🎬 Lowest Box Office Yet 😬

👋 Good morning! If there were an award for Hollywood’s most interesting career, Steven Soderbergh would probably win. The director has served as second unit director on ‘The Hunger Games’ (filming the District 11 riots), re-edited ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ into a black-and-white silent film to study staging, shoots most films as his own cinematographer under pseudonyms, and is currently writing a book about ‘Jaws’—all while releasing multiple films annually when most directors take years between projects. His thriller ‘Black Bag’ hit theaters over the weekend.

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🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:

• Box Office Breakdown

• The M&A Wave that Never Came

• Cannes Takes Shape

• SXSW Wraps

• The AI Studio Boom

• 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
🎟️ ‘Novocaine’ can’t numb the box office pain…

1. 🔫 Novocaine: 🆕 $8.7M domestic opening, $10.5M global. Wins the slowest weekend of 2025 with a modest bow for Paramount's $18M R-rated action comedy starring Jack Quaid.

2. 🧪 Mickey 17: $7.51M domestic weekend (-60%, Wk 2), $33.28M domestic total, $90.5M global. Bong Joon Ho's expensive sci-fi flick continues its disappointing run despite IMAX boost ($1.2M this frame). Warner Bros. is cutting its losses by fast-tracking digital release for March 25—just 18 days after theatrical debut. Yikes. The $118M production is headed for a $100M+ loss.

3. 🕵️‍♀️ Black Bag: 🆕 $7.5M domestic opening, $11.76M global. Spy thriller with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender opens on par with Soderbergh's ‘Logan Lucky’ ($7.6M) despite stellar 97% critical score on RT.

4. 🛡️ Captain America: Brave New World: $5.5M domestic weekend (-35%, Wk 5), $185.4M domestic total, $388.6M global.

5. 🐰 The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie: 🆕 $3.17M domestic opening. WB animation film attracts nostalgic adults with 86% RT score.

6. ✝️ The Last Supper: 🆕 $2.82M domestic opening. Faith-based retelling of Christ's final days earns A- CinemaScore but minimal mainstream reviews.

7. 🐻 Paddington in Peru: $2.77M domestic weekend (-25%, Wk 5), $41.32M domestic total.

8. 🐶 Dog Man: $2.5M domestic weekend (-26%, Wk 7), $92.8M domestic total, $125.6M+ global.

9. 🐒 The Monkey: $2.46M domestic weekend (-37%, Wk 4), $35.21M domestic total. Neon's horror hit continues decent hold in frame four.

10. 🌊 Last Breath: $2.3M domestic weekend (-44%, Wk 3), $18.56M domestic total.

📊 The Big Picture: Ouch… the box office had a rough weekend with $52.6M total—the worst of 2025 and down 40% from the same frame last year. Not even five new wide releases could muster a pulse, with none crossing the $10M threshold. The industry is now desperately awaiting next weekend's ‘Snow White’ ($50M+ projection) to revive theaters.

CLOSEUP
🌊 The deal tsunami never arrived…

Everyone predicted a wave of mega-mergers after the election, but several months in, the industry's facing a reality check. M&A activity plunged nearly 30% in January to 873 deals, the lowest level since 2015, according to Financial Times data. Even executive sentiment has shifted dramatically—from post-election optimism to concerns that the year ahead may be rocky.

Meanwhile, the big story remains corporate divorces rather than marriages:

• Lionsgate is completing its studio-Starz split announced last year

• Comcast is exploring options to separate its NBCUniversal cable channels (like USA, Syfy, and MSNBC) from its more growth-oriented assets

• Warner Bros. Discovery is working to carve out traditional cable networks (including CNN, TNT, and Food Network) to focus on its streaming and studio business

• Even more splitsville announcements likely coming soon

Why this matters: Wall Street prefers media companies in pieces rather than whole packages. Studios and streaming services can command premium valuations when they're not weighed down by declining cable networks. Lionsgate CFO Jimmy Barge didn't mince words at a recent conference: "This has been all about valuation. We don't feel we are getting [enough] as a combined company."

So why is M&A stalled? The entertainment industry is facing a perfect storm of uncertainty:

• Political unpredictability: Rapid shifts and reversals in trade and tariff policies under the Trump administration have created challenges for business planning

• Media targeting: Companies with news divisions face particular scrutiny, with several current high-profile legal challenges

• Regulatory and financial uncertainty: Questions around the FCC's approach combined with unclear interest rate direction make financing and approving big deals particularly risky

• Legal vulnerabilities: Even with federal approval, state AGs and competitors can derail deals in court

So while the M&A wave hasn't materialized, companies are still finding ways to unlock value—just through strategic splits instead of mergers.

Looking ahead... Yes, that “deals are coming!” excitement has fizzled out. But don't write off the M&A wave just yet. The fundamentals driving consolidation haven’t changed. Reading between the lines, these splits might ultimately be about positioning for future acquisition. Think of these breakups as filing for divorce, hitting the gym, and slimming down before seeking a new partner. Ever since Amazon's $8.5B MGM purchase, studios have been positioning as targets—but finding partners in this climate is challenging.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 Cannes, SXSW, and AI studios…

🇫🇷🏆 Cannes is the new Oscar whisperer. The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is taking shape ahead of its May red carpet rollout. Jim Jarmusch's star-studded ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ has the only confirmed spot so far in what insiders are calling the "first post-strike Cannes." The flood of submissions is causing "real pressure on slots" with American auteurs dominating the contender pool:

• Spike Lee's ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ starring Denzel Washington

• Wes Anderson's ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ with an A-list ensemble

• Ari Aster's Western black comedy ‘Eddington’ with Emma Stone

• Richard Linklater's French-language ‘Nouvelle Vague’

• Kristen Stewart's directorial debut ‘The Chronology of Water’

Last year's festival proved the Cannes-to-Oscar pipeline is stronger than ever, with ‘Anora’ snagging both the Palme d'Or and Best Picture Oscar. This growing influence directly correlates with the Academy's increasingly international membership. As Hollywood's voting body diversifies geographically, films that dazzle European tastemakers find more receptive audiences stateside. For studio execs, hitting the French Riviera isn't just for the rosé anymore—it's essential Oscar scouting.

🎬🌟 SXSW 2025 has wrapped. The Austin-based festival, which ran March 9-15, showcased over 100 features and episodics across multiple venues, with winners announced mid-last week. Here's what got people talking:

• Competition Winner: Amy Wang's ‘Slanted’ took the Narrative Feature prize with its bold satire about a Chinese American teen undergoing surgery to become white, while Benjamin Flaherty's 'Shuffle' won Documentary Feature for its exposé of exploitation in the addiction treatment industry

• Audience Favorites: Horror-comedy ‘Death of a Unicorn’ (Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega) emerged as the clear crowd-pleaser, while Matthew McConaughey's musical comeback ‘The Rivals of Amziah King’ earned the local hero a standing O

• Word-of-Mouth Sensation: Matt Johnson's ‘Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’ became the festival's surprise breakout with its time-traveling mockumentary format

• Big-Name Disappointments: Amazon's trio of headliners (‘Another Simple Favor,’ ‘The Accountant 2,’ and Nicole Kidman's ‘Holland’) mostly fell flat with critics

• Documentary Standouts: Michael Bay's parkour thriller ‘We Are Storror’ and UFO investigation ‘The Age of Disclosure’ had doc audiences glued to their seats

🎬🤖 The AI filmmaking boom is real. A fresh FBRC.ai report shows at least 65 AI studios have launched since 2022, with 30+ popping up in just the last 14 months. These aren't just tech bros with algorithms—many founders are industry veterans who see AI as Hollywood's next frontier. Most are tiny operations (under 5 employees) ranging from "AI Native" shops using Sora and Runway to create content directly from prompts, to hybrid studios that use AI to enhance traditional production. Despite all the fancy tech, the report found storytellers still have the edge over those with just technical proficiency. While traditional filmmakers aren't being replaced tomorrow, this wave feels different from previous tech fads. By the time you've finished this newsletter, there's probably another AI studio launching somewhere.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Isabel May is in talks to star alongside David Corenswet in Skydance Sports’ football drama ‘Mr. Irrelevant.’ (more)

• Jenna Ortega and Taylor Russell are in talks to star in and produce a ‘Single White Female’ remake. (more)

• Willa Fitzgerald joins Paramount’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s ‘Regretting You.’ (more)

• Neill Blomkamp is set to write and direct a new ‘Starship Troopers’ movie for Columbia Pictures. (more)

• Sony Pictures Classics has acquired worldwide rights to Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman’s Sundance hit ‘Oh, Hi!.’ (more)

TV Development 📺

• Erika Alexander joins NBC’s untitled Tracy Morgan comedy pilot. (more)

Renewed & Canceled ✅ ❌

• ‘Ted Lasso’ is renewed for S4 at Apple TV+. (more)

• ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ is renewed for S3 at Disney+. (more)

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VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
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