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- 🎬 TikTok Breaks Forecasting
🎬 TikTok Breaks Forecasting
Writing Jobs Down 42%, Netflix's Game Plan, 'Minecraft' Tops Box Office Again, and MORE!
👋 Good morning! Professor Coogler has entered the chat: The ‘Black Panther’ director just released a film school masterclass disguised as movie promo. In a new Kodak collab video, Ryan Coogler breaks down the viewing formats for his upcoming horror film ‘Sinners,’ showing off actual film strips ranging from humble Super 8mm to the mighty 65mm "big boy format." Cinema nerds rejoice—‘Sinners’ is making history as the first film to combine both Ultra Panavision 70 and IMAX film cameras, literally making it one of the biggest films ever to hit theaters.
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🎞 Here’s what’s on the reel today:
Box Office Breakdown
Writing Jobs Vanish
Netflix Experiments with AI
TikTok Breaks Forecasting
Netflix’s Game Plan
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
🎟️ Newcomers can’t topple the blocky behemoth…
The infamous Chicken Jockey scene from ‘A Minecraft Movie.’
🧱 A Minecraft Movie: (Wk 2) $80.6M domestic weekend (-50%), $281M domestic total, $550.6M global. Still building a fortune, with the second-best sophomore showing ever for a video game adaptation. The Chicken Jockey mania continues to grow more chaotic as desperate exhibitors plead for "responsible” enjoyment.
👑 The King of Kings: 🆕 $19M domestic opening. Angel Studios' biblical animated feature earns a rare A+ CinemaScore, becoming the highest-opening animated biblical film ever. Kids getting in free proved helpful for the bottom line.
🕵️ The Amateur: 🆕 $15M domestic opening, $32.2M global debut. Rami Malek's spy thriller slightly overperforms expectations with decent audience scores despite mixed reviews.
🪖 Warfare: 🆕 $8.3M domestic opening. A24's Iraq War drama from Alex Garland and former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza earns strong reviews (94% RT) and an A- CinemaScore.
🤳 Drop: 🆕 $7.5M domestic opening, $10M global. Universal/Blumhouse's psychological thriller starring Meghann Fahy underperforms despite solid critical reception.
✝️ The Chosen: Last Supper — Part 3: 🆕 $5.8M domestic opening. Third installment in the theatrical release of S5 episodes falls significantly from earlier parts.
🔨 A Working Man: (Wk 3) $3.1M domestic weekend (-58%), $33.5M domestic total.
🍎 Disney's Snow White: (Wk 4) $2.8M domestic weekend (-53%), $81.9M domestic total. Crossed the $180M mark globally, struggling to recoup its massive $270M budget.
👩 The Woman in the Yard: (Wk 3) $2.1M domestic weekend (-54%), $20.4M domestic total.
🔫 Good Bad Ugly: 🆕 $812K domestic opening across 599 theaters.
The Big Picture: The box office is finally bouncing back, with this weekend's $150M haul marking a 50% jump from the same weekend last year. It's just our fourth weekend to cross $100M in 2025 (out of 15 so far). 'Minecraft' carried the load, building 52% of total ticket sales and helping 2025's box office finally catch up to 2024's numbers after trailing by 20% just weeks ago.
CLOSEUP
📉 The TV industry just lost 42% of its writing jobs…
Imagine showing up to work and finding out that almost half your colleagues disappeared overnight. That's essentially what happened in TV writers' rooms across Hollywood last year. According to a sobering new WGA report, TV writing jobs plummeted by a staggering 42% in the 2023-24 season. It's a dramatic restructuring that goes way beyond strike aftermath.
Key findings from the WGA reports:
Total TV writer positions crashed to 1,819 jobs—down from over 3,100 the previous season
Lower-level positions (staff writers, story editors) were hit hardest, nosediving by 46%
Upper-level positions (co-EP and above) shed 642 jobs, a 40% decline
Mid-level jobs dropped 42%, losing nearly 300 positions
The decline is worse than even the COVID-disrupted 2019-20 season, which employed 2,722 writers. That's a clear sign we're dealing with a structural shift, not just temporary turbulence.
So why's it all happening? The WGA points to a handful of industry forces: Cable TV's continuing death spiral as cord-cutting accelerates has decimated traditional jobs. Meanwhile, streaming platforms are pulling back sharply after their content spending binge known as the era of Peak TV, with Wall Street now demanding profitability over subscriber growth. WGA also points to studios' "prolonged unwillingness" to negotiate during the 2023 strikes as a contributing factor, which shortened production timelines and led to approximately 37% fewer guild-covered series airing last season.
“Writing careers have always been difficult to access and sustain, but the contraction has made it especially challenging. We are all subject to the decisions of the companies that control this industry, who have pulled back spending on content based on the demands of Wall Street.”
Looking ahead... Writers' rooms that once rivaled small tech startups are now running on skeleton crews. Shows that previously employed 10-12 writers are making do with 4-5, tops. This means fewer entry points for fresh talent and fewer stepping stones for mid-career writers looking to climb the ladder. Some industry watchers call this a necessary correction after years of Peak TV excess, while others see it as a permanent downsizing that'll reshape creative careers for decades.
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WIDESHOT
🎬 AI search, forecasting, and games…
🤖📱 "Find me something for my existential dread" just became a valid Netflix search. The entertainment giant is testing an OpenAI-powered search engine that does way more than just find titles by genre or actor name. This new AI tool lets subscribers search based on specific moods and ultra-detailed descriptions—essentially turning "show me something like ‘Stranger Things’ but less scary and set in summer" into actual recommendations. Currently available to iOS users in Australia and New Zealand with US expansion planned, the feature represents Netflix's most consumer-facing AI implementation yet. This follows recent AI experiments across the streaming landscape: Warner Bros. Discovery's AI content tagging system, Disney+'s personalization algorithms, and Amazon's AI-generated spoiler-free X-Ray Recaps. What makes Netflix's approach unique is its opt-in strategy—subscribers must choose to test it rather than having it automatically implemented, likely a tactical response to Hollywood's post-strike anxiety about AI replacing creative jobs.
📊📱 Traditional tracking couldn't see Minecraft's digital momentum coming. 'A Minecraft Movie' stunned the industry with a $160M opening weekend—more than double initial projections of around $65M—after exploding across TikTok with memes and game-based promotions. This isn't an isolated incident: ‘Inside Out 2,’ ‘Barbie,’ and ‘Twisters’ all recently shattered forecasts by massive margins. Industry experts note that while word-of-mouth once spread gradually through in-person conversations, it now happens instantaneously online, especially among viewers under 25. This digital acceleration creates box office momentum that traditional tracking methods can't fully capture. While many forecasting firms maintain strong overall accuracy (80%+ for most releases), they're now recalibrating their models for this post-pandemic landscape where social media can transform moderate expectations into record-breaking weekends literally overnight. For studios, late-stage digital campaigns targeting platforms like TikTok might be worth more than months of conventional advertising in this new box office reality.
🎬🎮 Netflix wants your thumbs for more than just ‘skip intro.’ The streamer is blurring the line between shows and games with its newest crossover: a Black Mirror S7 tie-in game called ‘Thronglets’ that directly connects to Episode 4's ‘Plaything.’ Unlike previous Netflix gaming efforts, this marks their first episode-specific game rather than just general IP adaptation. Netflix Games leadership recently revealed their expanding strategy includes "couchplay" experiences using phones as controllers and more show-specific games to keep subscribers engaged between season drops. The streaming giant continues acquiring game development studios and experimenting with different ways to distribute games—a strategy that's already showing promise. When they made 'Squid Game: Unleashed' free to everyone (not just subscribers), it became the #1 action game on the App Store in 57 countries and the #1 free game in 24 countries.
"We are not yet the Netflix of games, but that's exactly where we are headed.”
LAST LOOKS
Film Development 🗒️
TV Development 📺
Executive Moves 👨💼👩💼
John Malone is stepping down from the Warner Bros. Discovery board to become chair emeritus, staying on as an advisor. (more)
Other News 🚨
The Writers Guild West publicly named seven members disciplined for strike violations, with four appealing the rulings as unfair or flawed. (more)
Supporters rallied to save the shuttered Cinerama Dome, as uncertainty looms over its future and efforts to reopen it gain momentum. (more)
Stop reading scripts. Start listening to them with Screenplayer. (more)*
*sponsored
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CALL SHEET
📅 The week ahead
MONDAY: The Peabody Awards announce nominees 🏆
THURSDAY: Netflix’s Q1 earnings announcement 📊
VIDEO VILLAGE
📺 Latest trailers
MARTINI SHOT
🍸 Latest trends & viral moments
Aaaaand... that's a wrap! If you're reading this email because a friend hooked you up, don't fret—just hit that subscribe button and join the party. 📧👇
See you bright and early on Wednesday!
-The Dailies Team
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