Anne Hathaway, Werner Herzog & an Icebreaker
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Anne Hathaway's purist romance, Werner Herzog + Nicolas Cage = The Wrath of God, Jack Nicholson's cult classic reboot, and The Sopranos in a mosque.
Let’s go!
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Weekend Box Office. Here’s the breakdown of the total gross:
$494 M - Dune 2 (Warner Bros./Legendary)
$205 M domestic
Top-grossing film of 2024
Overtaken Dune 1 ($433 M)
Top foreign film of the year for China (10-day gross: $36 M)
$177 M - Kung Fu Panda 4 (Universal/DreamWorks)
Top children’s movie of 2024
$7.5 M - Arthur The King (Lionsgate)
Starring Mark Wahlberg
Underperforming
$2.5 M - Love Lies Bleeding (A24)
Top performing indie of the weekend
$1.25 M - The American Society of Magical Negroes (Focus Features)
Lowest performing indie of the weekend
Disney’s ROI. Disney just released a presentation that showcased a behemoth ROI on some of their biggest franchises:
9.9x Frozen
5.5x Toy Story
3.3x Marvel’s Avengers
$13.2 bn revenue
Acquired in 2009
2.9x Star Wars
$11.6 bn revenue
Acquired in 2012
Amidst Disney’s rebounding share price (up 23.6% in 2024), it is becoming harder for Nelson Peltz, billionaire and Chairmen of Wendy’s, to justify his proxy battle. Peltz believes Disney is being run poorly. Here are his demands:
Succession plan for Bob Iger, CEO
Slash executive pay based on performance
Aggressive cost-cutting measures
Ironically, Disney is already doing two of these:
Bob Iger set to retire in 2026
Projected 30% cut on content spending in 2024, equalling $6 bn
Peltz teamed up with former Disney CFO James Rasulo and nominated themselves as independent directors for the Disney Board.
Shareholders will vote on April 3rd.
David Seidler, who won an Oscar for writing The King’s Speech, has died at 86. Seidler based the 2010 film on his stutter as a child, saying:
“If you’re born with two conflicting traits — in my case, I was a born ham, but I was a stutterer — and if you want to be the centre of attention but you can't talk, you find another channel, and that’s writing.”
Here’s the trailer for 2011’s Best Picture, The King’s Speech.