Member News Category: Box Office

Exhibition

Variety: Theater Owners Chief on Box Office Downturn, Alamo Drafthouse Sale and Bringing Audiences Back to the Movies: ‘We’re Still Looking for a Catalyst’

[Variety:] What do you think the biggest challenge facing the movie business is right now?

[Michael O’Leary:] That depends on who you talk to. At [the exhibition industry conference] CinemaCon, I frequently heard that there’s not enough capital in the system. Our business is consumer facing and in a post-pandemic world, we need to provide our customers with the amazing experience that they deserve. A lot of our members have done an amazing job of developing their properties and adding things to everything they already were offering, but we want to do even more. We have exciting ideas about how to improve the experience, but the money has not been there. And this is all happening during an economic downturn with inflation, so the costs of running these theaters has not gotten any cheaper. There’s just less discretionary income for these improvements. So our message to bankers and investors has been that the future is bright for this sector, but you need to get behind us.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Window

CNBC: ‘Inside Out 2’ arrives in theaters and could hit a 100-day run. Here’s why that’s increasingly rare

“A sufficient window is important not only to exhibitors, but also to our studio partners, as it’s necessary to deliver the full promotional and financial benefits of a film’s theatrical release, which continue to meaningfully enhance a film’s lifetime value across all distribution channels, including streaming,” said Sean Gamble, president and CEO of Cinemark.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Calendar

Deadline: Warner Bros Pushes Up Release Date For ‘Trap,’ Dates Four Other Projects

Warner Bros. announced on Thursday that Trap, the latest thriller from two-time Oscar nominee M. Night Shyamalan, will go earlier, moving up a week from August 9 to August 2nd.

At the same time, the studio unveiled release dates for four untitled projects. An UNTITLED NL/ATOMIC MONSTER/BLUMHOUSE EVENT FILM will open on April 17, 2026, while an UNTITLED WB EVENT FILM will debut March 26, 2027. An UNTITLED WPBA/LOCKSMITH FILM will unspool on July 23, 2027, with an UNTITLED WB FAMILY SEQUEL releasing December 17, 2027.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Distribution

Variety: Shari Redstone Ends Talks With Skydance About Paramount Merger: Report

After more than six months of on-again-off-again talks, Shari Redstone has ended negotations with David Ellison‘s Skydance Media about a prospective merger with Paramount Global, per a Wall Street Journal report.

Redstone, Paramount Global’s controlling shareholder through National Amusements Inc., is instead looking to pursue deals with parties interested in acquiring NAI, per the Journal.

Reps for Skydance declined to comment. An NAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Exhibition

[SUBSCRIPTION] The Ankler: An Exhibitor Fires Back at the Gloom

I’ve written a lotof late about the serious doubts I get when I look at Team Studios and consider whether they’ll be able to muddle their way through this rough patch and find that bright, better tomorrow. But for all one can get caught up in our foibles and see film’s future through that lens, out there among the moviegoers, the view isn’t quite so gloomy.
… 
[Greg Marcus:] There isn’t a substitution for theatrical. The customers want it. As you pointed out, it’s a $33 billion industry. Someone’s going to fill that demand, someone is going to deliver that. Frankly, with the studios, the content producers should want it, because it’s another ticket to another means of driving revenue.

READ FULL ARTICLE

IATSE

The Hollywood Reporter: IATSE Labor Negotiations to Resume June 24

Labor negotiations covering tens of thousands of members of IATSE who work under two separate contracts are set to resume on June 24, the crew union announced on Monday.

The union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have agreed to meet for four bargaining sessions between June 24 and 27, IATSE added in a statement to its members. Those discussions will cover both the Basic Agreement (a contract spanning 13 West Coast Locals and approximately 50,000 crew members) and the Area Standards Agreement (which encompasses 23 Locals and about 20,000 workers).

READ FULL ARTICLE

Technology

Variety: Pixar’s ‘Inside Out 2′ to Get HDR Release in Select Cinemas

Pixar’s 2016 Oscar winner “Inside Out” had a dazzling look from the glow of emotions such as Amy Poehler’s Joy to the colorful Islands of Personality to the darkness of the Memory Dump or bleakness of Abstract Thought. Now, as the studio prepares for the June 14 release of  “Inside Out 2,” Disney/Pixar is rendering a version of the movie in high dynamic range—providing the filmmakers expanded contrast and luminance in telling the story, which revisits the world inside “Headquarters.”

This version will play in a limited number of cinemas worldwide that are equipped with certified HDR-capable direct view displays, meaning cinema auditoriums with LED displays rather than traditional theatrical projection systems.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Distribution

The Hollywood Reporter: Paramount Leaders Unveil “Shared Vision” Amid Takeover Offer

Paramount Global’s new trio of co-CEOs laid out their vision for the Hollywood studio as the controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, mulls a sweetened takeover offer from a buyer consortium led by Skydance and RedBird Capital.

Redstone addressed the investors as the meeting began, indicating the company’s most important goal was “driving value for all our shareholders,” which would come by reducing overall debt to strengthen the balance sheet and continue to invest in “best-in-class content.”

Redstone also addressed the new leadership structure at the studio with three co-CEOs. “While we recognize that this is not a traditional management structure, we are confident that it will enable them to move quickly to implement best practices throughout the company to drive improved performance,” Redstone added.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Box Office

Entertainment Weekly: Summer movies aren’t dead: Why experts aren’t panicking (yet) about this season’s weak box office

“People are going to be amazed at what happens to this industry in the next couple of years after so many tough setbacks,” Bagby says. “I wish that these first six months would’ve been better, of course. But we’re coming back, baby. We’re coming back.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

Creative Community

IndieWire: Denis Villeneuve Thinks We Need Movies That ‘Fully Embrace the Power of the Theater’

“Culture is more than ever fundamental for the health of our democracy, and cinema being the most powerful art form ever created,” he said. “I know I’m biased, I’m sorry. And we must take care of our film industry. Make it grow and make it flourish. We will all benefit from it.”

Turning sentimental, he said, “As human beings, we need to share emotional journeys together. My job as a director is trying to make decent movies, good movies, if I can.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

Distribution

Deadline: Skydance Sweetens Offer For Paramount Global

David Ellison’s Skydance has sweetened its offer to acquire Paramount Global, Deadline has learned, in an attempt to make it more palatable to the company’s Class B stockholders.

Shareholders have trashed the outlines of a previous deal and threatened to sue. Ellison’s original offer was to buy out Par’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone for a significant premium, resulting in a windfall for her, and then merge Skydance into Paramount keeping the combined company public. Stockholders wanted to be bought out at a premium as well.

Skydance, backed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital, sweetened the offer once late last month — offering to buy out a certain number of Class A voting shares from stockholders other than Redstone — as an exclusive monthlong negotiating period with Par ended. That still left owners of the Class B non-voting stock, who are the majority of shareholders, furious.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Deadline: Sony Pictures Boss Tony Vinciquerra Skirts Paramount Deal Talk But Says Investment Focus Is “More IP, More Product, More Library To Sell,” Not Streaming

“We are looking for strategic investments … that complement our strategy. We are not going to go outside the strategy that has been enormously successful for us over the past several years,” he said. “We will not make investments that don’t complement our core strategy, and our strategy is to have more IP, more product, more library to sell. We’re not going to get into other businesses. We’re not going to get into a general entertainment streaming service. We’re not going to be operating other businesses that are outside the strategy that we have defined.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Window

[SUBSCRIPTION] Bloomberg: Disney Is Banking On Sequels to Help Get Pixar Back on Track

The first major test of Morris’ strategy is the release of Inside Out 2 on June 14. The movie is a sequel to the 2015 coming-of-age film about the personified emotions of Joy, Disgust, Fear, Anger and Sadness, who direct the thoughts and actions of a young girl. Inside Out grossed $859 million at the box office and won the Academy Award for best animated feature. Pixar is confident enough in the sequel that it’s giving Inside Out 2 a run of about 100 days in theaters—an extraordinarily generous amount of breathing room in the Age of Streaming, when some films are released in cinemas and online simultaneously. Pixar is also releasing a television series based on Inside Out.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Calendar

Deadline: A24 Dates Fall & Holiday Slate With ‘The Front Room’, ‘A Different Man’, ‘We Live In Time’, ‘Heretic’ & ‘Baby Girl’

The theatrical late Q3 and Q4 schedule is getting booked up as A24 has dated five releases as follows:

On Sept. 6, going wide, is The Eggers Brothers’ psychological horror movie The Front Room. The movie follows a woman’s mother-in-law who movies and proves to be the house guest from hell. Sound familiar? Brandy Norwood and Kathryn Hunter star. The pic joins wide entries, Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024 AD and an Angel Studios’ theatrical release.

On Sept. 20, in limited release, it’s the Aaron Schimberg directed A Different Man, starring Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson. The movie which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival follows Edward, an aspiring actor, undergoes a radical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into an obsession with reclaiming what once was.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Calendar

The Hollywood Reporter: Steven Spielberg’s Next Movie to Hit Theaters in May 2026

Steven Spielberg‘s next movie will hit theaters on May, 15, 2026, Universal and Amblin Entertainment announced Thursday.

The original untitled event movie is described as an original event film created and directed by the iconic director, but plot details are being kept under tight wraps.

Based on a story by Spielberg, the screenplay is written by longtime collaborator David Koepp, whose previous work with Spielberg includes the scripts for Jurassic Park and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

READ FULL ARTICLE

The Hollywood Reporter: Amazon MGM Picks Up Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage Action Comedy ‘Brothers’ (Exclusive)

Brothers, the action comedy starring Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage, has found a home in Amazon MGM Studios.

The streaming giant has acquired the worldwide rights to the Legendary Pictures-made feature, setting both a theatrical and streaming release. The movie will be available to stream on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide on Oct. 17. That will be preceded by a big-screen release in select theaters starting Oct. 1.

In addition to Brolin and Dinklage, the bold-faced cast includes Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close, Taylour Paige (Zola), late character actor M. Emmet Walsh in one of his last roles, and Jennifer Landon (Yellowstone).

READ FULL ARTICLE

Creative Community

The Hollywood Reporter: Glen Powell Finally Conquered Hollywood. So Why Is He Leaving?

The R-rated romp, Anyone But You, began with Sweeney, who says she enlisted Powell because of his presence on-camera and the consistent feedback about “how gracious and thoughtful he was” off-camera. Together, they lined up Easy A director Will Gluck and bet big on a theatrical release. “We had offers from every streamer, and it was guaranteed [paydays] and a much bigger budget, but Syd and I really have a very similar worldview about Hollywood,” says Powell. “We said, ‘If we make this on a streamer, it won’t have any cultural impact.’ And everyone was saying rom-coms were dead theatrically so we knew we could get hosed, but we thought, ‘Let’s take the gamble,’ because what if we could bring them back?”

READ FULL ARTICLE

Distribution

The Hollywood Reporter: Donna Langley on Theatrical Challenges, Paramount Sales Talks, and “Inevitable” Consolidation

Setoodeh kicked off the conversation by asking Langley to share her take on where the movie business sits now. “What we’re experiencing across the whole media landscape really are the trends that were really put in motion before the pandemic, but were accelerated by that,” she explained. “We’re seeing a shift in consumer behavior, which is driving a lot of rethinking and reshaping of our business.”

That shift has led to a decline in the global marketplace by “about 20 percent,” she noted. “We don’t really think we’re going to recapture that. I think as an industry we can withstand it, but the strikes last year impacted us again, and there’s just less volume going through the marketplace at the moment. I know how I am as an audience member, if there’s not too many things to go see, you kind of lose the habit. You lose the will to get yourself up off your couch and go to a movie. And there’s so many good options, of course, at home with streaming. So we need volume to come back. We need more movies, and great movies, in the marketplace.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Calendar

Variety: Christopher Reeve Documentary ‘Super/Man’ Sets Theatrical Release for Two Days Only

“Super/Man,” a documentary about the life of Christopher Reeve, will hit the big screen in the fall.

The film, which was widely embraced at Sundance and sold to Warner Bros. Discovery for roughly $15 million, will play in select theaters on Sept. 21 followed by an encore presentation on Reeve’s birthday, Sept. 25. The Warners-owned DC Studios is collaborating with Fathom Events on the theatrical release.

It’s not clear if “Super/Man” will get a wider, traditional theatrical release at a later date. Plans for the film’s international rollout have yet to be announced.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Theatrical Experience

The Hollywood Reporter: The Summer Popcorn Wars: How Movie Theaters Prep for the Busy Season

Cinema operators work with hundreds of third-parties to get the job done, and are always on the hunt for the shiniest new enticement, such as a robotic cotton candy machine that let’s customers chose not only custom flavors, but custom designs. “Theaters partner with a wide array of vendors who are doing some really exciting and interesting new things to update every element of the theatrical experience,” National Association of Theatre Owners president-CEO Michael O’Leary says.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Release Calendar

Variety: ’28 Years Later’ Gets June 2025 Release Date

Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later” is hitting the big screen next summer. Sony Pictures has slated the long-awaited project for June 20, 2025.

Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes are set to star in the sequel to “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later.”

Plot details are still being kept under wraps for the new screenplay, written by Alex Garland. It will be part of an upcoming trilogy, for which Nia DaCosta is in talks to direct the second film.

READ FULL ARTICLE

NOTE: Inclusion of articles in the newsletter DOES NOT equal an endorsement by NATO

Distribution

NBC News: Disney to cap the number of Marvel movies it releases each year as it doubles down on ‘quality’

Disney will release no more than three Marvel films and up to two Disney+ shows each year going forward as it works to place more focus on quality output.

The announcement by CEO Bob Iger comes as Disney shares plunged 8% in Tuesday trading following the release of the entertainment giant’s quarterly earnings.

This year will see the release of just one Marvel film: “Deadpool and Wolverine” starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, slated for a July 26 release.

READ FULL ARTICLE

[SUBSCRIPTION] Puck: Apple’s Come-to-Jesus Moment for Movies

I’m pleased to report, however, that Cook and Cue didn’t pull the plug on theaters in that meeting, and Cook was clear in his continued support for Apple TV+ in general—or at least, that’s what Van Amburg and Erlicht have been telling people, both internally and externally. (An Apple rep declined to comment on their behalf.) I’m told the Apple leaders did prod Zack and Jamie to explain how the company can become smarter in its theatrical endeavors—which, at least by traditional metrics, haven’t gone great. Lessons were learned, the duo promised, data was collected, and it’s early—the two career TV guys will figure this theater thing out.  

READ FULL ARTICLE

Streaming

Variety: Disney’s Entertainment Streaming Business Ekes Out Surprise Profit as Disney+ Core Subscribers Top 117 Million

Disney‘s entertainment streaming segment, anchored by Disney+, scored its first profitable quarter, helping to partially offset continued weakness in the media conglomerate’s linear TV business for the first three months of 2024.

To be sure, Disney’s overall streaming business was still in the red for the quarter when factoring in ESPN+, which had an operating loss of $65 million. The company reiterated its expectation that its combined streaming operations will achieve profitability in the September 2024 quarter.

Overall, Disney revenue for the quarter ended March 30 was in line with Wall Street expectations, while it beat on adjusted earnings per share. The Mouse House’s results got their biggest lift from the theme parks division, where revenue rose 10% and operating income was up 14%. Disney’s theatrical revenue dropped year over year “as there were no significant titles released” in the quarter, and revenue in the linear networks segment declined 8%.

READ FULL ARTICLE

NOTE: Inclusion of articles in the newsletter DOES NOT equal an endorsement by NATO

Release Schedule

Deadline: Ishana Night Shyamalan’s Horror Pic ‘The Watchers’ Moves Back To Original Release Date – Update

Ishana Night Shyamalan’s debut film is on the move, again. And the new date is a familiar one. Two months after Warner Bros. shuffled The Watchers back by a week to the June 14-16 Fathers Day frame, the pic is headed back to its original June 7 date.

It’ll have some action-packed company that Friday, going against Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, the long-gestating fourth film in the nearly 30-year-old franchise. Lionsgate’s The Crow remake also was set for June 7, but that pic flew away from the date about three weeks ago and now is set for August 23.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Deadline: DreamWorks Animation’s ‘The Wild Robot’ Will Go One Week Later In The Fall

DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot will now go on Sept. 27 instead of Sept. 20.

The move comes in the wake of Paramount’s animated Transformers One parking on Sept. 20 (instead of Sept. 13) as the studio needed to get a foothold on Imax auditoriums.

We heard that Transformers One was moved to get further away from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as that Warner Bros Tim Burton directed, Michael Keaton starring sequel is expected to scare up a ton of September cash; that movie opening on Sept. 6.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Streaming

The Hollywood Reporter: Peacock Quarterly Loss Narrows to $639M as Streamer Hits 34M Subscribers

Peacock, the streaming service of Comcast’s entertainment unit NBCUniversal, grew its first-quarter revenue and narrowed its loss to $639 million from $704 million in the year-ago period, and $825 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, despite higher programming costs. The streamer ended March with 34 paying subscribers, compared with a year-end 2023 figure of 31 million, the company also said on Thursday.

“Peacock paid subscribers increased 55 percent compared to the prior-year period to 34 million, including net additions of 3 million in the first quarter,” Comcast highlighted. “Peacock revenue increased 54 percent to $1.1 billion.”

READ FULL ARTICLE

IMAX

Variety: Imax Q1 Revenue Drops 9%, Earnings Beat Wall Street Estimates on Lift From ‘Dune 2’

Imax fans turned up in droves to see “Dune 2” on the really big screen, helping the company top analyst earnings estimates for the first quarter of 2024.

Despite the sandworm bump, it was a tough compare with the year-ago period when Imax benefited from the blockbuster success of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2023 to deliver its highest-grossing Q1 to date. Revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $79.1 million, down 9% year over year, while net income was $3.3 million (an adjusted 15 cents per share), up 33%.

During the most recent quarter, Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” became one of the Top 10 Imax releases of all time. The Denis Villeneuve-directed sci-fi epic has garnered more than $143 million at the global box office to date on Imax screens — representing 21% of the film’s total gross receipts.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Marketing

Variety: Movie Marketing Chiefs Talk ‘Barbenheimer’ Effect, Handling Reboots and the Primacy of Trailers at Variety’s Entertainment Marketing Summit

Goldstine noted the ante for theatrical films has been raised by “an extra $100 billion worth of streaming content that has entered the marketplace” since about 2017. Dwight Caines, president of domestic marketing for Universal Pictures, concurred: “Our movies have to be undeniably an event — big screen, immersive experiences that get you off the couch.”

So did Marc Weinstock, president of worldwide marketing and distribution for Paramount Pictures. “You got to be so undeniable that the infrequent moviegoer says, ‘Yeah, I wasn’t thinking about this, I hear it’s really good. The reviews look great. It’s everywhere in culture.’”

READ FULL ARTICLE

[SUBSCRIPTION] The Ankler: Marketing Mojo! 5 Studio Stunts that Struck Gold

The battle of Hollywood is no longer just about dividing up the audience pie, it’s about luring audiences away from other entertainment choices. If this project is to continue, it’s no longer good enough to win the biggest slice of the viewers we have. You have to lure in new ones, or entice waning viewers back — find new voters, as they put it in political parlance.

And we have to keep doing it over and over and over — probably forever —because the competition from social media-led viewing isn’t getting any smaller.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Let us know when you are hosting an event or opening a new theatre! 

NOTE: Inclusion of articles in the newsletter DOES NOT equal an endorsement by NATO

Box Office

Deadline: Warner Bros Tops $1B At International Box Office In Own Record Time; First Studio To Milestone In 2024

Led by Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Warner Bros has crossed the $1B mark at the international box office, becoming the first studio to reach the milestone this year. Getting there in just 15 weeks, this also sets a new speed record for WB, besting the 17 weeks it took in 2018. The full international estimate through today is $1.04B.

The studio’s biggest releases this year so far are WB/Legendary Entertainment’s Dune: Part Two which has grossed $411.8M offshore through today, with the global cume at $683.9M. WB opened the Denis Villeneuve-directed sequel in 78 markets, with Legendary East handling distribution in China.  Dune: Part Two was the No. 1 film both internationally and globally three weekends in a row.

Variety: Box Office: ‘Civil War’ Sets A24 Record With $25 Million Debut

Director Alex Garland’s provocative dystopian thriller “Civil War” lit up the box office with $25.7 million in its debut. It’s the first A24 movie to lead the charts in North America, setting an opening weekend record for the New York-based specialty studio. It also marks the biggest R-rated start of the year.