☀️ 'Snow White' Digs '25 Box Office Ditch Even Deeper
March Madness hits ratings high / FX finds its Carolyn Bessette / FOX reunites with 'American Dad'
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, March 23, 2025.
Where as of this morning, there was 1 un-busted March Madness bracket on YAHOO SPORTS and 18 on ESPN out of more than 24M created.
HOWEVER: There are about 2,000 brackets that are still good for the women’s tourney as of this afternoon according to the NCAA’s tracker, a tournament with very few upsets so far (although its opening weekend has one more day to go tomorrow).
OH: Good news, the Trump administration has finally eliminated that pesky mandate unequivocally prohibiting contractors doing business 💰 with the U.S. gov’t from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains. Let the “progress” and hard work continue! #TimeWellSpent
BUT: In news from people actually trying to help fellow humans — this NYT read on the use of AI to find alternate uses of existing drugs to treat other rare and often deadly conditions is fascinating. Or sure, we could instead spend billions on AI that helps creators 4x their daily social media video output — all fine uses of capital.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
Kudos to the bears, who won big time on Snow White this weekend.
🎥 THE BOX OFFICE
Congrats Hollywood 🙌! We are definitely 2025 < 2024 on every movie metric at this point. I mean — it’s almost like that #SurviveTil25 thing was bullshit. 🤔
BUT: When a movie that came out 6 weeks ago takes the #3 slot with . . . $4M, let’s just say the movie business is definitely #TBTing to Covid 2021 (where the #3 movie made $2.7M on the corresponding weekend that year).
AND: Given that I can recall seeing, oh . . . 1 ad in all of March Madness over the past 4 days for the movies coming out this Friday 🤦♂️ — as I’ve said before, Minecraft has more riding on it than just WB’s fortunes on Apr. 4.
Thankfully WB is spending well in 🏀 TV action on that one, along with Sinners (and DISNEYFOX is spending on The Amateur too).
So, if we can get a little Accountant 2 spending from MGM by Final Four time (Affleck and Bernthal — you up for another trip to TX for courtside seats at the Alamodome?), well, maybe we can nail-bite our way thru April (perhaps Drop and Warfare pleasantly surprise?) ’til Thunderbolts, a movie that also now has more pressure to deliver for both DISNEY and the industry on May 2.
Then again, May 9 currently has no studio wide releases, and May 16 is hanging its hat on a new Final Destination pic and The Weeknd movie. 😳
Basically, we could very well be relying on Tom Cruise to save us once again on Memorial Day, #TBTing to 2022.
Here are all the numbers to know from the weekend and year to date.