☀️Statham, Jesus Liven Up Box Office as 'Snow White' Sinks
AMAZON pausing 'Citadel' universe / DIS TV Marketing head change / NETFLIX orders a pilot!
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 30, 2025.
Where your men’s Final Four is set for Saturday, but the women still have one more day of games tomorrow on ESPN — which I would totally watch if they weren’t locked in the cable TV bundle.
But for the men, it’s uh . . . all #1 seeds, for just the 2nd time ever. Although given that the lowest seed in this weekend’s games was a #3 — yeah, not exactly a lot of suspense in this year’s tourney.
AUBURN vs. FLORIDA
HOUSTON vs. DUKE
ALTHOUGH: I streamed the DUKE vs. ALABAMA game on MAX last night — and it was very curious that I had zero advertising in the telecast (or I suppose the streamcast). I’d guess that maybe WBD doesn’t have the digital advertising rights here for this round 🤷♂️, which in the 2025 sports biz would be quite something . . . but if I find out anything else afoot I’ll update on Tuesday.
BUT: As a result — WBD did have a ton of promo time to fill those MAX ad breaks . . . and oddly none of it was used to promote its very good HBO Celtics City docuseries that’s currently airing on Monday nights. But I mean, what are the odds that folks watching a basketball tournament would be interested in a basketball docuseries? 🤷♂️ (The Last Of Us certainly got the most love in the breaks).
HOWEVER: At least that meant no gambling ads in the game. 👏 Which CBS Sunday Morning reminds us is affecting some people’s lives in very negative ways that often get lost in the sports media world talk around the topic.
1 in 5 problem gamblers will attempt suicide — the highest rate of any addiction.
As Ted Koppel points out — even if the gambling industry’s claim that only 1% of Americans have a “severe” gambling addiction, that’s 2.5M people.
AND: That’s based on the total adult population — think about what that percentage is if you based it on just Americans who have used a gambling app in the past 30 days, which is a far better indicator IMO.
PLUS: Keep in mind — online gambling is not even legal in the 3 most populated states in the U.S.
AND: FCC Chair Brendan Carr sent DISNEY a letter about DEI, seemingly copied and pasted from the letter he sent COMCAST in February, continuing his quest to protect the American airwaves from danger.
THEN: Morgan Wallen kept up his awesome SNL mojo last night — as soon as Mikey Madison said “Good night everybody!” he said goodbye to her, then walked off stage right past the main camera and out the door. But hey, perhaps he had an obligation to get to where he couldn’t wait the 90 seconds for the show to go off the air — or maybe his Mason/Dixon line visa was expiring. 👇 Either way, thanks for risking the trip up to the Big Apple to promote your new album amongst the heathens of NYC.
ALSO: No more Amber Ruffin at this year’s WHCA #nerdprom — the organization is forgoing a comedian presence at the event at the end of April.
THEN: Here’s a recap of what happened at that “Creator Upfront” put together by SPOTTER last week — not sure “Wow, this sounds impressive” is the takeaway for me . . . but to each their own. TRY GUYS and DUDE PERFECT sounded like the ones who came to play the most.
PLUS: Deion Sanders 2x’d his COLORADO college football coaching payday to $10M a year (up to $12M in 2029, the last year of the extension).
On one hand — he’s boosted ticket & merch sales and the school’s profile immensely, which has also translated in applicant enthusiasm:
CU saw a 20% increase in applications YoY, including a 50% increase from Black/African American students according to SI.
On the other hand — he’s 13-12 in 2 seasons, lost his ALAMO BOWL game this year, and just lost his 2 biggest stars to the NFL.
AH: YOUTUBE Shorts is making video “view” counts even more meaningless — it’s removing any need for a minimum watch time for Shorts videos, to match the policies of IG and TIKTOK.
Basically — always keep in mind that whenever things like “50M views!” stats are touted . . . any video that starts auto-playing as you scroll (that you very likely did not actually watch) counts as a “view.”
PLUS: Who needs an NFL dynasty to actually, ya know, finish its reign before the inevitable docuseries is done about it? Yeah, I think we’ve hit peak sports “ancillary” content when a 6-part KC CHIEFS doc is put in development in 2025 when its star QB is 29 years old. Enjoy your spoils, DIS+ and SKYDANCE SPORTS.
For the record, it’s described as a look at the CHIEFS franchise overall — but given that the franchise had one visit to an AFC Championship game (#JoeMontana1993) from 1970 to 2018 (aka the start of the Mahomes era), call it what you will.
THE WAKEUP in Vegas this week
Richard and I will be out at CINEMACON all this week — if you want to chat or just say hey — drop a note! Message me on LINKEDIN here or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
Kudos to the 24% OT bulls, who finally roared back after a tough year so far.
FINALLY: Just a note for my West Coast folks — 60 Minutes is fantastic tonight, continuing it’s stellar season on CBS . . . including a pretty fascinating piece on the EPA’s cleanup efforts from the fires in L.A.
🎥 THE BOX OFFICE
