Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: The domestic box office for the first weekend of May was pretty much a disappointment. The new movie “The Fall Guy” was #1 with a little under $28 million which was below predictions. Then the #2 movie was the Star Wars Marathon that 2700 theaters across the country showed on “May the 4th”. I believe most theaters only showed the marathon ONE TIME. So, a SINGLE SHOWING of the movie marathon made more money than all the other movies playing several showtimes – on more screens – across the country. It made almost $9 million dollars. Last week’s #1 movie “Challengers” was #3 with #7.5 million. It sank almost 50% from what it made the week before.
Overall, the total domestic box office for the first weekend in May was almost $74 million which was approx. 15% higher than the previous weekend but the same weekend last year ONE MOVIE made more than THE ENTIRE DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” opened with $118 million.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: “The Fall Guy” did about the same in foreign territories making approx. $25 million for an international total of approx. $37 million (since it opened in a few countries last week) and a worldwide total of $65 million. The animated movie “Garfield” opened in a few foreign countries before its domestic opening in a couple weeks and made a fairly impressive $22 million. One of the older movies still doing well is “Godzilla Vs Kong – The New Empire” which is almost at a worldwide total of $550 million.
UNION NEWS: After 1 week of negotiations there’s no new updates about the full IATSE union negotiations with the studios. The negotiations are expected to continue for a few weeks.
Meanwhile, the actor’s union – which finalized their deal with the studios last year – had some comments about their NEXT meeting with the studios in 2026. Specifically, they’re looking at how AI is slowly developing in the industry. They also mentioned that they’re agreement last year includes talking to the studios every six months – which means their first meeting will be coming this summer.
OTHER NEWS: Bob Eiger recently said that Marvel plans on making less movies and TV shows in the future. They’re going to make “2 or 3 good movies and cut the number of TV series it makes. Once again, someone makes the incorrect assumption that making fewer movies means making better movies. The law of averages says that there will ALWAYS be some bad movies in the mix no matter how few movies you make. How would you know a movie is good if there are no bad movies?????
The window where Paramount was negotiating exclusively with Skydance Media ended last Friday with now deal finalized so Sony Pictures started with an offer to buy Paramount Global for $26 billion. As of now, Paramount is supposedly continuing negotiations with BOTH companies.
The production company Participant Media shut down last week. The company wasn’t known for big box office movies but it was known for socially relevant movies. It won 2 best picture Academny Awards (“Spotlight” and “Green Book”), 4 best documentary Academy Awards, and 2 best international movie Academy Awards. In response to the closing of the production company, several actors and other filmmakers wrote an open letter to Hollywood asking more studios to follow in the footsteps of that production company.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:
“The three shells” is referenced in the movie “Demolition Man” which came out OVER 30 YEARS AGO (1993). Even people who know the movie might not remember it. Personally, I had to look it up although I saw the movie when it first came out.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 