Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 5/1/2023

Hello everyone,

  • Once again, “Super Mario Bros” movie beat all the new movies.  The $40 million it made is the best 4th weekend box office for any animated movie ever.  Its domestic total is now at almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS (the domestic box office ALONE is about $9 million away from $500 million).  Of the new releases, “Are You There God?  It’s Me Margaret” came in 3rd with $6 million.  Last weeks “Evil Dead Rise” stayed at #2 for the domestic box office with $12 million.  Its domestic total is now almost $45 million which is really good for a movie originally scheduled to play on HBO Max.
  • Internationally, “Super Mario Bros” zoomed past $1 billion including doing very well in Japan where it just opened and had the best opening weekend for any animated movie in Japan (it made $14.3 million).  It’s now the 10th animated film to pass $1 billion at the global box office.  Also, “John Wick 4” just passed $400 million in worldwide grosses this past weekend.
  • The big question right now is if “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” opening next weekend will be the 3-day opening weekend numbers of “Super Mario Bros” which was $146 million.  Some people say it won’t and other say it will.
  • Today, the Academy Awards announced new rules due to the promotion of Andrea Riseborough who managed to get a best actress nomination at the start of this year.  The new rules which start immediately do not prohibit promoting people on social media, but it does prohibit people from “talking about who to vote for” or “who they will vote for”.
  • The biggest news of today is that the WGA didn’t come to an agreement with the studios so a strike will be starting at midnight tonight (5/1).  This won’t affect movies soon since most movies coming out this year are completely written (except for a few coming out at the end of the year).  However, if the strike goes on for a few months the studio might reschedule some movies currently scheduled at end of the year so they will have movies to release next year.  A lot of the movies coming out next year are still in production so they will be halted due to the strike.  The strike will also affect shows that are on live like daytime or late-night talk shows.  This will put a damper on how they promote upcoming shows since those shows are one of the main ways the stars of the movies promote their movies.

Little bit of humor….

Let me know when they can freeze prisoners in suspended animation.  I may call it “brilliant” when they can do that.