On today’s episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Brent Lang breaks down the weekend box office and shares his takeaways and thoughts on the state of the movie industry from his time at CinemaCon last week.
This weekend was dominated by two high-powered productions: “Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Project Hail Mary.” A24 is off to a strong start with its latest film, “Mother Mary,” starring Anne Hathaway, with a word-of-mouth building release in five locations.
“It did very well in limited release. It grossed about $170,000, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it did in just five places. So that’s one of the highest per-screen averages of the year. The question is, will this movie do well as it expands? I’m not positive,” says Lang, Variety’s editor-in-chief. “There’s definitely a constituency for Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coell, and those are probably the people who will vote for it. The director, David Lowery, is a very, very talented director. Anne Hathaway has The Devil Wears Prada 2 coming out in two weeks.” “I don’t know how much she can promote. Anne Hathaway is really smart about her press. She doesn’t oversaturate the market. She’s the one who chooses her.” She says some funny and provocative things in interviews. She’s really, really smart about her public image. ”
Lang also offered his thoughts on trends in the film industry after spending last week in Las Vegas for the annual CinemaCon, which attracts exhibitors and major studios. Lang said there were two big topics in the hallway this time. One was Universal Pictures’ decision to release films destined for multiplexes exclusively in theaters for 45 days. This is a reversal of the 17-day grace period that was implemented during the pandemic. Another big story was Paramount Skydance’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
“Throughout the four days in Las Vegas, it felt like there was a kind of tone shift in how people looked at David Ellison’s (Paramount Skydance CEO) attempt to buy Warner Bros. and merge it with Paramount,” Lang said.
This week began with an open letter signed by about 3,000 industry players, sounding the alarm on mergers. “And then there was Cinema United, which organizes CinemaCon. The head of that organization, Michael O’Leary, said in no uncertain terms, ‘We are against consolidation. Consolidation is bad for this industry. We oppose this merger.’ But when David Ellison took the stage on Thursday to share his thoughts, the atmosphere really, really changed,” Lang says. “Adam Aron, the CEO of AMC, the world’s largest movie theater chain, came out in support of this deal. So that was a big boost.”
(Photo: Anne Hathaway at the premiere of ‘Mother Mary’ in New York on April 13th)
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