The best new artist Grammy nominee with the
Chalamet-esque mustache scored the number one song of 2024 with “Beautiful Things,” per Luminate’s year-end report, topping Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather.” 

Runner-up: Jason Bateman, who’s coming for Millie Bobby Brown’s “Biggest Star on
Netflix” title. His preposterous airport thriller, Carry-On, just hopped her Damsel to hit number five on the all-time most watched original movies list.   

Honorable mention: Brad Cafarelli, the publicist, whose client Whoopi Goldberg just so happened to vigorously
defend another of his clients, Carrie Underwood, against backlash from performing at Trump’s inauguration.   

A little more on the year in music: A big ’24 for pop acts, indie
labels, and international growth, per the full Luminate study. And brands and casting directors got a new “index” for gauging an artist’s personal reach/value. It incorporates their streaming numbers, social media footprint, awareness, public perception, and fan engagement. Together they reveal the “breadth and affinity of an artist’s fandom among
U.S. consumers.” Some surprises in the nearly all-female Top 10:

Definitely amusing to see Adele so high given she’s barely done any
endorsements, doesn’t tour beyond her just-ended Vegas residency, and hasn’t released new music since 2021. Also, where is Snoop?

Do we care that The Brutalist used A.I.? So asked a
veteran Oscar voter in a text to me after its editor, Dávid Jancsó, said the filmmakers employed the dreaded technology to fix Hungarian dialogue and generate those nifty architecture designs at the end. The interview necessitated weekend damage control by director Brady Corbet, who admitted to using the
Respeecher tool but insisted it was “done with the utmost respect for the craft.” Please. Who thinks Corbet made a 215-minute period epic for $10 million without using whatever means necessary to cut costs? A.I. is everywhere now, especially in the postproduction process. Emilia Pérez apparently also used the Respeecher tool and nobody cared, though many in Mexico seem to wish the filmmakers had fixed Selena Gomez’s accent.

What’s interesting about this Oscars “controversy” is how little this stuff matters now. For the past decade or so, awards campaigns lived in fear of an attack that would catch fire on social media, bleed into the conversation among voters, and ultimately derail the narrative. But even in 2019, at the height of Twitter, Green Book won best picture amid a constant feed of vitriol online about its white savior
stereotypes. Casey Affleck won best actor for Manchester by the Sea in 2017 despite all the noise around his settlement of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Jojo Rabbit was pilloried by the Very Online Left—until it scored six Oscar nominations and won best adapted screenplay.

That stuff has never really mattered to the Academy when they like a movie. And it certainly doesn’t
matter now that Twitter has imploded and social media has been delegitimized as a swamp of misinformation and dance videos. In fact, the most important aspect of Andrea Riseborough’s “viral” best actress campaign of 2022 wasn’t the social media love from Oscars “influencers” like Jamie Lee Curtis or Frances Fisher; instead it was the personal outreach from the campaign, the starry Q&A hosts and tastemaker screenings, and the televised
endorsements from the likes of Cate Blanchett that fed all media. That’s what has always mattered most.         

So no, the A.I. in The Brutalist won’t lose it best picture, nor will the cultural missteps in Emilia Pérez (even that “penis to vagina” song), or the lack of intimacy coordinators on Anora, or
whatever other issues coincidentally arise once nominations are announced on Thursday.    

“Any chance the position comes with an ambassador’s residence?”

—Mel Gibson, whose house burned in the Palisades fire, responding to what was apparently his surprise appointment as one of Trump’s “special ambassadors to Hollywood.”

Runner-up: “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons.” —Blake
Lively, in an alleged text to Justin Baldoni, seemingly referencing the power of her husband Ryan Reynolds and friend Taylor Swift, as quoted in Baldoni’s 187-page (!) lawsuit against Lively et al.

Honorable mention: “I can’t believe you’ve done this much fucking research into cowbells.” 

—Dave Grohl, in the episode of Peacock’s four-part SNL documentary focused just on the 2000 “More Cowbell” sketch.

Now on to the year ahead at the box office…

While the theatrical industry was preoccupied with whether last
year’s overall domestic box office could reach 2023’s #Barbenheimer-enhanced $8.9 billion, it should have been more concerned with the overseas marketplace. In 2024, non-domestic revenue fell 10 percent year over year, compared to 3.3 percent in North America. 

That decline was driven by a 25 percent drop in China, where economic struggles have impacted local moviegoing and recent U.S. tentpoles
underwhelmed, with none topping $500 million. A stronger dollar is partly to blame, but so is a global populace that has grown less reliant on theaters for their access to American pop culture. The Ryan Gosling–Emily Blunt action-comedy The Fall Guy did $92 million domestic, $181 million worldwide, and ended up with a 51/49 domestic/international split. Meanwhile, the Ryan Reynolds-starring, John Krasinski-directed If netted a
58/42 split, earning $111 million in North America—a terrific result for an original, non-action, kid-targeted flick—but only $192 million worldwide. Likewise, the Daisy Edgar-Jones– and Glen Powell-led Twisters earned a rousing $270 million in North America, but barely cracked $100 million internationally. 

By now, Hollywood has largely
written off the Chinese market for most tentpoles, treating a periodic breakout like Alien: Romulus ($351 million worldwide, with $110 million from China) as a pleasant surprise. But the overall non-domestic dip was 10 percent even outside of China, including 17.5 percent in Japan and 10.7 percent in South Korea. 

Yes, breakouts like Wonder Woman or Wicked: Part
One, where the domestic overperformance is such that only adequate overseas grosses are required, still happen. And globally skewed hits like Mufasa: The Lion King—which has earned $382 million out of its current $591 million worldwide cume outside of North America—are still possible. But the notion of a nostalgia franchise like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice playing hard only in North America may presage a durable trend. The once-conventional 40/60 split, even for
domestic successes, can no longer be taken for granted.

Will this mean that two of this year’s likely global megahits, Jurassic World: Rebirth and Avatar: Fire and Ash, will have to pull more of their weight stateside than previous installments? Perhaps, although those franchises tend to buck the trends by virtue of their uniqueness and generational popularity. Moreover, it’s not like either title will
suffer if it earns only 75 percent of its predecessor—or around $750 million and $1.74 billion, respectively. But they are the exceptions, not the rule.

Disney gave the MCU a sabbatical in 2024, slating just one surefire
smash—Deadpool & Wolverine—for the entire year. Part of that film’s success can be attributed to the fact that it featured established franchise characters, beloved even among those unafflicted by a slavish devotion to the MCU. Marvel won’t have that same assurance this year. After all, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps feature new, or at least less established, characters. Still, Disney is hoping that
this trio can pull grosses closer to Phase Two (Thor: The Dark World, earning $644 million) than Phase One (Thor, earning $449 million).

But will general audiences care about another Captain America movie—this one headlined by Anthony Mackie—nearly six years after Chris Evans handed off the shield in Avengers: Endgame? Will
Thunderbolts prove to be a must-see MCU summer kickoff despite an ensemble cast populated with B-level characters plucked from B-level MCU movies and Disney+ shows? Meanwhile, The Fantastic Four: The First Steps will be the fourth attempt in just over 30 years to turn Marvel’s “First Family” into a viable franchise.

While Captain America: Civil War earned $1.15
billion in May of 2016, that picture was sold as a glorified “Avengers 2.5.” The sequel pitted Earth’s mightiest heroes against each other while introducing MCU versions of Spider-Man and Black Panther. This time out, Brave New World will be essentially just a Captain America movie with a non-Steve Rogers Captain America, albeit with Harrison Ford included. 

As we’ve seen recently, the MCU isn’t the  primary selling point that it once was. Eternals barely cracked $400 million in 2021, and The Marvels got to only $200 million in 2023. That in-universe continuity no longer had enough automatic must-see value to pull grosses in the $675 million to $875 million range—i.e., on par with what used to be expected for non-Avengers Marvel movies.

If only established MCU franchises, such as Doctor Strange or Thor, reach upper-level Phase Two grosses, Disney will be in a bind. You can only recapture 2010s glory by casting Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom so many times. And the multiplex industry that once depended on the MCU franchise as an over-indexing buffer will have to hope that other tentpoles can make up the difference, while non-tentpoles overperform here and there. 

These days, it often takes familiar, nostalgic packaging to fill
theaters. Audiences will show up for a good laugh only if the film is a hybrid action-comedy, horror-comedy, or within an established and often fantastical franchise. (Think Barbie, Inside Out, Despicable Me, Deadpool, Beetlejuice, M3GAN, and Bad Boys.) This year, Hollywood will apply that logic to smaller-scale, less tentpole-sized properties. At least, that’s the optimistic view of how this year’s revivals will pan out. 

Disney’s Freaky Friday: Freakier Friday is a pure nostalgia play that targets the grown-ups who made the Lindsay Lohan–Jamie Lee Curtis remake a hit more than 20 years ago. The same could be said of Paramount’s Naked Gun reboot, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. Sony’s comedic Anaconda revamp, starring Jack
Black and Paul Rudd, could be another example of a studio scraping the bottom of the barrel for any past hit that could be retrofitted into a franchise reboot. Sony, however, could potentially learn from its blockbuster Jumanji revival, and craft something good enough to appeal to moviegoers who couldn’t care less about the original. Along with Paramount’s planned Scary Movie revival, these remakes could remind audiences that they used to show
up to theaters for the exclusive purpose of laughing for 90-120 minutes. (This year also features legacy sequels of Karate Kid and I Know What You Did Last Summer, but neither is a reboot or remake.)

Set for a late June theatrical release, courtesy of Warner Bros.,
the very pricey Joseph Kosinski-directed Formula One melodrama starring Brad Pitt may be the final test for Apple’s theatrical release strategy. After a string of embarrassing flops like Argylle and Fly Me to the Moon, bad press on F1 could take Apple out of the theatrical game for good. 

So the stakes are high. As we saw with Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights, which Warner
Bros. snatched from Netflix with less money but the promise of theaters, the out-of-home debut remains a powerful carrot. Netflix likely won’t budge beyond limited—or, perhaps, token—theatrical releases. Success for the just-announced, Imax-only, four-week theatrical window for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia over Thanksgiving 2026 is unlikely to turn Ted Sarandos into a multiplex true believer. And my guess is that Apple, despite its borderline
fanatical desire to work with major stars and filmmakers, will only open itself up to theatrical if F1 becomes an unquestionable commercial success. 

Despite all the emphasis on James Gunn’s
long-awaited Superman, Warners’ ’25 theatrical slate is the most ambitious and original of any major studio this year, featuring several big cinematic swings for film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy. Is this the result of David Zaslav’s desire to promote Warner Bros. as a big-deal, old-school movie studio, or simply make it (and/or WBD) more attractive to buyers? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. 

A reportedly $140 million Paul Thomas Anderson film, even one starring Leo DiCaprio, sounds like commercial madness, particularly after the lopsided buzz-to-box office performance of Licorice Pizza. Indeed, There Will Be Blood is P.T.A.’s top grosser, with just $76 million worldwide. But DiCaprio is among the last butts-in-seats, bona fide movie stars, so if
ever there were a time to place a bet on the auteur, this might be it. 

Warners will also release Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, a reportedly $150 million sci-fi comedy starring Robert Pattinson; Barry Levinson’s mob drama The Alto Knights, starring two Robert De Niros; and Ryan
Coogler’s vampire movie, Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers, potentially a future franchise. In the key early October slot, where WB launched Joker, Gravity, and A Star Is Born, the studio is releasing The Bride!, a Bride of Frankenstein riff written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. 

Yes, Warners still has franchise flicks like A Minecraft Movie, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Mortal Kombat 2. But the De Luca-Abdy non-franchise lineup suggests an alternate, retro universe, where audiences still show up for original movies because of the concepts, well-liked stars, and filmmakers. Audiences certainly claim they want those movies… If they actually do, Warner Bros.
could emerge from 2025 as more than just the home of Batman and Harry Potter, and maybe give Zaz a reason to fetch his tux from the dry cleaner. 

Peter Hamby explains how Trump’s
billionaire courtship could go wrong—for everyone. [Puck]

Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh makes about $1 million a year from his writing credit on the Ridiculousness theme song.
[Rolling Stone]

Matthew Ball’s annual state of video gaming presentation reveals how much TikTok and other social platforms have cut into playing time.
[Matthew Ball]

We get it, guys. The two new Warner Bros. Discovery board members, IAC’s exiting C.E.O. Joey Levin and SoFi head Anthony Noto, bring “transaction experience” and “over 20 years of mergers and acquisitions” to the company that may or may not
(definitely may!) be looking for a merger of its own. [PR Newswire]  

Add Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat to the list of talent-fronted production outfits that aren’t justifying their
ridiculous valuations from the Peak TV boom. [Bloomberg]  

Maverick Carter, whose SpringHill Entertainment is already losing millions, wants to raise $5 billion to take on the NBA.
Joe Pompliano is rightfully skeptical. [Huddle Up]

Lauren Sherman looks at how the L.A. fires are impacting the red carpet side of awards season and beyond.
[Puck] 

Hmmmm: Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who sold their Malibu house last year, also recently offloaded a big chunk of their art collection. [Puck] 

Good responses to my Thursday report on Greta
Gerwig’s deal with Imax and Netflix for ‘Narnia’ and my ideas for Hollywood’s role in the L.A. fire rebuild. Some examples…

“Good for Greta, but the real shame is that a four-week [theatrical] window is now considered a ‘win.’” —A filmmaker

“She thinks she’s getting
an actual theatrical release… not remotely quite. This is just a platform release on steroids. Wait till she finds out they won’t be reporting box office.” —An executive

“Absolutely agree on committing to more production in L.A., but the incentive structure should be focused on volume and not just a few big productions. California should structure it similar to the U.K. incentive where they
support big productions, but also streamline indie film applications and money up to a certain budget threshold (like $20 million). Additionally, L.A. should create some type of regional credit for small films (tier 1) so those little films stop jetting off to Louisville or Oklahoma. Those are the bedrock productions of a talent pipeline in our town and industry.” —An executive

“I’d be curious to
hear more about how Brady Corbet delivers a period epic for $10 million, and yet L.A.-shot Joker 2 cost 20 times that. The industry is going to have to figure out how to deliver quality content at scale and at cost—maybe L.A. can help lead the way in that regard, given its concentration of ambitious, emerging talent and empty soundstages. Wouldn’t that be the right direction for L.A.—offer serious, low-cost alternatives to development and production that would set the stage for the
future of the storytelling industry?” —A producer

“I’m proposing a streamlined rehousing fund to provide immediate relief to displaced crew and non-union workers. While the industry unions and organizations like The Motion Picture & Television Fund are stepping in, this initiative would fast-track rehousing efforts, addressing an urgent need for those who keep our industry running. Long term, this fund, with
investment from larger industry players, could be used to build affordable housing for future industry professionals, ensuring Los Angeles remains a global hub for skilled crews and innovative storytelling. This isn’t just about providing shelter, it’s about securing the future of Hollywood by supporting the people who’ve always made it possible.” —A screenwriter

Ahead of Netflix’s earnings tomorrow, Antenna is reporting 656,000 sign-ups to the
service over the three-day period surrounding its exclusive NFL games on Christmas Day. A great subscription event, for sure, but no match for the Jake Paul–Mike Tyson boxing stunt a month earlier…

Have a great week,

Matt

Got a question, comment, complaint, or want to donate to fire relief? Click here or email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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