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    Warner Bros. Still Awaits David Zaslav’s Promised Renaissance

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    David Zaslav promised to revive the storied film studio when he took over Warner Bros. Discovery. That was three years ago.David Zaslav blew into Hollywood in 2022 like a tornado of fresh air, telling anyone who would listen about his rejuvenation plans for Warner Bros.As a lifelong television executive, he was new to the film business. But the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia had put him in charge of the most storied studio left standing — a troubled Warner Bros. — and the solution to its woes, he said at the time, was relatively straightforward.Make more movies for exclusive theatrical release. Make a wider variety of movies, not just big-budget spectacles. And then watch multiplexes fill up. “This business could be bigger and stronger than its ever been,” Mr. Zaslav said at a 2023 convention of movie theater owners, to jubilant applause.Yet two years later, the movie business finds itself weaker than it has ever been. Ticket sales are down 40 percent compared with 2019, just before the pandemic sped a consumer shift to streaming, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data.And one reason (among many) involves Mr. Zaslav’s Warner Bros.Warner Bros. has delivered only one homegrown hit over the last year. That was “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which was released in September. Since then, the studio has whiffed five times. “Joker: Folie à Deux” died on arrival in October. “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” fizzled in December. “Companion,” a low-budget thriller, came and went in January. “Mickey 17,” an expensive science-fiction adventure, bombed this month.“The Alto Knights” — a mob drama starring Robert De Niro that Mr. Zaslav personally championed — added to the carnage last weekend. It cost roughly $50 million to make and another $15 million to market, but sold a mere $3.2 million in tickets over its first three days. That made the film a near-complete wipeout; studios and theaters split ticket sales roughly 50-50.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oscars Draw 18 Million Viewers, an 8% Drop

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      The show was broadcast on ABC, as it has been for decades, but also streamed live on Hulu, where there were glitches.The Academy Awards drew 18 million viewers on Sunday, ABC said, citing Nielsen data. That is an 8 percent drop from the 19.5 million who watched last year.The audience decline ends a three-year streak when Oscar ratings had been on the rise.The decline follows a trend among other award shows, which have seen their ratings growth come to a halt this year. The Grammy Awards attracted 15.4 million viewers last month, a 9 percent decline from the year before. The Golden Globes in January also saw a modest decline from last year.ABC said the Oscars had grown 3 percent among adults under the age of 50.ABC broadcast the Oscars on Sunday, as it has for decades, but the show also streamed live on Hulu, which helped boost viewership.The livestreaming experience, however, was far from perfect. There were glitches at the beginning of the show, and some subscribers did not see the finish, when their feed was abruptly cut off shortly before the best actress and best picture awards were given out.“Thank you for watching!” read the on-screen message. “This live event has now ended. You may exit playback and select something else to watch.”Still, even with this year’s decline in audience, the Oscars will be among the highest-rated entertainment shows of the year. And, perhaps more significant, the Oscars will go another year as the most-watched live awards show, continuing to best the Grammys.The show, which was hosted by Conan O’Brien, received mostly good reviews. Vanity Fair said it was “the best ceremony in years,” although Variety argued that “the telecast felt too small for Hollywood’s biggest night.”The ceremony was also long: It clocked in at nearly four hours.Sunday’s Oscars came nowhere close to the box office firepower of last year’s telecast, which was fueled by “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie.” “Anora” took home best picture on Sunday night, one of its five Oscar wins. But with that win, “Anora” secured a record for having the lowest domestic ticket sales in best picture history, outside of the pandemic. More

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      ‘Glicked’ Fans Rejoice in Bloodshed and Broadway Songs

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      Swords clashing and blood curdling screams of gladiators emanate from one room. Across the hallway, witches belt out show tunes.That’s the sound of “Glicked.”Last year, moviegoers swarmed to see “Barbenheimer” — the combined name for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — when the films opened on the same day. Now, there is a push from the casts and fans of “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” — which both opened across the country on Friday — to recreate that energy for another double feature with a blended name.Isabelle Deveaux and Emma Rabuano skipped out of theater six at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn at 2:38 p.m. on Friday, after watching “Gladiator II.”At 6:15 p.m., the pair, both 25, planned to return to the Alamo Drafthouse to see “Wicked.” The crossover, Ms. Deveaux said, “felt so specifically catered to our interests.”Diego Gasca of Los Angeles went with friends to the opening day of “Wicked” at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan, but he said that he was not interested in seeing “Gladiator II.”Colin Clark for The New York TimesOn the surface, the two films, which have a combined running time of over five hours, appear vastly different. One is a family friendly musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” while the other is an R-rated epic sequel about murder, war and the Roman Empire. But Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano see some common ground in the films.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Missing Out on Coldplay’s India Tickets, Some Fans Vented — Even to Police

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      When 13 million people tried to buy tickets for the band’s Mumbai shows, the ticketing site crashed. Many who came up short cried foul, both online and to the authorities.When tickets for two Coldplay concerts in Mumbai, India, went on sale last month, about 13 million people visited an online ticketing platform to vie for around 90,000 seats. Within minutes, the show was sold out and the platform had crashed, only for the tickets to later be offered on other sites at steeply marked-up prices.In a country of 1.4 billion people, it is not unusual for demand to far outstrip supply for many things, from government jobs to public services. And as music fans in many places around the world are painfully aware, tickets to shows by popular artists can sell out in seconds.But what doesn’t usually happen is a rush to judgment on social media that something nefarious must be going on — and even a call to the police to lodge a complaint.In this case, even though Coldplay added another concert date and BookMyShow, the online platform selling the tickets, imposed a cap of four tickets per customer to avoid bulk buying, the police in Mumbai have questioned a senior BookMyShow official and twice summoned another high-ranking representative about the episode.There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the company, and BookMyShow officials said the website and app had malfunctioned and crashed because so many people had trying logging on at the same time. The company said on X that “scalping and black marketing of tickets was against Indian law,” and a BookMyShow official said in a statement that “any tickets bought from unauthorized sources will be at their own risk and may likely be invalid or fake tickets.”What is clear is that some can’t believe their bad luck.“I was frustrated and angry,” said Ishan Agarwal, an engineering student in Delhi who, despite logging in from his laptop, two phones and an iPad, failed to get a ticket.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Will Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” Flop?

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      Mr. Coppola has spent $120 million on his new movie, “Megalopolis.” Most box office analysts predict that he’ll get far less in return.Lionsgate executives say they have done all they can. They’ve booked 1,700 theaters, deployed guerrilla marketers to college campuses and pushed to flip negative reviews to their advantage. They have tied the film’s themes to the presidential race in TV ads.And now it is up to moviegoers. Will people plunk down dollars and turn Francis Ford Coppola’s majestically bonkers “Megalopolis” into an against-all-odds success when it arrives on Friday?Or will the $120 million epic — in keeping with months of negative prerelease headlines — go down as a hall-of-fame flop?Most box office analysts are predicting disaster. “Megalopolis” could arrive to as little as $5 million in weekend ticket sales in North America, according to surveys that track audience interest. Ticket sales are split roughly 50-50 with theater owners.But there are glimmers of hope. The film received a 10-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. On Monday, Lionsgate, which is distributing and marketing “Megalopolis” for a fee, staged a preview at IMAX theaters across the country, selling out locations in New York, California, Massachusetts, Utah and Florida. The stunt was an effort to position what is essentially a big-budget art film as a broad-audience blockbuster.“We want everyone to come,” Mr. Coppola, 85, said during a Q. and A. that was part of the IMAX event, clasping his hands together in simulated prayer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Bargain at the Opera: Philadelphia Offers All Seats for as Low as $11

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      Seeking new audiences, Opera Philadelphia is putting in place a pay-what-you-can model, one of the first of its kind by a major opera company.In Philadelphia, a night at the opera may now be cheaper than going to the movies.Opera Philadelphia, a company with a reputation for innovation and ambition, announced on Tuesday that it was putting in place a pay-what-you-can model for the 2024-25 season, with all tickets for all performances starting at $11. The initiative, which the company calls Pick Your Price, is aimed at attracting new audiences.“People want to go to the opera, but it’s expensive,” said Anthony Roth Costanzo, the celebrated American countertenor who became the company’s general director and president in June. “Our goal is to bring opera to more people and bring more people to the opera.”It immediately proved popular. On Tuesday, the day the initiative was announced, Opera Philadelphia said it sold more than 2,200 tickets for the coming season, compared with about 20 the day before. The tickets were originally priced at $26 to $300.High ticket prices have long been a barrier to audiences, and especially to newcomers. In recent years a number of performing arts groups, including Lincoln Center, the Chicago Sinfonietta and Ars Nova, the Off Broadway incubator, have experimented with pay-what-you-can approaches. Other opera companies have experimented with discounts, including rush tickets and deals offered to young people. But Opera Philadelphia’s approach was one of the boldest yet.Its website explains that all tickets start at $11 but that people will be given the option of choosing to pay much more, including the standard price.Like many nonprofit performing arts organizations, Opera Philadelphia gets much more of its revenue from philanthropy than through ticket sales. Radically lowering the prices could encourage more donations, which will no longer risk being seen as subsidizing an expensive art form that is out of reach for many people. And Costanzo said that the new model would allow the company to concentrate more on staging interesting works, and less on worrying about ticket sales.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Alien: Romulus’ Solidifies Disney’s Box Office Rebound

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      After struggling in recent years, Hollywood’s biggest movie company has now delivered four hits in a row, dominating the summer with a 42 percent market share.“Alien: Romulus” was on pace to collect at least $40 million at theaters in the United States and Canada over the weekend, a strong total that solidified a turnaround at Disney’s movie division.Disney’s seven movie factories — Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, 20th Century, Searchlight Pictures, Disney Animation and Walt Disney Pictures — began to break down in 2021. They had been pushed too hard to make content for Disney’s streaming service. The pandemic added difficulties, resulting in a string of failures like “Jungle Cruise,” “Strange World,” “Lightyear,” “Haunted Mansion,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Nightmare Alley,” “The Marvels” and “Wish.”Investors grew increasingly agitated, putting Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, and Alan Bergman, Disney’s top movie executive, under extreme pressure to deliver improved results. Movies carry unusual weight at the Walt Disney Company, which relies on them for much more than ticket revenue. At Disney, movies also power a vast consumer products division and underpin theme park attractions.It certainly appears that Disney has regained its box office footing. So far this summer (from May 1 to Sunday), Disney films have accounted for 42 percent of total ticket sales in the United States and Canada, according to Box Office Mojo, a film database. Last summer, Disney had about a 27 percent market share.Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, oversees seven movie studios, including Marvel and Pixar.Ronda Churchill/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith the successful release of “Alien: Romulus” (20th Century), the company has now delivered four consecutive hits. In May, Disney rolled out “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” a 20th Century movie that cost about $160 million to make and collected nearly $400 million worldwide. “Inside Out 2” (Pixar) arrived in June and has taken in $1.6 billion worldwide. In July, “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Marvel) set a record for the largest R-rated opening in Hollywood history, and has gone on to sell $1.1 billion in tickets.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘It Ends With Us’ Soars at the Box Office

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      The film, which cost $25 million to make, is on track to earn at least $45 million in North America on its opening weekend, analysts say.Colleen Hoover’s book “It Ends With Us” has been a fixture on the best-seller list for years. And now, the movie adaptation has become a smash at the box office. The $25 million film from Sony Pictures is on track to earn at least $45 million in the United States and Canada, box office analysts say.Starring Blake Lively, the romance is based on Ms. Hoover’s most popular book — one that was initially released in 2016 but reappeared on the best-seller list in the midst of the pandemic in 2021 and has since spent some 140 weeks there. Buoyed by TikTok, the book, about a complicated love triangle with undertones of domestic violence, has sold 8 million copies and found fans worldwide.The low-budget film comes at a time when there has been little in the marketplace geared to women, in contrast with last summer when “Barbie” earned $1.4 billion worldwide and became the highest-grossing film of the year. Sony took advantage of this dearth in the marketplace with a potent social media campaign that featured Ms. Lively, guest appearances by her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and the help of her friend Taylor Swift, who contributed the song “My Tears Ricochet” to the film and the trailer.On Friday alone, the PG-13 rated film earned $24 million as audiences tuned in to see Ms. Lively play a florist with a challenging past who falls for a sexy, abusive neurosurgeon played by Justin Baldoni, who also directed the film.The film’s performance is a welcome boost for the box office, which is still down some 15 percent since last year at this time.“Pure romance is not a big performer at the box office, but occasionally the right story based on the right book comes along, and with a well-cast female lead the movie catches fire,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. “That’s happening here.”Reviews have been middling. The New York Times called it “fitfully diverting, at times touching, often ridiculous and, at 2 hours and 10 minutes, almost offensively long.” Yet audiences are giving it high marks. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is hovering at 94 percent positive and the exit score, as recorded by tracking service CinemaScore, is A-.The film will just miss the No. 1 slot for the weekend with Mr. Reynolds’s hit, “Deadpool vs. Wolverine,” holding on for its third frame. The Marvel movie will soon cross the $500 million threshold.Things weren’t as rosy for the Lionsgate adaptation of the video game “Borderlands,” which despite the star power of Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jack Black will probably only gross in the single digits. It was a total misfire for the $115 million sci-fi comedy from the director Eli Roth. More

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      ‘Furiosa’ Is a Memorial Day Weekend Box Office Dud

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      Memorial Day weekend ticket sales in North America are expected to total $125 million, down 40 percent from last year.Hollywood expected “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” to scorch the box office over the holiday weekend. Instead, the big-budget Warner Bros. prequel iced it over.“Furiosa,” which cost $168 million to make, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing costs, collected an estimated $25.6 million in the United States and Canada from Thursday night to Sunday. Box office analysts expected the film to take in about $5.4 million on Monday, for a holiday-weekend total of $31 million.That would be the worst Memorial Day weekend result in 43 years after adjusting for inflation — ever since “Bustin’ Loose,” a comedic drama starring Richard Pryor, collected $24 million in 1981. (Box office records exclude 2020, when most theaters were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.)The franchise’s previous chapter, “Mad Max: Fury Road,” took in $45.4 million in 2015, or roughly $61 million in today’s dollars — and that was without the benefit of a holiday weekend.Hollywood had high expectations for “Furiosa,” which Warner Bros. premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; the movie received exceptional reviews. On Sunday, however, it was unclear whether “Furiosa” would manage even first place at the box office. Analysts said the poorly reviewed “Garfield” (Sony), which cost $60 million to make, could inch ahead. It could also be a tie.Sony declared victory, saying it expected “Garfield,” produced and financed by Alcon Entertainment, to be No. 1, with $31.8 million in ticket sales. “With summer holidays beginning this week, the film is well-positioned for a long theatrical run,” Sony said, adding that it had successfully “relaunched” the lasagna-loving character as a movie franchise.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More