Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 5/12/2026

Hello everyone,

BOX OFFICE: It was a race to be #1 at the domestic box office this past weekend with the second weekend of “Devil Wears Prada 2” the third weekend of “Michael” and the opening weekend of the new release “Mortal Kombat 2”.  In the end, “Devil Wears Prada 2” took the #1 spot with $41.6 million (down about 45.8% from the previous weekend), “Mortal Kombat 2” took second with $38.5 million, and “Michael” was a close third with $37.9 million (down about 30.3% from its second weekend).  The other new movies – the comedy/mystery “The Sheep Detectives” took #4 with $15 million and “Billie Eillish: Hit Me Hard and Soft” was 5th with only $7 million. 

The total domestic box office weekend was down slightly – less than 8% – with $160 million.

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: “The Devil Wears Prada 2” also took first place worldwide making $118.8 million internationally which means it’s worldwide total of $433 million is already above the worldwide total of the original movie.  The worldwide total of “Michael” danced past the half billion mark and is now at $577 million worldwide.  “Project Hail Mary” zoomed past $650 million this past weekend which passes the Chinese movie “Pegasus 3”, so it is now the #2 movie of 2026 worldwide (so far) with $656 million.  The #1 movie “Super Mario Galaxy” may eventually hit $1 billion.  Its current worldwide total is $940 million.  Also, thanks to “Devil Wears Prada 2”, Disney is the first movie studio to pass a worldwide total of $2 billion in 2026.

OTHER NEWS:

  • Looks like there won’t be any strikes this year since the actors union just finalized their new contract with the studios.
  • Also, the Writers Guild West staff just signed a new union contract, so they aren’t on strike anymore.  Their strike made them cancel the west coast awards ceremony earlier this year.
  • Sony Pictures is trying to lower ticket prices for its next small release “The Breadwinners”.  They’re trying to get movie theaters to commit to “The Nate Rate” named after Nate Bargatze – who stars and co-wrote the movie.  So far, AMC Theaters has already agreed to sell tickets for the movie at “matiness prices”, and Cinemark may also be willing to discount its prices by up to 25% although prices still may vary.

LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR: Last weekends “Last Week Tonight” John Oliver joked about this REAL MOVIE.

As John Oliver joked, this is a REAL MOVIE.  Starring Academy Award winner George C Scott (of course, he didn’t win for that movie).  Directed by Academy Award winner Mike Nichols – director of “The Graduate” and “Silkwood”, written by Academy Award nominee Buck Henry – writer of “The Graduate” and “Heaven Can Wait”.  The movie had the tag line “Unwittingly he trained a dolphin to kill the President of the United States”.  According to John Oliver, Mike Nichols made the movie because Roman Polanski asked him to.