• A24’s Backrooms opened to $9M in Thursday night previews — surpassing Scream 7’s $7.8M and John Wick: Chapter 4’s $8.9M, and approaching Eternals’ $9.5M — a stunning result for a horror film based on a viral internet meme directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons
• The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a struggling furniture store owner who discovers an interdimensional labyrinth beneath his shop — adapted from Parsons’ own hit YouTube Backrooms web series that became a cornerstone of internet horror culture
• Critical reception has been strong: Rotten Tomatoes reviews describe the film as “extraordinarily effective” atmospheric horror — Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote that “you sit back and settle into the enigmas and the grun[ge]” — and the film has been called one of the most interesting horror releases of the year
• Backrooms is projected to challenge or potentially upset The Mandalorian and Grogu at the box office this weekend — the Star Wars film took $100M over the Memorial Day holiday but was widely considered underwhelming for franchise expectations

The Backrooms were always going to make money. The question was how much — and Thursday night answered it emphatically. A24’s Backrooms opened to $9M in previews beginning at 4 PM, Deadline reported, surpassing Scream 7’s $7.8M and eclipsing John Wick: Chapter 4’s $8.9M. It sits just below Eternals’ $9.5M — a Marvel ensemble film — which makes the comparison all the more striking for what is, on paper, a low-key A24 horror release about a furniture salesman and a labyrinth. The internet meme has officially arrived as a box office force, per Deadline.

The film’s premise stays closer to the source material than you might expect from a mainstream theatrical release. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a discount furniture store owner living in the store after a messy separation from his wife. While in the basement, Clark passes through a threshold into the Backrooms — an endless, fluorescent-lit labyrinth of identical yellow rooms that, in internet lore, represents the terrifying wrong-turn you can take out of ordinary reality. Renate Reinsve co-stars. The screenplay was written by Will Soodik, based on the web series that director Kane Parsons began making as a teenager and which accumulated hundreds of millions of views before he was old enough to vote, per the Sentinel Colorado.

What Critics Are Saying

The critical reception has matched the presale energy. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman called the film “extraordinarily effective” as atmospheric horror, writing that it generates genuine unease through craft rather than conventional shock. Rolling Out described it as a film that “burrows under the skin and stays there long after the credits roll” — placing it in the rare category of horror that relies on dread rather than cheap mechanics. Pajiba’s critic wrote that Backrooms “gripped me in ways I wasn’t immediately able to shake off,” and that the longer they sat with it, the more its intentions became clear, per Pajiba.

The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score has been described as great news for horror fans — though the Critics Consensus and full Popcornmeter were still pending as of Thursday evening. The reviews that have come in characterize Backrooms as one of the year’s most interesting horror releases: unsettling in a way that lingers, visually distinct, and carrying more thematic weight than its meme origins might suggest. For A24, which built its reputation on exactly this kind of elevated, difficult-to-categorize genre film, it reads as a signature release, per Collider.

The Internet-to-Blockbuster Pipeline

The box office projections heading into the weekend suggest Backrooms could challenge or outright upset The Mandalorian and Grogu, which took approximately $100M over the Memorial Day holiday but left industry observers underwhelmed — the consensus was that for a Star Wars film, that number is closer to Solo: A Star Wars Story territory than a genuine blockbuster. A strong Backrooms opening weekend would reshape the narrative heading into June. JoBlo noted that the comparison isn’t just statistical: Backrooms earned its preview number from a much smaller built-in fanbase than a Star Wars franchise title, making the per-theater performance potentially more impressive, per JoBlo.

What makes the result notable beyond the raw numbers is what it says about how horror audiences have evolved. The Backrooms as an internet phenomenon — creepypasta, YouTube short films, Reddit lore — built its following without any studio machinery. Kane Parsons made his web series on a camera as a teenager and turned it into one of the defining horror aesthetics of the early 2020s: liminal spaces, wrong-turn dread, the particular horror of a world that looks almost normal but isn’t. A24 acquiring and developing it into a theatrical feature with a real cast and a proper production budget was a calculated bet that that aesthetic had crossover potential. Thursday night’s $9M says it was right, per Rolling Stone.

For Parsons — who is 20 years old and making his feature debut — the numbers represent something different: the validation of an approach to filmmaking that began with a camera and an internet connection, not a film school application. The full opening weekend tracking will arrive over the next 48 hours and will give a clearer picture of where Backrooms lands. But the previews alone have already made it one of the most notable openings in A24’s history.

The post A24’s ‘Backrooms’ Opens to $9M in Previews — Beating ‘Scream 7’ and Rivaling ‘John Wick 4’ appeared first on Cream.

• One studio has attempted to make a preemptive $10 million offer for Curry Barker’s next original project — before he’s pitched a single idea
• The offer is “attempted” because Universal already holds right of first negotiation for Barker’s next feature; he’ll pitch to Universal executives first
• Barker, 26, came from YouTube — his debut feature Obsession made more money in its second weekend than its first, a near-unheard-of box office feat
• THR, which broke the story exclusively, described his rise as “a generational shift of where the industry’s next filmmakers could come from”

Curry Barker hasn’t told anyone what his next movie is. He doesn’t need to. Hollywood is already throwing eight figures at it.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, one studio has attempted to make a preemptive offer of $10 million for Barker’s next original project — sight unseen, no pitch, no logline, nothing. The 26-year-old filmmaker hasn’t even had his meeting with Universal yet, which matters because Universal holds the right of first negotiation for his next feature. That prior deal means any other studio’s offer is technically an attempted offer, not a done deal. But the fact that a competitor is willing to drop eight figures without knowing what they’re buying tells you everything about Barker’s current standing in Hollywood.

The context: Barker came from YouTube. His debut feature, Obsession, was low-budget horror — the kind of film that typically fades after its opening weekend. Instead, it increased its box office haul in its second weekend, a feat that defies normal theatrical patterns and signals genuine audience word-of-mouth rather than front-loaded opening night crowds. The second-weekend spike turned heads across the industry.

THR framed his ascent as something larger than one filmmaker getting hot: “his meteoric ascension heralds a generational shift of where the industry’s next filmmakers could come from.” The implied argument is that the pipeline from YouTube to theatrical filmmaking — which Barker appears to be proving out — could reshape where studios look for talent in the coming years.

Barker will meet with Universal executives soon to pitch his new project. Whatever he brings into that room, at least one other studio has already decided it’s worth $10 million before hearing a word of it.

The post Hollywood Is Throwing $10 Million at Curry Barker — and He Hasn’t Pitched Anything Yet appeared first on Cream.

• Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to $98M domestic over the four-day Memorial Day weekend — the lowest opening in Star Wars theatrical history, below Solo‘s $103M in 2018
• Disney had projected $102M; worldwide gross reached $167M, nearly covering the $165M production budget in its first frame
• A24’s Backrooms pushed hard for No. 1, with a $40M+ debut that would rank as the studio’s highest-grossing opening ever
• Audiences on Rotten Tomatoes called it “a perfectly enjoyable low-stakes popcorn movie” — families, not franchise obsessives, drove the turnout
• The film stars Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, with Jeremy Allen White and Sigourney Weaver in supporting roles, directed by Jon Favreau

The first Star Wars movie in seven years won the Memorial Day box office. It also posted the lowest opening in Star Wars theatrical history. Both things are true, and depending on who you ask, that’s either a crisis or exactly what Disney expected.

The final numbers for Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu came in at $98 million domestic for the four-day holiday weekend — $81 million for the traditional three-day — with a worldwide total of $167 million. Disney had projected a four-day domestic figure of $102 million on Sunday, revised slightly to $100 million by Monday evening. The actuals came in softer still.

The comparison that keeps surfacing is Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened over Memorial Day 2018 to $103 million domestically and is widely remembered as the franchise’s most significant box office stumble. The Mandalorian and Grogu fell short of that. In terms of raw opening weekend numbers, it is now the worst-performing Star Wars film in the franchise’s theatrical history.

The Case for Not Panicking

The production budget was $165 million — modest by current blockbuster standards. The film covered it globally in its opening weekend, before accounting for marketing costs. That’s not a bomb. It’s also not the sequel trilogy, which was chasing different demographics entirely.

IndieWire made the most useful observation: “Families, Not Fanboys, Drove The Mandalorian and Grogu Box Office — and Disney Is Fine with That.” The film was never engineered for the Reddit-and-YouTube corner of the fanbase that dissected The Last Jedi frame by frame. It’s a family adventure about a space dad and his small green son, and families showed up for it.

Audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes reinforced that read. The consensus from viewers called it “a perfectly enjoyable low-stakes popcorn movie” that delivered on the relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu and “exciting action set pieces.” Nobody walked out angry. Nobody is writing think-pieces about betrayal.

Comicbook.com pushed back on the broader narrative, arguing that “what everyone is getting wrong about the box office” is the comparison itself — that The Mandalorian and Grogu was never competing against The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. Those films drew audiences who grew up with the original trilogy and were hungry for a return. This film drew people who watch The Mandalorian on Disney+ and wanted to see it bigger. Those are different audiences with different behavior patterns.

The Backrooms Factor

The weekend’s other major story was A24’s Backrooms, the adaptation of internet horror creator Kane Parsons’ YouTube IP, which opened with an estimated $40 million or more — a figure that would represent the highest opening weekend in A24’s history. That a sub-$10 million horror film from a first-time narrative director effectively challenged a Star Wars movie at the Memorial Day box office is its own kind of story, and one that studios are going to be studying for a while.

Backrooms had the same weekend that The Mandalorian and Grogu was supposed to own. The fact that it didn’t is part of why the post-weekend discourse has been so loud.

What Comes Next

Jon Favreau directed and produced the film, with Pedro Pascal returning as Din Djarin alongside Jeremy Allen White and Sigourney Weaver. The film’s global run is just beginning — international markets will matter considerably for how the final numbers look by the time it leaves theaters.

The Ringer framed the weekend with the starkest possible take: “The Mandalorian and Grogu Is the End of Star Wars as We Know It.” Their podcast brought in Star Wars superfan Van Lathan to discuss who the movie was actually made for and whether it marks an end of an era for the franchise at large. It’s a reasonable question, even if the answer isn’t as clean as the headline suggests.

Star Wars last opened a movie in theaters in December 2019. Seven years later, the franchise came back with a family film that opened below expectations and still made its budget back in four days. Whether that’s a failure, a pivot, or just the new reality of a franchise that peaked a decade ago probably depends on how much you loved the sequel trilogy — and whether you have a kid who cried when Grogu showed up on the big screen.

The post The Mandalorian and Grogu Opened to a Series-Low $98M — Here’s Why Disney Isn’t Panicking appeared first on Cream.

• Early tracking for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow projects a $47M–$65M domestic opening weekend
• The film cost $175M to produce plus an estimated $75M in marketing — putting break-even around $500M globally
• It opens June 26 and is the second film in James Gunn’s rebooted DC Universe after Superman
• Milly Alcock stars as Kara Zor-El; the film is directed by Craig Gillespie
• Analysts note the numbers would fall significantly below last year’s Superman debut

The early numbers for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow are making people nervous.

Box Office Theory projections cited by industry observers suggest the Warner Bros. film — opening June 26 — is currently tracking for a domestic debut somewhere between $47 million and $65 million. For a superhero tentpole with a $175 million production budget and roughly $75 million more in marketing costs, that puts break-even around $500 million globally. A $65 million opening doesn’t get you there.

The figures would also represent a significant step down from last year’s Superman, which opened the James Gunn-era DCU on stronger footing. As the second chapter in that reboot, Supergirl was supposed to build momentum, not create doubt.

What’s Behind the Numbers

Directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), the film stars Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El — the same Alcock who made a brief cameo in Superman and generated genuine excitement in the role. The creative case for the film exists. The commercial math, at least at this stage, is what’s raising eyebrows.

Early tracking is not destiny. Films can overperform projections based on reviews, word of mouth, and marketing pushes in the final weeks. But when analysts are already flagging concern this far out, it tends to shape the conversation going into release.

The Bigger Picture

For Gunn’s DC reboot, the stakes are real. Superman was the proof of concept. Supergirl is supposed to show the universe can sustain itself beyond its hero. A soft opening wouldn’t sink the project — but it would complicate the story Warner Bros. wants to tell about where the DCU is heading.

June 26 will tell us a lot.

The post Supergirl’s Early Box Office Tracking Has Hollywood Worried appeared first on Cream.

• ‘The Housemaid’ grossed nearly $400 million worldwide and became the top Pay One title ever on Starz
• Lionsgate posted $906.5 million in quarterly revenue, beating Wall Street’s $810.6 million forecast
• The motion picture group saw revenue jump 23% and segment profit climb 39% year-over-year
• CEO Jon Feltheimer says the studio’s library has hit $1 billion in trailing 12-month revenue for three straight quarters
• ‘Michael,’ the Michael Jackson biopic, wasn’t even counted — it hits theaters in April after the quarter closed

The Housemaid didn’t just break hearts at the box office — it quietly rescued Lionsgate’s bottom line. The studio posted $906.5 million in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31, blowing past Wall Street’s projection of $810.6 million and marking a 4.7% increase over the same period last year.

The motion picture group was the engine behind it all. Segment revenue hit $651.9 million — up 23% year-over-year — while segment profit climbed 39% to $187.1 million, compared to $135.3 million in the prior-year quarter. Adjusted net income came in at $111.6 million, or 37 cents per share, well ahead of analysts’ 23-cent estimate. Lionsgate’s stock jumped 3.8% in after-hours trading to $13.80 per share.

The Housemaid was the centerpiece of it all. The thriller grossed nearly $400 million at the worldwide box office, had a strong PVOD run once it left theaters, and landed as the top Pay One title ever on Starz — the studio’s sister streaming service. That kind of multi-window performance is exactly what a mid-sized studio like Lionsgate needs to compete, and this one delivered on every front.

The quarter also got a boost from sequels to Greenland and The Strangers, plus strong ancillary performance from Now You See Me: Now You Don’t and healthy library sales. Lionsgate’s library has now hit $1 billion in trailing 12-month revenue for three consecutive quarters — a milestone CEO Jon Feltheimer is clearly proud of.

“All of the pieces of our business are coming together,” Feltheimer said. “Our library has achieved a billion dollars in trailing 12-month revenue for three quarters in a row, more than half of our film, television and live entertainment slates are comprised of branded, repeatable properties, and massive hits like ‘The Housemaid’ and ‘Michael’ are strengthening our brand and increasing our forward visibility. We enter fiscal 27 positioned to deliver the earnings power and value creation that our shareholders expect.”

The TV Side Took a Hit — But There’s a Plan

Not everything was rosy. Lionsgate’s television production arm had a rough quarter, with revenue falling sharply to $254.6 million from $543.3 million a year ago, and segment profit dropping to $30.5 million from $40.6 million. The studio was quick to point out the drop was a timing issue — episodic deliveries didn’t land in the same window as the year-ago period — rather than a sign of weakness in the slate itself.

And that slate is genuinely strong. Lionsgate TV produces The Studio for Apple TV+, the fan-favorite Yellowjackets, and The Rainmaker. The company says it expects to double its scripted deliveries in fiscal 2027 compared to 2026, which should make the TV numbers look considerably healthier this time next year.

The Best Part? ‘Michael’ Wasn’t Even in the Numbers

Here’s what makes this quarter even more remarkable: Michael, Lionsgate’s blockbuster musical biopic about Michael Jackson, didn’t open until April — meaning none of its ticket sales counted toward these results. The film is already on track to cross $300 million domestically, which means the studio’s next earnings report could be even more impressive.

For a studio that spent a few years fighting through a theatrical slump, Lionsgate is looking like it’s firmly back. The Housemaid did the heavy lifting this quarter. Now it’s Michael’s turn.

The post How ‘The Housemaid’ Saved Lionsgate’s Quarter appeared first on Cream.

• Obsession became the cheapest film to top the box office in 17 years, beating out the record set by Paranormal Activity in 2009.
• The film was made for just $750,000 and has already earned $27 million worldwide after only a few days in release.
• Director Curry Barker is a former YouTuber making his theatrical debut, continuing a growing Hollywood trend.
• Star Inde Navarrette’s performance is generating serious awards buzz, rare for a horror film.
• The Mandalorian and Grogu looms next weekend, but Obsession’s word-of-mouth momentum is already extraordinary.

Obsession just made box office history — and it did it on a budget that most Hollywood productions spend on craft services.

The horror film from director Curry Barker hit number one at the box office on Monday, making it the cheapest movie to top the charts in 17 years. The last film to do it? Paranormal Activity in 2009 — a film that famously cost $15,000, was shot in a single house, and became one of the most unlikely blockbusters in cinema history. Obsession’s reported budget of $750,000 is higher than that, but in the landscape of wide-release studio films, it’s essentially the same category: a miracle.

On Monday alone, Obsession earned $2.9 million, pushing its worldwide total to $27 million. That’s after opening to $16.1 million domestically over the weekend — good enough for third place behind the Michael biopic ($26.1 million) and The Devil Wears Prada 2 ($18 million), but the highest new opening of the weekend and well above pre-release tracking that had it topping out around $15 million. Add in $7 million overseas and a $2.6 million Wednesday preview haul on premium large format screens, and the numbers tell a story that’s hard to believe.

Obsession was produced for less than $1 million. Focus Features acquired it out of TIFF for a reported $14 million — an aggressive bet that is paying off in a very big way.

The Movie Everyone’s Talking About

The film follows Bear (Michael Johnston), a guy with a crush who uses a mysterious toy called the “One Wish Willow” to wish that his friend Nikki loved him “more than anyone in the world.” As you might expect, the results are not what he had in mind. Inde Navarrette plays Nikki — and the performance has become the story within the story. She goes from overbearing romantic to full psychopath, sometimes within the same scene, and audiences and critics alike have been floored by it. The film holds a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences, and earned a rare A- CinemaScore — the kind of score that tells you word of mouth isn’t just going to be good, it’s going to be relentless.

/Film called it a “confident crowd-pleaser.” IndieWire’s review out of TIFF noted the film’s chilling relatability — that it dares to challenge men in the audience to ask whether they’re capable of doing what Bear does, effectively stripping away another person’s autonomy. That discomfort is clearly landing. Awards conversations for Navarrette have already started, which is almost unheard of for a horror film at this stage.

The audience breakdown is also striking. About 75% of viewers were under 35, with the 25-34 bracket being the largest single group. The film skewed slightly male, but 41% of the audience was female, and 32% was Hispanic. On Saturday to Sunday, it dropped just 11% — a stat that exhibitors notice, because it signals a film that people are recommending to each other in real time.

The YouTuber Who Shocked Hollywood

Barker came up as a content creator on YouTube, and ahead of the film’s release, he was clear about what kind of filmmaker he wanted to be. “I don’t want to put myself in a box,” he said. “The movies I want to make are the ones I would be excited to go see at the theater.” Clearly, a lot of people felt the same way.

He’s part of a growing wave. Markiplier’s Iron Lung brought in $50 million on a $3–4 million budget. Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me earned $92 million on $4.5 million. And now A24 is betting on Kane Parsons’ Backrooms — born from a viral YouTube series — to be one of its biggest releases ever. But none of those had a budget as low as Obsession’s, and none generated this kind of awards conversation.

Focus Features ran a marketing campaign that matched the film’s energy. Cryptic billboards. A campaign where fans could sign up to receive texts from Nikki — 30,000 people did. A series of Discord quests targeting gamers that drew over a million participants in just over a week. AMC secured Dolby Cinema screens and offered an exclusive popcorn tin. Alamo Drafthouse named it an Alamo Recommend and hosted a live-streamed Q&A with Barker. It was old-school and new-school at once, and it worked.

“If we really want to make exhibition feel whole again, we need more movies like Obsession,” Focus Features distribution chief Lisa Bunnell said. “It’s nice to see a movie that surprises people and shows them there’s a lot of talent out there left to be seen. We’re taking seriously that people are discovering talent and content in new ways, and instead of dismissing it we’re saying, how are we able to take this to the big screen and really showcase the talent? I think that inspires young people. And if you can give them hope … that’s a beautiful thing.”

What Comes Next

The comparison points being thrown around right now are Hereditary — which opened to $13.5 million and finished with $90.3 million worldwide — and Barbarian, which opened to $10.5 million and closed at $46.1 million. Both were buzzy, word-of-mouth horror films from first-time directors. Obsession opened bigger than either of them.

The immediate challenge is The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars film in seven years, which is projected to open somewhere between $80–100 million next weekend. That’s a wall. But Obsession’s Saturday-to-Sunday hold and its Monday surge suggest this isn’t a film that collapses — it builds. Paranormal Activity opened to just $77,000, lost steam, then came back to win the box office in its fifth weekend. The situations aren’t identical, but the DNA is familiar.

Barker already has two more horror films in development, a comedy, and an original take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He’s also been talking about Obsession sequels and an anthology series exploring different wishes and their consequences. For now, all eyes are on this weekend — and whether a little horror movie about a wish gone wrong can hold its own against Baby Yoda.

The post Obsession Sets a 17-Year Box Office Record appeared first on Cream.

• The Mandalorian and Grogu is projected to earn $80–100M domestically over Memorial Day weekend — in line with the disastrous Solo opening
• Critics have largely panned the film, with outlets calling it “drab,” “lifeless,” and asking someone to “put Star Wars out of its misery”
• Industry analysts say Star Wars is failing to connect with younger moviegoers the way it did with older generations
• The film’s $165M budget is the leanest Star Wars production since Revenge of the Sith, lowering the bar for profitability
• Eyes are already turning to 2027’s Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy, as the franchise’s real reset

The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters on May 22 carrying the full weight of a franchise in crisis — and the reviews aren’t helping.

When the critic embargo lifted Tuesday morning, the headlines were brutal. The Independent’s piece was headlined “Stick a fork in Star Wars. It’s done.” The Times of London asked, “Would someone please put Star Wars out of its misery?” Vulture called it “drab and stone-faced to a fault” with “lifeless performances that seem determined to lull us to sleep.” Even the more charitable takes weren’t exactly rallying cries — the New York Post’s Johnny Oleksinski called it “an elongated and beefed-up episode of television” that’s “likable enough,” while Variety’s Owen Gleiberman settled on “nothing more (or less) than a couple of likable, diverting, semi-forgettable episodes jammed together.” IGN gave it a 5/10, writing that if you’re “looking for a Star Wars movie that thrills, surprises, challenges, or demonstrates a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change… The Mandalorian and Grogu is not the way.”

That’s not what Disney needed to hear.

Box office tracking puts the film at $80–100 million domestically over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. For almost any other franchise, that’s a respectable number. For Star Wars — one of Hollywood’s most mythologized properties — it’s a stress test. Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian put it plainly: “It will be a stress test for the ‘Star Wars’ brand.”

The uncomfortable comparison is 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened to $84 million over the same holiday weekend and ultimately became the first Star Wars film to lose money in theaters, finishing with $392 million globally against a nearly $300 million budget. The Mandalorian and Grogu has a far leaner $165 million production budget — the cheapest Star Wars film since Revenge of the Sith in 2005 — which meaningfully lowers the break-even point. But the optics of matching Solo’s opening number are hard to spin.

A Generation That Grew Up Without Star Wars in Theaters

The film is the first Star Wars theatrical release in six and a half years, since The Rise of Skywalker divided audiences and critics alike in December 2019. That gap means there’s a whole cohort of young kids who have never experienced a Star Wars movie opening weekend — which director Jon Favreau has said is very much on his mind. “I want to make the next generation feel the way about Star Wars that I did when I saw it for the first time,” he told the Associated Press.

It’s a noble goal. But industry analysts aren’t sure the current moment is the one that delivers it.

“There’s clearly interest in the brand,” said Eric Handler, senior media analyst at Roth Capital Partners. “But revenues for each film have gotten progressively lower. Star Wars isn’t resonating with younger moviegoers like it did for [older] generations.”

The numbers back him up. The Force Awakens, which relaunched the franchise in 2015, earned over $2 billion globally and remains the highest-grossing domestic release of all time at $936 million. The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker were both billion-dollar films — but each earned roughly half of what their predecessor did. The only post-Disney spinoff that truly worked was Rogue One, which crossed $1 billion in 2016. Since then, it’s been a slow bleed.

The challenge Favreau and Lucasfilm co-CEO Dave Filoni face with this film is a specific one: convincing the show’s streaming audience to actually get off the couch and buy a movie ticket. The Mandalorian was a genuine phenomenon when it launched on Disney+ in 2019 — Baby Yoda broke the internet, became a meme ecosystem unto itself, and turned Grogu into one of the most recognizable characters in pop culture. But streaming audiences and theatrical audiences don’t always overlap. Marvel has run into the same wall: last year’s Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts, both preceded by Disney+ series, underperformed at the box office despite built-in fan bases.

“The biggest challenge is whether the streaming audience converts into a theatrical audience,” said Shawn Robbins, Fandango’s director of movie analytics and founder of Box Office Theory. “If word of mouth is good, that’ll be the big X factor.”

There’s also the small matter of the show’s declining quality in its later seasons — ratings and reviews dipped noticeably by Season 3 of The Mandalorian, giving casual fans less incentive to stay invested heading into a theatrical continuation.

Grogu Merch Is Everywhere. Ticket Sales Are the Question.

What’s not in doubt is Grogu’s commercial appeal off-screen. The little green guy’s face is currently stamped on Bath & Body Works soaps, Nilla Wafers’ “Grogu Nilla Nummies,” Pop Mart blind boxes, and a line of green Schick razors, among other collaborations. As Robbins put it: “Grogu is going to be a merchandising monster.”

That’s the broader Star Wars reality — the franchise is a sprawling ecosystem of theme park attractions, toys, and licensing deals that generates enormous revenue regardless of whether any individual film hits. Analysts are quick to point out that box office performance, while important for optics, is only one corner of that universe.

Still, the marketing campaign for the film reportedly raised some internal eyebrows. One source told Page Six that a member of the marketing team expressed concern they hadn’t had enough time to screen the film and properly build a campaign around it. Promotion, the source noted, basically boiled down to: “Look how adorable Grogu is!” — which may explain why, in a recent Fandango survey asking thousands of moviegoers to name their top 10 most anticipated films of the summer, The Mandalorian and Grogu didn’t make the list.

All Eyes on Starfighter

Inside Lucasfilm and among box office watchers, there’s a growing sense that the franchise’s real shot at revival isn’t this movie — it’s next summer’s Star Wars: Starfighter.

Directed by Shawn Levy, who brought enormous energy to Deadpool & Wolverine, and starring Ryan Gosling fresh off the success of Project Hail Mary, Starfighter is a standalone film set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker in a time period the franchise hasn’t explored yet. Levy has been emphatic that it’s a clean break. “It’s a new adventure,” he said at Star Wars Celebration 2025. “It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet.” No legacy characters, no Skywalker baggage, no sequel obligations.

Handler sees it clearly: “Disney needs something new and exciting to bring energy to the franchise. Ryan Gosling is as hot as can be right now. ‘Starfighter’ could be the way to go.”

For now, though, the focus is on this weekend. Dergarabedian is watching the second-week drop closely — a 55% decline would signal genuine audience engagement; a 70% freefall would tell a different story entirely. “There’s been just this feeling of disappointment and almost… not anger. But just very critical of the creative direction that Star Wars has taken over the past few years,” he said.

This is also, notably, the first major theatrical release in the post-Kathleen Kennedy era. Kennedy, who ran Lucasfilm for over two decades, stepped down earlier this year, with Filoni and Lynwen Brennan now at the helm. They have yet to reveal a broader roadmap for the franchise, though that could change at D23 in August or at next April’s Star Wars Celebration.

The Mandalorian and Grogu opens May 22. Star Wars: Starfighter is currently set for May 28, 2027.

The post Star Wars Is Losing Younger Fans — Can It Survive? appeared first on Cream.

• Antoine Fuqua’s Michael reclaims No. 1 in its fourth weekend with an estimated $27 million domestically
• The film has surpassed $600 million globally and is now the top-grossing music biopic in North American history
• Horror newcomer Obsession opens to a strong $15 million, earning a rare A- CinemaScore
• Mortal Kombat II craters with a brutal 67% second-weekend drop
• Michael is on pace to become the first biopic ever to cross $1 billion worldwide

Two weekends was long enough. Michael, Antoine Fuqua’s sweeping ode to the King of Pop, has reclaimed the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office in its fourth weekend in theaters — and it’s showing no signs of slowing down on its march toward history.

The Lionsgate and producer Graham King film is estimated to earn around $27 million this weekend, a remarkably slim 28% drop from last weekend, pushing its domestic total past $280 million. More striking: the film has already sailed past the $600 million mark globally and is now the top-grossing music biopic in North American history, surpassing Bohemian Rhapsody without adjusting for inflation. The target it’s now chasing? The $330 million domestic and $975 million global record set by Oppenheimer — which would make Michael the first biopic ever to reach $1 billion worldwide.

Part of what’s fueling this weekend’s resurgence is real estate. Last weekend, nearly all Imax screens went to Mortal Kombat II. That film underperformed badly, and as a result, much of its premium large-format footprint has been handed back to Michael — giving Jaafar Jackson’s portrayal of his uncle a fresh boost heading into what is already a historically strong run.

Prada Still Pulling Its Weight

The Devil Wears Prada 2 holds at No. 2, though its post-Mother’s Day hangover is showing. David Frankel’s sequel dropped 52% in its third weekend for an estimated $20 million, bringing its domestic total to around $177 million. Still, Disney and 20th Century have every reason to smile: on Friday, the film crossed the $500 million mark globally, making it the top-grossing female-led film since Barbie, not adjusted for inflation. It’s on course to hit $200 million domestic and $600 million worldwide — a genuine hit by any measure, even if the crown belongs to someone else this weekend.

A Horror Breakout Worth Paying Attention To

The most exciting story of the weekend might belong to Obsession, the debut feature from 26-year-old director Curry Barker, which opens in third place with an estimated $15 million from 2,815 locations — well above the $10–12 million projections. Focus Features acquired the film out of its TIFF midnight section premiere for around $15 million, and it cost a mere $1 million to produce, making this weekend’s result an extraordinary return.

The film follows Michael Johnston as a young man hopelessly in love with his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette), who splits a “One Wish Willow” and wishes for her to love him back — with catastrophic results. Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter also star. Critics and audiences are equally obsessed: the film holds a 95% score from both camps on Rotten Tomatoes and earned a rare A- on CinemaScore, putting it in company with films like Get Out. It’s the strongest opening for Focus Features since Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale debuted to $18 million last September.

Barker built his following through a YouTube sketch comedy channel called That’s a Bad Idea, then made an $800 found-footage feature called Milk & Serial that went viral and had every agency in town calling. He ultimately signed with UTA, and based on this debut, the industry’s attention seems well placed.

Mortal Kombat II Takes the Hit

The weekend’s biggest loser is Mortal Kombat II, which cratered 67% in its second frame for an estimated $12–13 million, bringing its domestic total to around $61.5 million. The Warner Bros./New Line sequel opened to a tepid $38 million last weekend and never found its footing beyond its core fanbase. At this trajectory, it will likely finish its North American run in the neighborhood of $84 million — similar to Warner’s own Wuthering Heights — and well short of the $100 million mark.

Amazon MGM’s The Sheep Detectives rounds out the top five with an estimated $10 million second weekend and a domestic total of $30 million, a solid 37% drop that reflects its strong word-of-mouth. The family comedy — executive produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and featuring Hugh Jackman as a shepherd who unknowingly read detective novels aloud to a very attentive flock — still needs a strong showing next weekend when Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives to consume every premium screen in sight.

That Star Wars juggernaut will also effectively end Michael‘s Imax run — but by then, the film may already have history in its pocket.

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• Obsession earned $2.6M in Thursday-Wednesday previews, topping Smile’s $2M preview number before its $22.6M opening.
• The film was made for just $750,000 — and Focus Features bought it for $15 million after its TIFF debut.
• Director Curry Barker is a YouTube filmmaker making his big-screen debut with the romantic horror film.
• Obsession holds a 95% critics score and 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes heading into opening weekend.
• The film is projected to earn between $9.5M and $14.5M in its domestic opening weekend.

Obsession is arriving in theaters this weekend with serious momentum behind it — and the early numbers are backing up the hype. The romantic horror film from first-time big-screen director Curry Barker pulled in $2.6 million in previews spanning Thursday night through Wednesday shows, a figure that already puts it ahead of where Paramount’s Smile stood before that film opened to $22.6 million.

For a movie that cost $750,000 to make, that’s a pretty stunning place to be.

Barker — who built his following through his YouTube channel “that’s a bad idea” — made the film on a shoestring, then watched his life change overnight when Focus Features and Blumhouse picked it up for $15 million following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025. “That’s the moment my life changed,” Barker said in a recent New Yorker featurette. The film’s actual budget — which he confirmed at $750,000 — is even lower than the $1 million figure previously reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie follows Baron “Bear” Bailey (Michael Johnston), a young man who comes across a trinket that grants him the ability to wish the girl of his dreams — his co-worker and childhood friend Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette) — into falling in love with him. As you’d expect, chaos follows. The film almost earned an NC-17 rating due to one particularly violent scene that had to be toned down before release.

It’s now booked at 2,542 locations, including 435 premium large-format screens — a wide release footprint that makes its microscopic budget feel almost absurd in context.

Critics and Audiences Are All In

Obsession is riding into the weekend with a 95% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 110 reviews, alongside a 96% audience score. What makes those numbers even more remarkable is the timeline: the film allowed critics to share scores as early as March, when it briefly hit 97% — which Forbes noted would make it the best-reviewed wide-release film of 2026 at that point. It’s dipped a few points since more reviews came in, but the reception has stayed overwhelmingly positive.

Its closest comps in the indie horror space are A24’s Heretic and Talk to Me, both of which opened to $1.2M in Friday previews before earning $10.8M and $10.4M respectively in their opening weekends. Obsession has already cleared both of those preview marks.

Current box office projections put the film at around $11 million for its opening weekend domestically, with a range of $9.5M to $14.5M according to BoxOfficeTheory — a significant jump from the $7M estimate when tracking first began, and miles ahead of an early BoxOffice Pro range of just $4M to $6M. Given its $750,000 budget, the film technically only needs to gross $1.8 million to break even on production costs alone, meaning this weekend’s haul will already be a massive win before a single international dollar is counted.

What It’s Up Against This Weekend

The bigger question heading into the weekend is whether Obsession can shake up a box office that was shaping up to be a two-horse race. Lionsgate’s Michael is heading into its fourth weekend, and 20th Century Studios’ Devil Wears Prada 2 is in its third — both were tracking north of $20 million each before Obsession’s preview numbers landed. New Line’s Mortal Kombat 2 is also still in the mix, though it’s expected to drop around 60% to roughly $15M.

Also opening this weekend are Guy Ritchie’s In the Grey — starring Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Eiza González as a covert ops team on a near-impossible heist mission — and Is God Is, the feature directorial debut of Aleshea Harris, adapted from her award-winning stage play and starring Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Janelle Monáe, and Sterling K. Brown. Is God Is is sitting at an extraordinary 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Neither is expected to challenge Obsession’s numbers this weekend, but both are generating serious critical attention.

Looking further ahead, Obsession will face two horror releases in the coming weeks — Paramount’s Passenger and A24’s Backrooms — so this opening weekend matters. The town is clearly paying close attention to Barker: beyond Obsession, his follow-up film starring Aaron Paul has already landed at Focus Features, and he’s set to direct a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie for A24.

For now, though, all eyes are on this weekend. A $2.6M preview haul from a film that cost less than most music videos to produce is the kind of story Hollywood genuinely loves — and it’s only just getting started.

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• The Devil Wears Prada 2 has grossed $433.2 million globally in under two weeks, surpassing the original’s entire run.
• The film’s plot tackles media industry collapse, AI-driven layoffs, and the death of print journalism.
• Disney’s marketing campaign secured brand partnerships valued at $250 million — the studio’s largest ever by number of partners.
• The first trailer broke 20th Century’s record with 222 million views in its first 24 hours.
• Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci all return, alongside new cast members and a Lady Gaga cameo.

Twenty years after Miranda Priestly first made an entire industry flinch, The Devil Wears Prada 2 has arrived — and it’s not just a sequel. It’s a $433 million cultural event that nobody, apparently, was prepared for.

In under two weeks, the film has already blown past the original’s $326 million lifetime global haul. As of Mother’s Day weekend, it sits at $433.2 million worldwide — $144.8 million domestically and a staggering $288.4 million overseas — making it the biggest female-led movie since Barbie in 2023. It dropped only 43 percent in its second domestic weekend, which in Hollywood terms is the sign of a genuine word-of-mouth sensation, not just opening-weekend hype.

What nobody quite anticipated was how much the movie would resonate beyond the fashion world. Yes, there are the stilettos and the cerulean callbacks and the Dior. But the story driving this sequel is something rawer: the slow-motion collapse of journalism as we knew it.

The Movie’s Real Villain Is the Media Industry

“Do you remember when magazines were a thing?” It’s a throwaway line from Emily — now a top Dior executive, once Miranda’s first assistant — but it lands like a gut punch for anyone who’s worked in media. That single question essentially announces what this film is actually about.

Meryl Streep returns as Miranda Priestly, still the editor-in-chief of Runway. Stanley Tucci is back as Nigel, her right-hand man. Emily Blunt’s Emily has climbed to the executive ranks at Dior. And Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs, once the second assistant who barely survived Miranda’s orbit, is now Runway’s features editor — which means she has a front-row seat to everything falling apart. Layoffs. AI gutting editorial jobs. A media landscape increasingly dependent on tech money and the moods of tech billionaires to keep the lights on.

Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, who also wrote the original, was direct about why she wanted to go there. “It seemed like they would be in the same type of existential crises that we are in in Hollywood, frankly — a massive amount of pressure to make everything monetized to within an inch of itself, in a world where we don’t know how to make money off of digital media,” she said. “And you know, it’s a comedy. So distress is your friend.”

Director David Frankel — whose father was an executive editor at The New York Times — didn’t soften it. “I do think it’s horrible what’s happened to journalists,” he said. “The movie is meant to spread joy and give some relief from the harsh realities of the world we live in. But I think the best kinds of entertainment are ones that meld some frothiness with some undergirding of serious intent. Journalism is in a bad place right now, objectively. Any time you’re living in a country where the First Amendment is under assault, you need to be concerned.”

Audiences, it turns out, were ready to hear it. The vegetables blended into the froth, as one observer put it, went down just fine — $240 million in opening weekend alone.

How Disney Pulled Off the Biggest Female-Led Marketing Campaign in Years

The path to this moment wasn’t obvious. When it became clear that Avengers: Doomsday wouldn’t be ready to open the summer, Disney movie chief Alan Bergman made a call that raised eyebrows internally: put The Devil Wears Prada 2 in the May 5 slot. The original, after all, had opened in early summer 2006 against Superman Returns and won — costing just $40 million to make while earning $326 million. The sequel cost $100 million and, so far, it’s looking like an even better bet.

But selling a sequel set two decades later, in a world where the glamour of print media has been replaced by existential dread about it, required something extraordinary. Disney’s marketing team — led by Martha Morrison, head of marketing at Disney Entertainment Studios, and Lylle Breier, executive VP of partnerships — built what the studio describes as the largest brand partnership campaign in its history by number of partners, with contributions valued at $250 million.

“The partnership campaigns are incomparable to anything we’ve done before,” Breier told The Hollywood Reporter. “We set out to have it be the best marketing partnership program that’s ever launched, and I think even delivered it ahead of a movie like Avengers.”

The partner list reads like a luxury department store directory: Dior (which plays a key role in the film itself), Google, Coca-Cola (running campaigns for both Diet Coke and Smartwater), Grey Goose, Mercedes-Benz, L’Oréal Paris, Lancôme, Zillow, TRESemmé, and United Airlines, among dozens of others. The fashion and beauty industry’s enthusiasm for this one was a complete reversal from 2006, when most luxury houses steered clear for fear of upsetting Anna Wintour.

This time, Disney was flooded with requests.

The moments that cut through were the clever ones. At the Academy Awards, Hathaway and Wintour presented together and riffed on the first film — a full-circle moment that generated headlines globally. L’Oréal Paris launched its Prada campaign at the Oscars with a spot featuring Kendall Jenner being mistaken for a new Miranda assistant candidate, alongside Simone Ashley, who plays an assistant in the sequel. It went viral immediately, exactly as intended.

Lancôme used the film to launch its new “Age is Nothing But a Number” Longevity MD skincare line, with a spot featuring Prada 2 co-stars Caleb Hearon and Pauline Chalamet — yes, Timothée Chalamet’s sister — desperately trying to track down the product for their boss. A second spot had Chalamet running into Lancôme ambassador Isabella Rossellini playing a Miranda-type figure. It was the luxury brand’s first-ever official Hollywood partnership.

“We wanted everything to be funny and bespoke,” Breier said. “But again, one of the things we really tried hard to do is not give away the movie, or have the brand spots use a ton of movie footage, but instead be part of the world.”

Even the unofficial moments worked. When Streep appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in early April wearing a blue cashmere J.Crew sweater — a nod to Miranda’s famous cerulean lecture — the $198 custom piece sold out almost immediately. A $49.99 version did too.

The first trailer, released in February, racked up more than 222 million views in its first 24 hours, becoming the most-watched trailer in 20th Century’s history. The team’s biggest challenge from there was converting that enthusiasm among older audiences into genuine ticket sales from Gen Z and younger Millennials. On opening day, 29 percent of buyers were between 25 and 34, with another 11 percent between 18 and 24. Mission accomplished.

The timing helped too. The film opened May 5, which meant its stars — including Lady Gaga, who makes a cameo — were making headlines at the Met Gala the very next day. Mother’s Day fell on its second weekend. It beat Mortal Kombat II in a domestic upset. Everything clicked.

Fashion, the Devil, and a Very Long History

At the world premiere, Streep leaned all the way into Miranda’s devilish mythology — arriving in long black gloves, Miranda’s signature sunglasses, and a flowing red leather cape from Givenchy’s Winter 2026 collection. It was a moment, and a deliberate one.

The “devil” in the title has always done more work than it appears. Fashion and Christianity have been tangled together for centuries — sometimes as adversaries, sometimes as strange collaborators. The 18th-century founder of Methodism, John Wesley, urged his followers to dress “neatly” and “plainly” as an expression of faith. Fashion, by contrast, was long cast as the enemy of spiritual purity: material desire made wearable.

And yet Christian imagery has shaped the industry in ways that are hard to overstate. Designers from Cristóbal Balenciaga to Geoffrey Beene drew on the austere elegance of Catholic vestments. Gianni Versace put the Virgin Mary on a bejeweled halter top in his Fall/Winter 1991 collection — a moment that, according to Wake Forest University religion scholar Lynn S. Neal, reflected a broader cultural shift away from institutional religion toward individual spiritual expression. “Christian symbols were lifted from church contexts and recirculated through popular culture, including fashion, in new ways,” Neal writes in her research on the subject.

Dolce & Gabbana have returned to Christian themes repeatedly — their 1998 “Stromboli” collection, their 2013 “Tailored Mosaic” line inspired by Sicilian cathedral mosaics, and most recently a 2025 menswear collection drawing on Catholic priestly vestments. At New York Fashion Week in 2026, a luxury brand called YesuGod sent looks down the runway adorned with the words “anno domini” and “the Lord is Coming.”

The devil, by contrast, has always been a bit player in this story — showing up in mid-century perfume ads and lingerie campaigns as a symbol of delicious transgression, then fading again. It’s the saints, Mary, and the iconography of holiness that have genuinely taken root on the runway.

Which makes it fitting, in a way, that Miranda Priestly — imperious, untouchable, dressed in white — has always read less like a devil and more like a deity. The title was always a bit of misdirection. The real power in that story, and in this one, isn’t hellish at all.

“Reminding people what they love so much about the first movie and then asking them to come and revisit these characters and see where they are 20 years later,” Morrison said, “was definitely a big factor in getting all audiences of all ages excited.”

At $433 million and climbing, it seems safe to say they succeeded.

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