☀️'Mufasa' Shows Huge Legs as 'Moana 2' Nears $1B
HBO cancels comedy series / New Years sports ratings roundup / Specialty box office check-in
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, January 5, 2025.
Where the newsletter is coming to you a little earlier than usual tonight so I can watch the big event. The Golden Globes is also on tonight.
Yes, the big VIKINGS vs. LIONS final regular season NFL 🏈 game on NBC will likely get about 2.5x the audience of the Globes on CBS tonight . . . but I’ll happily watch the opening monologue as it takes place before kickoff. CBS is at least trying by extending the NFL post-game show to . . . 40 minutes tonight as the lead-in.
But at least you folks won’t have to hear about the GIANTS anymore here this season — a team who couldn’t even lose correctly this year. Despite being 1 of 3 teams to go 3-14 this year . . . the other 2 teams will get the #1 and #2 draft picks this April. 🤦♂️
AND: If the amount of emails and comments I got from y’all seconding my shoddy AMC THEATERS pre-show experience last week are any indication — the increasingly bad reputation that the movie business has for providing a subpar movie-watching experience is a real looming problem.
Maybe the current “Play 6 trailers + commercials and other BS” strategy before movies actually start . . . nearly 30 minutes after you told people the movie was gonna start . . . is why people complain so much about movies being too long!
REGAL also showed me 6 trailers before my screening of A Complete Unknown last week — trailers which only began 5 minutes after the advertised start time for the movie — making a 3-hour experience for me at the theater for a 2hr 20min movie (not to mention my transit to/from).
I was going to go see Anora tomorrow, but I don’t have time for another 3 hours at the multiplex . . . so, good news for Conclave on PEACOCK!
You can only give audiences a frustrating experience for so long before you lose them — just ask the cable TV business how they’re feeling about their business tactics these days.
As this Bloomberg chart demonstrates — price hikes and inflation can mask the real hole the movie business is trying to at least see daylight from in regards to attendance:
While the entertainment behavior choices of Americans is by no means solely in Hollywood’s hands — the moviegoing experience is. So, how about a poll?
PLUS: Add Tim Apple Cook to the list of folks donating a cool $1M to the Trump Inauguration Fund.
THEN: AMAZON PRIME VIDEO bought theatrical and streaming rights for an upcoming Melania Trump documentary directed by Brett Ratner. Yeah, let that sentence sit there for a second. Guys — just buy houses next to Mar-a-Lago already, this is getting pathetic.
AND: MrBeast found his MrsBeast on Christmas.
HUH: Look at Jersey slimming down in 2024 . . . (overall U.S. GLP-1 prescriptions were +10% in 2024).
🎥 THE BOX OFFICE
Gotta love 5 movies each doing more than $10M to start the year! Sadly, this kind of performance will likely be a faint memory to pine for by the end of January . . . so bask in the glow now, folks.
Richard and I both were left scratching our heads on the latest Ankler Podcast with an “Uh, okay, buddy . . .” takeaway after looking at the release slate 'til May. Again — despite no strike effects this year, 2025 U.S. box office projections are basically the same as what 2024 did.
But, I will say for an industry with a significant vociferous contingent that often decries a lack of original films — Q1 is relying on them!
I’ll break that down below . . . but first, onto this weekend’s box office breakdown.