Reel to Real: Opposition to Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Mounts

Howdy, folks!

As stars and studio heads descend upon Las Vegas this week for CinemaCon, the annual gathering of theater owners, there’s a storm brewing in the background that feels like it’s getting louder by the day.

Opposition to Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. hit its highest pitch on Monday when over 1,000 film and TV professionals signed an open letter advocating against the merger, including heavyweights like J.J. Abrams, David Fincher, Denis Villeneuve, Ben Stiller, Yorgos Lanthimos and Kristen Stewart.

Hollywood has been racked by consolidation and dwindling production the last several years, and the fear is that Paramount buying Warner Bros. will make matters even worse.

The anxiety is not unfounded, despite David Ellison’s assertions that he’ll release 30 films a year theatrically between Paramount and Warner Bros. Ahead of every major consolidation, there’s a promise of even more output, but the opposite is often true —20th Century Studios released just six movies in theaters last year and three the year before.

So, as Ellison looks to close this $110 billion deal as early as this summer, the industry is speaking up, and it’ll be interesting to see how explicit talk of this merger will be during the CinemaCon presentations this week.

As “Lost” creator and 15-year Warner Bros. employee Damon Lindelof put it in a candid post explaining his initial fear at signing Monday’s open letter, “I’m scared. But I’m not a ghost. And a fight is already lost if it’s never fought.”

Now, on to the rest.

Box Office: ‘Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Crosses $600 Million

Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” has passed $300 million domestic and $600 million worldwide after two weekends in theaters, grossing $69 million in North America this weekend.

While that is significantly lower than the $92 million second weekend of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in 2023, the film remains on pace to become the year’s first $1 billion title as its domestic total reaches $308 million. At its current pace, “Galaxy” should have a final domestic total similar to that of fellow video game film “A Minecraft Movie,” which made $423.9 million on a similar Easter release date last year.

Meanwhile, Universal sent in another title in the form of the destination rom-com “You, Me & Tuscany,” which opened in the No. 4 slot at the box office with $8 million earned in its opening weekend from 3,151 locations. Despite the slow start, the Kat Coiro-directed film starring Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page has a low break-even point with an $18 million production budget and could still leg out with strong word-of-mouth from audiences.

As one might expect, “You, Me & Tuscany” has an audience heavily skewed towards women with an 80% female return in the demographic data. Other demographic data includes 56% under the age of 35 and an ethnic breakdown of 47% Black, 33% White, 13% Latino and 6% Asian.

With three weeks until “The Devil Wears Prada 2” comes out, “Tuscany” will try to keep women coming out to theaters with strong reception scores including an A- on CinemaScore and 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. – Jeremy Fuster

The Spotlight

What’s going on with the “Avatar” franchise? That’s the question Drew Taylor looked to settle with his new report on how Disney and James Cameron are rethinking how to make these incredibly expensive movies after “Avatar: Fire and Ash” made only $1.4 billion at the box office. And what repercussions might the diminishing returns have in the theme parks? Read the full story here.

New Releases

$$$ on the Table: Jeremy Fuster spoke with several Black filmmakers about why the industry is waiting to see how “You, Me & Tuscany” does before greenlighting more Black films, despite data showing diverse movies make more money at the box office.

CinemaCon Preview: What else are we keeping an eye on at CinemaCon this year? Fuster has the goods in our comprehensive preview.

Disney Shakeup: Disney is set to begin a round of 1,000 layoffs this week across multiple teams, including marketing, publicity and awards, we exclusively reported.

Faces of Death Revived: Getting the new “Faces of Death” movie off the ground and released was an uphill challenge.

‘Exit 8’ Success: How does one go about adapting a video game that takes place entirely in a subway tunnel? Genki Kawamura explains.

LAFM: Casey Loving spoke with the co-founder of the LA Festival of Movies about how the fest fills a programming niche in Los Angeles.

Concession Stand

Jerry Bruckheimer and Emma Thomas will lead a council of filmmakers that includes Ryan Coogler, Brad Bird and Celine Song whose mission will be to provide recommendations on issues related to theatrical moviegoing.

After Millie Bobby Brown exited the Kerri Strug biopic over creative differences, Netflix pulled the plug on “Perfect.”

“Lords of War,” an already completed sequel to Andrew Niccol’s semi-successful 2005 drama starring Nicolas Cage, landed U.S. distribution from Vertical with both Niccol and Cage back.

After years and years of teasing it out, we finally have our first look at Brad Bird’s passion project “Ray Gunn.”

“X-Men” director Jake Schreier has enlisted “Beef” writers Lee Sung Jin and Joanna Calo to help out on the Marvel reboot, the same team behind last year’s underrated “Thunderbolts.”

Streaming Corner

• Netflix released fewer original movies in the first quarter of this year — by a lot. Data show the streamer hit an 8-year low in the number of original movies, largely from the U.S. and Canada. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and something Dan Lin teased out when he took over as head of Netflix film: fewer, better. Hits in that quarter include “The Rip,” “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” and “People We Meet on Vacation.”
• Speaking of, “Extraction 3” is a go with Chris Hemsworth and director Sam Hargrave returning. Idris Elba will also return to co-star.

What I’m Watching

If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “They don’t make movies like ‘Heat’ anymore,” may I introduce you to “Crime 101.” I’ll admit I’m part of the problem here: despite positive reviews, I didn’t make it out to see this one in the theater earlier this year (the Amazon MGM film made just $37 million domestic), but I caught up with it on Prime Video this weekend and what a terrific film. Bart Layton’s crime thriller is handsomely crafted, tense and sprawling — Chris Hemsworth hasn’t been this good since “Rush,” and Halle Berry will remind you why she’s an Oscar winner with her turn as a high-end insurance salesperson. Add this one to the list of great movies with terrible titles.

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