What I’m Hearing: ‘Star Wars’ Amnesia, ‘Air’ Heads, and R.I.P. Nancy Meyers’ Movie

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Happy Passover and Easter from What I’m Hearing, and happy one-year birthday to the Warner Bros. Discovery merger! Ahead of Wednesday’s likely rebranding of HBO Max as Just Max, Elizabeth Warren and three lawmakers celebrated by calling on the Justice Department to unwind the deal. How did you celebrate?

Programming notes: This week on The Town, Lucas Shaw and I broke down Endeavor’s WWE deal, Dave co-creator Dave Burd explained his bizarre path to TV stardom, and my Puck colleague Tara Palmeri played the long game on Disney vs. Ron DeSantis. Subscribe via Spotify or Apple!

Discussed in this issue: Kathy Kennedy, Nancy Meyers, Jen Salke, Lena Waithe, Ben Affleck, Antoine Fuqua, Ari Emanuel, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s money for nothing.

But first…

Who Won the Week: Shigeru Miyamoto

Not hard. The “Spielberg of video games” now has a hit movie franchise after Super Mario Bros.’ wild $377 million global 5-day opening (including $204.6 million domestic), a testament to the power of his Nintendo I.P. Per sources, the game company financed half the movie’s $100 million budget and gets...

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Ben Affleck’s ‘Air’ and the Super-Weird State of Movies (Part 1)

In theatrical terms, Air is a $130 million release that, even with tens of millions of dollars in marketing and great word-of-mouth, will likely top out at less than half that in U.S. theaters. So how come everyone is rushing to declare it a hit?

MATTHEW BELLONI

So, here’s a good example of why everyone in the movie business wants to jump off the Hollywood sign: If Warner Bros. spends $130 million on an adult drama, then opens it to $20 million domestic over a five-day holiday weekend, the knives come out. That’s an outright flop, an embarrassment never to be mentioned in a Burbank commissary, even if the movie goes on to generate decent viewership on HBO Max, Warners’ sister streaming service. In fact, I can’t really cite a recent example of this happening at Warners because its executives know better than to make $130 million adult dramas without genre elements or known I.P...

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