Hello and happy Cinco de Mayo, today we’re delving into the dense subject of movie windowing through the endlessly fascinating lens of Tom Cruise.

First, a quick plug for my Ringer podcast, The Town, which this week debated the likely end of Peak TV, the damages question in the awful Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, and the state of Scientology. Subscribe on Spotify or whichever pod platform you use.

Thursday Thoughts…

-If the tracking on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is $200 million, I’m gonna take the over. More importantly, Top Gun: Maverick came on tracking today, and a couple non-Paramount experts told me they were pleasantly surprised. “Total awareness” is at 85 while “definite interest” is at 46. No shock: Older men are super into this movie.

Compared to the big Memorial Day releases from 2017-19 at the same time, Top Gun does have a problem with younger women. (This has been a Tom Cruise issue since his Katie Holmes couch-jumping days.) Here’s “definite interest” among women under 25...

Pirates 5: 58
Aladdin: 57
Solo: 45
Top Gun: Maverick: 33

So at this point, it’s a three-quadrant movie. Let’s see if Cruise’s world tour P.R. blitz can salvage that fourth quadrant.

-If the government’s review of CAA’s ICM Partners acquisition drags on much longer, and the ICM people keep jumping ship, there may not be much left for CAA to acquire.

-The Netflix rumors of layoffs and content spend reductions are running so fast and furious, it’s hard to keep up. I don’t have numbers, but something is definitely afoot.

-Speaking of Netflix, the Chappelle attack is such a bummer because the Netflix Is a Joke festival is actually a great idea and seems to be working. I’m seeing John Mulaney at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, and it’ll be interesting to see the security presence.

First, one of the more bizarre guest lists you’ll see…

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Premiere season is back, I guess, or at least 2022 Hollywood is doing its best to will the return of big summer spectacles back into existence. Something about a nearly 60-year-old Tom Cruise landing a helicopter onto an aircraft carrier yesterday to plug Top Gun: Maverick feels both totally comforting and totally desperate. Is this STILL the best we’ve got? But other than Marvel, it seems so. We’re 25 months into the Great Box Office Reset, as Exhibitor Relations calls it, and domestic numbers in the first quarter came in at just 56 percent of 2019. Even with hits like The Batman, Uncharted and a big chunk of Spider-Man: No Way Home, there just weren’t enough releases—or people interested in seeing them.

Yet now everyone is talking about whether the summer box office is officially “back.” OK… The trades seem downright giddy, and B. Riley, the analyst firm, put out a report last week suggesting that consumer sentiment is building. By the end of the year, they predict, overall grosses will hit 80 percent of the $11 billion earned in 2019, and will return essentially to normal in 2023. That’s a big lift from 56 percent...