🎬 Popcorn + Pickleball

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👋 Good morning! Look what just showed up on Apple’s website—The Lumon Terminal Pro computer from ‘Severance’ among the regular Mac lineup. This wink to fans comes as Apple reveals the hit show is now their most-watched series ever. The tech giant has gone all-in on ‘Severance’ marketing with tie-ins including e-books, podcasts, and even a LinkedIn profile for the fictional Lumon Industries.

Happy Monday, and welcome to The Dailies! We’ll get you caught up on the latest industry happenings all while your coffee’s still hot. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here and join the cool kids who know what’s happening before their boss does.

🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:

• Box Office Breakdown

• France Forces Streamers to Play Nice

• CinemaCon Kicks Off

• Theaters Pair Popcorn with Pickleball

• Studios Cash In on AI Trailers

• 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
🎟️ Statham dethrones Disney’s princess…

1. 🔨 A Working Man: 🆕 $15.2M domestic opening, $30.2M global. Jason Statham's action thriller edges out ‘Snow White,’ earning a B CinemaScore despite mixed reviews. Slightly below his previous Ayer-directed effort ‘The Beekeeper’ ($16.5M).

2. 👸 Snow White: (Wk 2) $14.2M domestic weekend (-66%), $66.8M domestic total, $143.1M global. Disney's troubled $250M+ adaptation collapses in its sophomore frame, performing worse than ‘Dumbo's’ second weekend drop (-60%).

3. ✝️ The Chosen: Last Supper – Part 1: 🆕 $11.5M domestic opening. Exceeds expectations with the biggest opening in ‘The Chosen’ franchise, scoring an impressive $5,142 per-screen average on 2,235 screens.

4. 👤 The Woman in the Yard: 🆕 $9.45M domestic opening. Blumhouse/Universal's starless horror movie outperformed expectations despite a C- CinemaScore and 39% on Rotten Tomatoes. Production budget: $12M.

5. 🦄 Death of a Unicorn: 🆕 $5.8M domestic opening. A24's quirky horror-comedy with Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd underperforms on 3,050 screens, earning a B- CinemaScore and mixed reviews (55% on Rotten Tomatoes).

6. 🐺 Princess Mononoke: (re-release) $4M domestic weekend. Studio Ghibli's animated classic scores the weekend's highest per-screen average ($12,135) on just 330 IMAX screens. Total domestic cume: $14.9M over 26 years.

7. 🛡️ Captain America: Brave New World: (Wk 7) $2.8M domestic weekend (-30%), $196.6M domestic total. Marvel's latest approaches the $200M domestic milestone.

8. 🧳 Black Bag: (Wk 3) $2.15M domestic weekend (-50%), $18.7M domestic total.

9. 🚀 Mickey 17: (Wk 4) $1.92M domestic weekend (-48%), $43.6M domestic total.

10. 🔫 Novocaine: (Wk 3) $1.45M domestic weekend (-61%), $18.8M domestic total.

The Big Picture: The weekend totaled a lackluster $77.4M across all films, down nearly 44% from last year's Easter frame when ‘Godzilla x Kong’ opened to $80M. 2025's box office keeps sliding—now trailing 2024 by 10.9% and pre-pandemic 2019 by an eye-watering 39%. Theater owners are crossing their fingers that next weekend's ‘A Minecraft Movie’ can build some momentum before the summer season.

CLOSEUP
🌎 France is making streamers play by different rules…

France is making streaming giants bend to its cultural will—and it's working. The country's 2021 "SMAD decree" (Service de Media Audiovisuels à la Demande) is making platforms funnel millions back into local productions.

• The decree requires streamers that make at least €5M from French subscribers to invest 20% of their French revenues into domestic and European content

• Platforms must pay into France's CNC funding body (like a tax that gets redistributed to creators)

• About two-thirds of investment must go to "independent productions" where French producers—not Netflix or Disney—retain content ownership

• Streamers can exclusively show content for up to 36 months, but can maintain non-exclusive rights for up to 72 months total

The result? In just two years (2021-2023), French creators received a €866M (~$950M) investment boost from streaming platforms. Netflix has become such a major player that it's now challenging TF1, France's second-largest traditional broadcaster, in content spending. French producers get the best of both worlds—Hollywood-sized budgets (averaging €5M per production from streamers compared to just €400K for traditional TV shows) without surrendering their rights.

This regulation creates a completely different model than Hollywood’s, where Netflix typically demands full global ownership in perpetuity. When French hit ‘Lupin’ blows up worldwide, French producers can sell it elsewhere after Netflix's license expires—a scenario unthinkable under typical US streaming deals.

The model could spread fast—Italy requires 16% investment, Belgium is ramping up to 9.5%, and Germany is implementing similar rules. But Hollywood's pushing back. President Trump's February memo specifically targeted foreign digital regulations, while the Motion Picture Association has historically denounced regulation around content quotas.

The bigger picture: These regulations could accelerate the global shift in content production already underway. With streaming platforms increasingly relying on international subscribers for growth, and now facing these content investment requirements, we're seeing more and more forces pulling production dollars outside the US.

Looking ahead... The EU's streaming regulations will be reviewed in 2026, setting the stage for a showdown that could determine whether the "French model" becomes the template for global streaming or gets watered down by US pressure.

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WIDESHOT
🎬 CinemaCon, popcorn + pickleball, and AI trailers…

🎬🍿 CinemaCon kicks off in Las Vegas today. The event runs through Thursday at Caesars Palace, where exhibitors, studios, and stars gather to preview the theatrical landscape ahead. The newly rebranded Cinema United (formerly NATO) hosts the convention amid challenging box office numbers—current ticket sales are lagging behind both last year and pre-pandemic levels. Here’s what to expect:

• Studio Showcases: Sony's back after skipping last year; Amazon MGM makes its Vegas debut; plus presentations from Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., and Paramount

• Film Previews: First looks at upcoming blockbusters including ‘Superman,’ ‘Mission: Impossible,’ ‘Wicked: For Good,’ and ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’

• Industry Talks: Panels tackling theatrical windows, audience trends, and how theaters compete with streaming

• Tech Stuff: Latest projection systems, sound improvements, and innovations aiming to lure viewers off their couches

• Theater Dealmaking: This crucial industry summit is where studios court theater owners to secure optimal screen counts, prime release dates, and marketing partnerships for the year ahead

One thing we might hear more about at CinemaCon…

🎬🎮 Cinemas want to become entertainment hubs. Movie theaters are betting big on reinvention, collectively investing $2.2B to transform traditional venues beyond just showing films. With U.S. screens dropping from 41,000 to 35,000 since COVID, Hollywood making 25% fewer movies, and international earnings at a 17-year low, theaters are scrambling to diversify. AMC is adding luxury recliners and upgrading to fancy laser projection, while smaller chains like B&B are getting creative with bowling alleys, arcades, bars, and yes, even pickleball courts. The strategy is to get people to hang out, “linger longer,” and spend more cash, even when there's nothing good playing. Insiders call this "eventising" the theater experience—creating entertainment destinations rather than just movie venues. Looks like popcorn’s about to come with a side of pickleball.

📽️📺 Studios have found a strange new side hustle in fake trailers. Hollywood giants like Warner Bros. and Sony have been quietly pocketing ad revenue from AI-generated fake movie trailers instead of having them taken down. These convincing fakes—which sometimes feature AI-created versions of stars like David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult—occasionally outrank official trailers in YouTube searches and once even fooled French TV into airing one as if it was official promotional material. The channels behind these trailers have built mini-empires, with India-based Screen Culture churning out 12 videos weekly through a team of editors, amassing 1.4B views and millions in revenue. SAG-AFTRA slammed the practice as exploiting actors without permission. While studios seem happy to cash in on unauthorized content using their characters and brands, YouTube just stepped in—over the weekend, they suspended both Screen Culture and KH Studio from making money, drawing a clear line against misleading synthetic media.

LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️

• Nintendo and Sony’s live-action ‘Legend of Zelda’ movie will hit theaters in March 2027, with Wes Ball directing and Shigeru Miyamoto producing. (more)

• Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill are turning ‘Road of Bones’ into a horror movie for Sony’s Screen Gems. (more)

TV Development 📺

• ‘Citadel’ S2 has been delayed to spring 2026, with all spinoffs paused amid creative concerns at Amazon MGM. (more)

• Netflix has ordered a pilot for a ‘Different World’ sequel. (more)

• Mary Steenburgen joins husband Ted Danson in S2 of Netflix’s ‘A Man on the Inside,’ as the comedy shifts its mystery to a liberal arts college. (more)

Renewed & Canceled ✅ ❌

• ‘Common Side Effects’ is renewed for S2 at Adult Swim. (more)

Executive Suite 👤

• Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is reportedly meeting with potential replacements for studio heads De Luca and Abdy amid mounting financial pressure and underwhelming box office returns. (more)

• Pam Levine is exiting her role as Head of Marketing for Disney Branded TV and Nat Geo. (more)

Other News 🚨

• Utah Governor Spencer Cox pledges to launch a new film festival after losing Sundance to Colorado. (more)

• Blumhouse calls the Horror Movie Report "the ultimate guide to every horror movie ever made" and that it "helped us shape how we think about horror." (more)*

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CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead

• MONDAY: CinemaCon kicks off through Thursday in Vegas 🍿

• SATURDAY: NAB Show begins in Vegas 🎰

VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers

MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest viral moments