-off they'll monetize through Prime.

2. 🦹 Venom: The Last Dance: Takes second with $7.3M domestic (-54%), pushing its total to $127.6M domestic and $436.1M global.

3. 🎄 Best Christmas Pageant Ever: Holiday offering holds well with $5.4M (-50%), reaching $19.9M total against modest $10M budget.

4. 😈 Heretic: A24's latest scares up $5.1M (-52%) in second frame for $20.4M total.

5. 🤖 The Wild Robot: DreamWorks animation adds $4.3M (-35%) for $137.7M domestic/$308.5M global. Sequel already greenlit.

6. 😱 Smile 2: Pulls in $2.9M (-42%) for $65.6M total.

7. 🎭 Conclave: Focus Features drama earns $2.8M (-31%) for $26.5M cume.

8. 💕 Hello, Love, Again: Filipino romance debuts strong with $2.4M from just 248 theaters ($9,722 per-screen average).

9. 🎬 A Real Pain: Searchlight's indie expands to $2.3M weekend, $3M total.

10. 🎨 Anora: NEON's awards contender adds $1.8M (-27%) for $10.5M total.

The Big Picture: The box office hit a serious speed bump this weekend, with a chilly $73.6M total (-36.3% vs 2023). But don't write off 2024 just yet—reinforcements are coming. ‘Gladiator II’ is already crushing it overseas with an $87M debut (Ridley Scott's biggest international opening ever), while ‘Wicked’ and ‘Moana 2’ are waiting in the wings to rescue Thanksgiving. Though 2024 is still trailing last year by 12%, this upcoming slate could help the box office end the year on a high note.

CLOSEUP
🎬 ‘The Substance’ is set to cross $70M worldwide…

MUBI's Demi Moore body-swap horror flick ‘The Substance’ is about to cross $70M worldwide, but that's only half the story—it's also breaking every streaming record on MUBI's platform. This dual success might just rewrite the rules for how movies get released.

Quick backstory: Universal made this French horror film for under $18M through Working Title. When director Coralie Fargeat wouldn't make their requested edits, they let her shop it around. Enter MUBI, who grabbed it pre-Cannes for $12.5M and tried something different.

Key takeaways, and why this one’s different:

• Theatrical + Streaming Hybrid Works: Most streamers do bare-minimum theatrical runs—just enough to qualify for awards and keep their A-list stars from complaining (looking at you, Netflix). But MUBI went all in. Nine weeks later, 'The Substance' is still in theaters AND breaking streaming records. Instead of cannibalizing each other, theatrical success actually fueled streaming views.

• Global Is the New Normal: Latin America alone delivered $20M, with Mexico outperforming major US markets. This wasn't your usual "release in America first, worry about overseas later" strategy. The film's international success created such buzz that when it hit streaming, viewers everywhere couldn't wait to watch.

• Marketing Doesn't Need Star Power: Instead of plastering Demi Moore's face across billboards, Fargeat went weird—think egg yolks and chicken wings (seriously). This unconventional approach, combined with Moore's 15M social followers, proved that mystique and digital savvy can beat traditional marketing. Even better? It cost way less.

• The Festival-to-Theaters Pipeline Still Works: Starting with a 13-minute standing ovation at Cannes, the film built prestige through the festival circuit and awards season. This momentum carried into a real theatrical run, not just a qualifying release. Each phase—festivals, theatrical, streaming—amplified the next, creating a snowball effect of buzz that proved impossible to ignore.

Looking ahead… 2024's success stories like ‘The Substance’ happened during an unusually quiet year, with major studios still recovering from the strikes. 2025 will be the real test—Disney's bringing Marvel back in full force, Warner's got their prestigious directors lined up, and Universal's planning nearly 20 releases. We'll see if this specialty film playbook can still work when it's competing with superheroes and blockbusters for audience attention.

WIDESHOT
🎬 Gladiator roadblock, fight night glitch, Netflix splits…

🎬💪 Paramount's planning what might be the biggest promotional stunt ever with 'Gladiator II'—blasting the same 60-second trailer across 4,000 channels tonight at 6pm PT. We're talking TV, radio, streaming, you name it. The price tag? A cool $2M to hopefully catch 300M eyeballs. It's a supercharged version of the classic "roadblock" strategy, where studios normally take over just a handful of channels at once. From bus stops turned coliseums to global premieres, it's all part of a massive $100M+ marketing push for this weekend's release. Gone are the days when studios could just slap an ad on NBC's Thursday night lineup and call it a day. Now, even with a $200M sequel to an Oscar winner, they're having to pull out all the stops. Box office numbers are still down 25% from pre-pandemic days, streaming services are dominating viewer attention, and TikTok's stealing the rest. With Paramount under intense pressure to deliver a blockbuster hit, tonight's unprecedented marketing blitz shows just how far studios must go to get noticed in 2024's fractured entertainment landscape.

🥊📺 Netflix's big boxing bet landed some hits and took some punches. The Tyson-Paul showdown on Friday drew a whopping 60M households, smashing Netflix's live-streaming records, but not everyone got to enjoy the full fight. Viewers reported their screens freezing up, endless loading circles, and straight-up crashes during the big event (though some got an unplanned glimpse of Tyson's bare posterior thanks to some clumsy camerawork). Netflix's tech boss Elizabeth Stone owned up to the stumbles in a company memo, praising her team for keeping most viewers' streams steady while admitting they've "got room for improvement." Despite the technical hiccups, Netflix is calling this one a win and isn't backing down from live events. Next up: they're hosting NFL football on Christmas Day with Chiefs-Steelers and Ravens-Texans.

📺🎬 Netflix is changing how it releases your favorite shows. Instead of dropping all episodes at once, hits like 'Outer Banks' and 'Emily in Paris' are now coming out in two parts, weeks apart. At first glance, the numbers look rough—people are watching fewer hours overall (‘Outer Banks’' latest season started with less than half the viewing time of its last season). But Netflix has found a silver lining: viewers stick around longer. Shows are staying popular for more weeks, with 4 out of 5 split-season shows hanging in Netflix's Top 10 longer than before. 'Emily in Paris' is the perfect example—while people spent less total time watching, more viewers tuned in overall (72.6M compared to last season's 54.6M). What's this tell us? Looks like viewers might prefer their TV in smaller bites rather than weekend-long marathons. As streaming platforms duke it out for audience attention, this could signal the end of Netflix's own binge-era blueprint, ushering in a new age of "slow-TV" that keeps viewers coming back for more.

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LAST LOOKS
Development 🗒️

• Zack Snyder is developing a high-stakes LAPD action thriller for Netflix, reuniting with co-writer Kurt Johnstad. (more)

• 20th Century Studios acquires ‘Test Drive,’ an original action spec from Matt Venne, in a competitive deal with Safehouse Pictures producing. (more)

• Conan O’Brien will host the 97th Academy Awards on Mar. 2, 2025. (more)

• A ‘Friday Night Lights’ reboot is in development at Universal TV with original creators Pete Berg and Jason Katims. (more)

• Disney has removed its 2026 ‘Star Wars’ film from the calendar, replacing it with ‘Ice Age 6.’ (more)

• Poorna Jagannathan joins HBO’s DC series ‘Lanterns’ in a recurring role. (more)

• Danny Peykoff makes his directorial debut with ‘Out Come the Wolves,’ a drama inspired by Rancid’s 1995 album. (more)

• Warner Bros is rebooting the sci-fi classic ‘Forbidden Planet’ with Brian K. Vaughan writing and Emma Watts producing. (more)

• Sony and Bad Robot team up with ‘Godzilla Minus One’ director Takashi Yamazaki for his first English-language film, ‘Grandgear.’ (more)

• Erin Brockovich joins as executive producer of documentary ‘Black Snow.’ (more)

Business 🤝

• Jesse Wallace, a former Google and NFL exec, joins Hallmark Media as SVP and head of distribution. (more)

• The NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery settle their TV rights lawsuit with a new 11-year pact for NBA highlights and global content, while TNT and TBS lose game rights after 2025. (more)

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

INTERMISSION: A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments

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