Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Monday, March thirtieth, twenty twenty six. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around
the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode, in our Box Office segment, Bridy's Brent Lang breaks down the numbers and the second weekend sigh of relief at Amazon MGM Studios as Project Hail, Mary hangs in at Number one, and Michael Schneider speaks to daytime TV soap mogul Bradley Bell, the writer producer who has launched a subscription app for die hard fans of CBS's The Bold
and the Beautiful. But before we get to that, here are a few headlines just in this morning that you need to know. A judge has temporarily blocked the merger of next Integna. A federal judge in Sacramento has ruled that the deal is likely to violate anti trust laws based on the sheer market share that the combination of the two companies would provide. This fight is coming as the FCC and other TV station owners are gearing up
to revise the current TV station ownership rules. They are also ready to attack some of the rules of engagement between broadcast networks and their affiliates. There is much to follow here. Don't miss my colleague Elsa Kaslasi's great story on her predictions for what titles will be in competition at the Cannes Film Festival later this year. It doesn't look like a big year for Hollywood On the quasset.
The official lineup will be revealed April ninth. Rip Marybeth Hurt, a great actress who died Sunday at the age of seventy nine. All of these stories and so much more can be found on briety dot com right now. One more thing, we want to let listeners know that after today, Daily Variety is going to take a spring break. We'll be back with new episodes on Tuesday, April seventh. If
it's Monday, we're talking box office. Brent Lang, Variety's executive editor, details a big second weekend for Project Hail Mary, which is good news for Amazon MGM Studios. Brent Lang Thank you again for joining me to talk about the box office.
Thanks for having me.
It wasn't the most dramatic weekend to end the month of March in the first quarter at the box office, but I have to believe once again there were cheers at Amazon MGM studios to see their big bet, Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary top the box office two weekends in a row. How did it perform in weekend two?
It held on remarkably well. I think it only dropped about thirty two percent, and that's very impressive because major movies usually drop between their opening and second weekend of at least fifty percent, sometimes sixty or even seventy percent. So this shows that there's some stained power here and that the word of mouth is very positive for this film. And I think the only people that might be more happy about this than Amazon MGM are movie theater owners,
which really need more product. And I think it's thanks to films like Project tail Mary overperforming that you actually see the box office up about twenty three percent year over year. So this is a group of people that are feeling much better about their business.
Of course, there's the Ryan Gosling factor. I mean he is just cementing himself as a leading man for the ages. Is there something about the movie itself though, because it feels like, you know, this is a very dark time. You have war in the Middle East, you have protests on the streets of this country, in mass numbers being it's a polarized time, as we all know. Is there something about the nature of this movie a fantasy set
in space. Is there something about that that you think is energizing box office?
I think definitely it works as kind of a spectacle, and it's doing particularly well in imax, for example, which is where people seem to prefer to see big movies. I think that you're also tapping into something, which is that this is a movie that speaks to our present day and some of the concerns that we all have about the health of our planet. But it does it
in a light way. It's very humorous and hopeful, and I think that the fact that it is reflecting some of the concerns that people have but not doing it in a manner that is just overwhelmingly pessimistic, is part of the reason it's been so successful. I think the other thing that's helping this movie is that yes, it is appealing to adults, it is appealing to women, and it is appealing to men. But it's a Peach thirteen movie, so you actually can bring younger people to it. And
it's not a really violent movie. So this is a four quadrant hit. And I would say that this is the first blockbuster of the year.
And we should also shout out credit to directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Their style seems to be a good fit with what you just said. Something that has a message, but it's not clubbing you over the head with it, and it's got Ryan Gosling in a lot of humor.
I mean, it's almost a redemption for Lloyd and Miller because they had a very very public firing from Solo a Star Wars story. I think it was in like twenty seventeen, and I think that was really embarrassing. It was a bit of a setback for them. They had tried to do a very like improvisitory approach to Star Wars. It did not go over well with Kathy Kennedy and
Lawrence Kasten and sort of the brain trust over there. Well, they did the same approach here, and you know, the result has been a very very successful movie, whereas Solo, which ended up getting directed by Ron Howard in a really tortured production process, was a huge flop and really helped to slow down Disney's cinematic ambitions for Star Wars.
So this is really showing just how able they are as filmmakers and how successful they our unconventional approach can be if matched with the right studio and the right material too.
That's the fun of covering this stuff day by day, is you knowing that just off the top of your head from almost ten years ago.
Just to stay on the Star Wars if things for a second. Sort of interesting because Ryan Gosling is going to be starring in Star Wars Starfighter, which I think internally at Disney there's a sense that this is the film that actually kind of recaptures the Star Wars magic.
They're a little more nervous about Mandalorian and Grogu, so I don't know, maybe everything just leads back to Star Wars, but I'm sure that Disney is looking at the results of this film and looking ahead to Starfighter and feeling much better about that investment as well.
Well. Ryan Gosling is a busy guy. Let's talk about a couple of other strong titles that are hanging in Pixars hoppers. This is now Weekend three.
This is real.
They got themselves a new hit.
Absolutely again. I'm sure a sense of relief at Picks are because original animated films have been kind of their achilles heel. But this film seems to be doing very well,
and it's doing very well internationally as well. It's to make almost three hundred million dollars, and since it cost about one hundred and fifty million dollars, this is setting up to be a profitable film for Disney and potentially the start of another franchise, which I think is very important to them because a lot of their other animated series are getting a little low on the tooth.
Another film that we've talked about the last couple of weeks is Reminders of Him, another flex of a very savvy IP creator, Colleen Hoover, the novelist who has really forged her own path. This film opened at number one a couple of weeks ago and is still in the top five for this kind of movie in particular, that seems a real feat.
Colleen Hoover has been one of the most consistent kind of hit makers in the past few years. You know, not only did this film do quite well, but she also wrote It Ends with Us that was made into a movie that was very successful, Gretting You, which was another successful movie, and then she has a movie of her novel Pretty coming up, which I think people at Amazon MGM are feeling very good about. But this is just a great piece of counterprogramming. It didn't cost that much,
cost twenty five million dollars. I think it's made over sixty globally. Again, this is going to be a very profitable film and a reminder that female audiences will turn out. I mean, this is what we saw with The Housemaid and some other films last year. But you really need to keep offering content up for this audience in Hollywood. Doesn't do that enough.
Well.
Again, good news for Disney, good news for Universal. Not so good news for Warner Brothers in Newline with their latest horror effort, They Will Kill You, starring the great Zazzi Beats.
Yeah, this one really bombed. It only made five million dollars. I think it made. It was good enough for a third place finish, but it's a complete disaster. And unfortunately, after having a really really great twenty twenty five. Warner Brothers is off to a rough start because this comes on the heels of The Bride, which was a massive
flop for the studios. It is interesting because this film it was co financed by sky Dance's Genre label, so David Ellison, who will soon be the boss of Warner Brothers, is responsible for this flop. So I guess the executives can breathe a little easier that they don't totally own this one. Obviously, this happened well before the deal was ever agreed to, but obviously a sign of just how interconnected all of these players are.
Brent, what are you looking forward to next week at the box office? It will be it should be a busier frame.
The big news here is going to be the Super Mario Galaxy movie coming out, which will be a massive hit. The previous film earned a billion dollars or more. So I think that you're looking at a movie that's probably going to do something similar, similar level of business and really begin the second quarter on a very very strong note.
Well, I will look forward to checking in with Rebecca rubin our box office stalwart will be back for that big weekend Brent, deeply appreciate you taking the time and always love your insights.
Thanks for having me back.
And now we turned to Michael Schneider, Wrighty's television editor. He broke the news last week that Belle Phillip Television Productions is launching a subscription streaming app for The Bold and the Beautiful. The CBS soap is one of the last daytime serials standing and it's about to hit its fortieth anniversary next year. Bradley Bell, who heads Bell Philip TV, explains to Schneider why they decided to launch an app to house more than nine thousand episodes.
Thanks, Cynthia, and that's right. The Bold and the Beautiful fans are about to get the ultimate binge, thirty seven complete seasons consisting of more than nine thousand episodes all in one place. The daytime soap opera's producer, Belle Phillip Television Productions, has just launched a new streaming app called BBTV,
featuring the series entire library. So The Bold and the Beautiful premiered on March twenty three, nineteen eighty seven, as a companion show to the Young and the Restless, which also came from creators William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell. Now their son, Brad Bell, oversees The Bold and the Beautiful as executive producer and head writer. And I spoke to him as he was about to head on over
to the show's thirty ninth anniversary celebration. What do you get a cast, What do you get folks on their thirty ninth anniversary.
Well, we do a big cake on stage as always. In this year we did the in and out Hamburger truck.
And you got the fans. A streaming service.
Well, it really began as a conversation between friends. A dear friend of mine, Rhino Orlemans, who works as this company Octopian, and they've been doing these platforms and streaming services, and he said, you should really do one. And I said, I've been thinking about it, but you know, you'll have to show me the way a bit on this. I'm buried in words and scripts and daily episodes. And we combined forces, and a year and a half later, here we are.
Obviously there's hoops you have to go through, helped by the fact that you do still own all these episodes, that this is still you know, kind of in an era where it's so important to have IP. You have this great IP that's existed for nearly forty years in Bolden and Beautiful.
Well, yes, this has been my life. Many people's people here have given their lives to this show, their creativity. We started, you know, I started with my father and mom. Nineteen eighty seven, I had just I was at UCLA and we moved to Los Angeles as a family. He was doing The Young and the Restless, and we decided to do this new show, The Bolden the Beautiful. It was really a family project and it was writing from
pre production till still this day, thirty nine years. I had never thought it would go so long, but it's been an amazing ride.
The business has changed, obviously so much in this time. You know, some things haven't changed. Your stories haven't changed, and the idea of what you're doing with Bowl and the Beautiful, but this larger environment. You're one of the few daytime soap operas that are even left. Now, what do you make of that?
Yeah? There were many years there where people were saying, what are you going to do next? What will you do after this? Maybe fifteen twenty years ago, and soap operas were dropping and dying off. They went from twenty or so now to just a handful of us and
gh and days of our lives. But you know, we really it was really attention to detail, making sure that every show was special and never taking your eye off the ball, keeping the drama there, keeping people addicted to the characters, in love with the families being really an extension of their families.
We recently saw a new soap opera launch for the first time in quite a while on CBS, and you know, there's new ways of telling stories now. People are have an opportunity to watch Ball and Beautiful, for example, on the new BBTV platform. Are there opportunities now maybe to reach younger audiences and find new ways to kind of keep the candle burden?
I think so. I think this daily drama two hundred and fifty episodes a year format is something that's popular around the world and it's gaining popularity in the United States. Beyond the Gates, which which started last year, is an incredible show. It's so exciting because we're actually part of a CBS soap block, Young and the Restless, Bold and the Beautiful and Beyond the Gates. So there, it feels like there's there's real momentum.
What is the hope with BBTV talk about sort of you know, the plans. I know, there's there's other programming that are going to be on the platform beyond just the nine thousand plus episodes. There's maybe opportunities to do other brand extensions, you know, what's your hope and sort of you know, growing this and maybe finding new audiences through this.
We really want to build out our community in the United States, have our viewer base even stronger and more committed as they have more access to the product, and you know, fortify our shows that are airing on Paramount Plus and CBS and globally, we've we've had such a
reach over the years. The early nineties and all throughout the nineties was a great time for selling American product overseas and we were hitting all over Europe and Africa, Australia, India and over the over the years, some of those people have dropped out some of those countries, So this is really an opportunity to reach back to them and say that we're here, we're back, and wherever you left off, you can now pick us up and just continue the series as though it was never changed.
Have you talked to any super fans who have said they are starting at the very beginning. They may take some time, but the plan is they're they're going to sit in there, They're going to watch all nine thousand plus episodes.
Well, there have been a few people who have said that, and you know, I wish them Bucket and and joy. It would take really years to watch them all.
Forty years young next year, So how are you gonna how are you gonna celebrate next year when you have.
A big blow up already. It's it'll be quite an accomplishment one I would say. In nineteen eighty seven, we had no dream of existing to twenty twenty seven. But here we are, and we're enthusiastic. The group is so energized. We see these new opportunities to show what we're doing now, but also show what we've done all these years in a wonderful way. Through technology, you can navigate yourself through the site and you know, search for weddings, cat fights.
Our guest stars Betty White did like amazing work on our show Usher Daddy Yankee that we had Fred Willers, so many great talent, sed actors, iconic actors who have been with us, and now people get to see it again at their leisure, at their pace.
Congratulations Brad, good luck with the new the new streaming service, the app, and more to come from your universe too.
I appreciate it. Thank you, Mike.
As we close out today's episode, we want to remind everyone that Daily Bretty will be taking a spring break. We'll be back with new episodes on Tuesday, April seventh. We love to hear from our listeners, so please send thoughtspes, and other feedback about Daily Variety two podcasts at Variety dot com. Before we go, Congrats to my longtime Bridy
colleague Peter de Bruges. He's been named director of Film and TV for the south By Southwest Film Festival after seventeen years with Variety, most of them as a film critic. Debruges could not be a better choice for that role, and he's staying in the larger corporate family, as south By Southwest is owned by Variety's parent company PMC. Thanks for listening. This episode was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Brent Lang and Michael Schneider.
Stick Snick's hick Picks, Please leave us a review at the podcast platform of your choice, and don't forget to Tune in Tuesday, April seventh for new episodes of Daily Variety.