On today’s episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Brent Lang breaks down the numbers in the Box Office segment and lets out a sigh of relief for its second weekend at Amazon MGM Studios as “Project Hail Mary” holds steady at No. 1. And Michael Schneider talks about daytime TV drama mogul, writer and producer Bradley Bell, who is launching a subscription app for die-hard fans of CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful.
Editor’s note: “Daily Variety” will go on spring break from March 31 to April 6 and return with new episodes on April 7.
Lang, the editor-in-chief of Variety magazine, said this weekend’s strong performance, starring Ryan Gosling, ensured that “Project Hail Mary” became the year’s first big hit and an unusual four-quadrant success story.
“It’s working as a spectacle, and it’s doing particularly well on Imax, where I think people like to watch big-budget movies,” Lang said. He also pointed out that the theme, set in space and featuring a man on a mission to protect the sun, speaks to the current highly polarized mood in the United States.
“This is a film that speaks to our modern times and some of the concerns we all have about the health of the planet, but it does so in a light way. It’s very humorous and hopeful,” Lang says. “And I think the fact that it reflects some of the concerns that people have, but not just in an overwhelmingly pessimistic way, is part of the reason why this movie was so successful. I think the other thing that helps this movie is, yeah, it’s appealing to adults, it’s appealing to women, it’s appealing to men. But it’s a PG-13 movie, so you can actually bring young people to this movie. This is, and I would say this is the first big hit of the year.
Mr. Schneider, the TV editor for Variety magazine, explains to Mr. Bell how “The Bold and the Beautiful” has held up while so many other daytime dramas have folded. The show will celebrate its 40th anniversary on CBS next year.
“Fifteen or 20 years ago, soap operas dwindled and disappeared. There were about 20 soap operas, and now there are only a handful, us and “General Hospital” and “Days of Our Lives.” Every show is special. There was a lot of attention to detail, making sure it was different, never taking your eye off the ball, keeping the drama there, making sure people fell in love with the characters and loved the family and were really an extension of the family.”
Bell sees the BBTV app as a natural opportunity to engage fans in the U.S. and reach new audiences in overseas markets. The show accumulated over 9,000 episodes over its long run.
“We really want to build a community in the U.S. and make our audience base even stronger and more engaged as we gain more access to our products,” Bell says. “We’ve had such a reach over the years. The 1990s were the perfect time to sell American products overseas. And we expanded all over Europe, into Africa, Australia, India, but over the years, some of those countries So this is an opportunity to really reach out to them and say, we’re here, we’re back. And wherever we left off, they can now pick us up and continue the series as if nothing had changed.”
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(Pictured: Bradley Bell (center) celebrates the 35th anniversary of The Bold and the Beautiful at the 2022 Monte Carlo Television Festival. Pictured from left are actors Tanner Noblan, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, Bradley Bell, actors Krista Allen and Thorsten Kaye.)
