☀️Dud SB🏈 Box Office Wknd Continues 🥱 '25 Trends
Pharrell pic scrapped at UNI / Super Bowl Hollywood ad buys / AMAZON seals NFL WildCard future
Evenin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on SUNDAY, February 9, 2025.
Where I gotta imagine somewhere in an alternate universe there was a really exciting BILLS vs. COMMANDERS game going on tonight.
As a GIANTS fan, I can’t officially congratulate the EAGLES — but I can send my congrats out to former GIANTS RB Saquon Barkley, who showed everyone this year that the team he was playing for was the problem, not his talent. Well done 👍.
But, know that if I ever played in a Super Bowl . . . I, too, would arrive with the Tony Manero look. Too bad he’s gonna miss out on the $171k that every EAGLES player will get for the big win — hopefully Taylor has enough bucks to cover the fit.
AND: Anora took the DGA and PGA top prizes this weekend.
At the PGA — The Wild Robot, the not Oscar-nominated Christopher Reeve doc, Hacks, Baby Reindeer, SNL and The Traitors all took prizes in their respective genre categories as well.
The Wild Robot also took the top prize at the Annie Awards.
OH: NETFLIX also raised prices in the U.K. this month by £2 a month , after the hikes in the US/CAN, Argentina and Portugal last month.
ENJOY: META’s latest layoff day is coming tomorrow according to a memo sent out to employees on Friday. I’m sure everyone had a great weekend.
THEN: Another day, another STARZ bundle — this time it’s 1 free year with certain VERIZON FIOS internet packages in Philly, Boston, D.C. and Atlanta.
I broke down the current STARZ biz trends here that are, uh, “inspiring” all of these bundling deals in 2025.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
Heart Eyes indeed was the emoji that won out in the ❤️ battle this weekend. Kudos to my fellow 52%.
2 HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS
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🏈 SUPER BOWL ADS 📺
HOLLYWOOD
Last year’s game had 7 movie, TV and streamer ads in the actual game, sans OT (3 others ran in the pre-game slot), with DISNEY, UNI and PARAMOUNT making all of the buys (the game was on CBS).
This year on FOX?
PRE-GAME (final 20 mins before kick-off): 3 spots — same as last year, and same 3 studio buyers as last year:
UNI Jurassic World 1-min spot in the break before the anthem, link here.
PAR MI:8 in the break after the anthem, link here (and Cruise in the pre-kickoff video, but no mention of the movie).
DISNEY Lilo & Stitch custom spot/not a clip spot after the coin toss, link here.
GAME: 4.5 spots, down from 7 last year (including a FX Shogun spot), plus 2 UNI spots that aired in overtime.
UNI/DWA How to Train Your Dragon live-action pic in the first ad break of the game, link here.
DISNEY/MARVEL The Thunderbolts in Q1, new full trailer here.
DISNEY+/HULU 30-sec brand spot after Q1.
UNI M3GAN 2.0 15-second spot in Q3.
Thankfully . . . no spots in Q4.
OTHERWISE AD-WISE
I think we’re all gonna have nightmares about AI/CGI/WTF Martha Stewart dubstepping (SKETCHERS has yet to post the ad online, I think for our benefit). Can’t wait for her M3GAN 2.0 cameo.
T-MOBILE + Elon’s STARLINK teaming up — creative was fine but more just the messaging of the partnership is notable.
Glen Powell’s RAM spot made me laugh, and the LAYS ad was well done.
NIKE also had a good return to form.
Gotta love 2 spots going with flying facial hair conceits . . . 2 McConaughey spots for 2 different brands . . . and dueling mayonnaise brand ads.
What ever happened to COKE vs. PEPSI (two brands which didn’t buy any ad time)?
Oh right — it’s now POPPI, preceded by a HIMS/HERS weight-loss drug ad. Welcome to 2025.
2 ads inspired by studio IP (When Harry Met Sally, Fast & Furious) and 0 ads inspired by TIKTOK or YT video IP.
And yes, a healthy dose of AI along with some pretty meh META Glasses ads.
Biggest wastes of $7.5M . . . or at least 3 that stood out most (overall this won’t be a Super Bowl to be remembered for the ads):
SQUARESPACE throwing laptops on the Irish countryside (as a member of The Ankler team said this evening — who had a Banshees of Inisherin callback as a creative choice for a SB ad?)
CHATGPT’s . . . dot ad 🤷♂️, brought to you by the CMO who did the COINBASE QR code ad 2 years ago.
COFFEEMATE dancing tongues
EXECS & CELEB SIGHTINGS:
I’m 95% sure that was Ted Sarandos briefly on screen in the Adam Sandler celeb cam shot.
I think we’d all love to know what Kevin Costner and Pete Davidson were kicking around together in their seats.
Lady Gaga and Paul McCartney were also there.
Bradley Cooper led out the EAGLES and Jon Hamm led out the CHIEFS (Paul Rudd was up in the luxury boxes in misery).
But of course Rupadupes himself, da boss Rupert Murdoch, was also up in the rafters.
BUT: The biggest sighting of the night was Tom Brady’s watch collection. Glad to see he didn’t give away the finest from his vault in the $4.6M of proceeds he took in from his watch auction back in December.
🎥 THE BOX OFFICE
So, how about that 2025 box office?
6 weekends, and 5 of them have been lackluster to be kind — with only 1 new movie in 6 weekends opening to more than $20M. Or anywhere near $20M really.
Hollywood, you’ve run out of excuses.
This year it isn’t a strike-affected volume problem — you’re mostly releasing movies that America is not excited to see, whether due to creative quality or marketing campaign fumbles.
SO: There’s a lot riding on Captain America and Paddington this coming 3-day weekend, and The Monkey after that . . . although March has a ton of 😳 question marks at best too.
BUT: Here are your latest hard-money answers to the current state of the movie business in Hollywood, courtesy of the American public.