Latest news with #Mission:Impossible—TheFinalReckoning
Korea Herald
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Box office suffers historic first-half decline as theaters adapt survival strategies
Revenue plunges 33 percent while multiplexes pivot to exclusive programming and government hands out discount coupons It's almost a truism at this point to say that movie theaters are in deep trouble, and Thursday's midyear report from the Korean Film Council confirmed it once again with hard numbers. According to the report, box office revenue declined 33 percent year-on-year to 408 billion won ($293 million) in the first half of 2025, with attendance dropping 32.5 percent. Only two films managed to break the 30 billion won threshold: Tom Cruise's Hollywood blockbuster "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" led with 32.9 billion won from 3.36 million admissions, followed closely by local crime thriller "Yadang: The Snitch" at 32 billion, which drew 3.38 million viewers. No release came close to the 10 million admission mark — the traditional benchmark for mega-hit status in Korea. Compare that to last year's first half, when "Exhuma" raked in 115 billion won from nearly 12 million tickets and "The Roundup: Punishment" pulled similar numbers. Local productions took the biggest hit, plunging 43 percent to 203.8 billion won. Foreign films fared better but still declined 19 percent, with the international box office take dropping to 204 billion won. Survival mode: multiplexes go niche Faced with this new reality, multiplex chains are throwing out the old playbook. Instead of banking on wide releases, they are getting creative with curation and exclusive programming that caters to dedicated fanbases, the report also showed. Megabox launched "Mega Only," a monthly exclusive release program targeting niche audiences with specialized content. Its exclusive screening of the hit anime franchise "Attack on Titan: The Last Attack" made 9.5 billion won with 920,000 admissions, setting a record for single-theater releases. The program expands next week with an exclusive screening of "First Summer," Heo Ga-young's student short that won top prize at Cannes' La Cinef competition. Lotte Cinema, which announced its merger with Megabox in May, scored with the animated short "Magic Candies" in May, earning 500 million won from 100,000 viewers to rank third all-time for short films. Market leader CGV is doubling down on its premium formats to showcase fandom-targeted content, particularly concert films. The chain's panoramic ScreenX theaters hosted "IU Concert: The Winning" in January, capturing the K-pop star's world tour encore. July brought "Hybe Cine Fest in Asia," a sprawling showcase of BTS, Seventeen and other Hybe acts where fans could sing along during screenings. Signs of hope, but no guarantees Can the second half turn things around? For one thing, the government's betting on it. Starting July 25, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism rolled out 6,000 won discount coupons to slash ticket prices. Early signs look promising — "My Daughter is a Zombie" scored the year's biggest opening day on July 30 with 430,000 admissions to become the fastest 2025 release to break one million tickets over the weekend. Even "F1," in its sixth weekend, saw its biggest Saturday yet with 158,633 admissions, topping its opening Saturday's 146,966 in defiance of typical box office patterns. Heavy hitters wait in the wings for the second half of 2025. Auteur Park Chan-wook's "No Other Choice," starring Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, arrives in September fresh from this year's Venice competition. Set for release at the end of the year, Hollywood sequels "Avatar: Fire and Ash" and "Zootopia 2" could provide major boosts as well. The previous "Avatar" film drew 10.8 million admissions in 2022-2023 despite a slow COVID-19 pandemic recovery, while the original "Zootopia" sold 4.7 million tickets in 2016 with limited marketing.
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tom Cruise, Ana de Armas appear to confirm romance is not for PR
Tom Cruise, Ana de Armas appear to confirm romance is not for PR Tom Cruise and Ana de Armas appear to have confirmed they're indeed an item, and not just a PR-generated one. The Oscar nominees — who share a 26-year age difference and are expected to start filming Doug Liman's 'Deeper' next month — were spotted holding hands Sunday in Woodstock, Vermont, where they spent what looked a lot like a romantic weekend, according to photos published by TMZ. The pair reportedly started off the weekend in London at Oasis' hotly anticipated sold-out reunion show before indulging in lower-key activities — shopping, ice cream, driving through a national park — in the Green Mountain State. The outings appear to go against speculation that the actors were just hanging out to promote their recent big-ticket action flicks — his being 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' released in late May, and hers the 'John Wick' spinoff 'Ballerina' released in early June. While the final installment of 'Mission: Impossible' is now hanging onto showtimes like Cruise's Ethan Hunt hung onto a biplane — and both films, which underwhelmed at the box office, could use the push with VOD and streaming customers — they're well past the opening weekend hubbub. This makes it all the more likely that Cruise and de Armas are, in fact, for real. The suspected couple set off romance rumors in February when they were seen in London together the day before Valentine's Day. They were photographed again in the British capital in mid-March and the day before de Armas' 37th birthday in April. In late June, they were seen on a yacht in Menorca, Spain, only for a source to tell People earlier this month that the relationship was 'not romantic,' though de Armas had 'nothing but amazing things to say' about 'incredible mentor' Cruise. Cruise, 63, was previously married to Mimi Rodgers in the late 1980s, followed by a more than decade-long marriage to Nicole Kidman, with whom he shares two adopted adult children. From 2006 to 2012, he was famously married to Katie Holmes. Cruise for years has reportedly been estranged from their 19-year-old daughter, Suri, who dropped her father's surname last year. De Armas, meanwhile, has been linked to several high-profile men, including her 'Deep Water' co-star Ben Affleck in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was previously married to Spanish actor Marc Clotet from 2011 to 2013, and dated Tinder Vice President Paul Boukadakis from late 2021 to late 2024. The Daily News has reached out to reps for Cruise and de Armas for comment.
NBC News
11-07-2025
- Business
- NBC News
IMAX heads for best year ever as it capitalizes on box office rebound
More than a year before 'F1: The Movie' would eventually hit theaters, Apple struck a deal with IMAX. The studio secured the use of IMAX's camera technology as well as a three-week release in its theaters, a partnership that helped the film generate nearly $300 million globally in its first 10 days in cinemas. More than 20% of that haul came from IMAX screenings. In the U.S. and Canada, the company's theaters have accounted for 25% of all domestic ticket sales for the film. That feat is made even more impressive by the fact that IMAX screens represent less than 1% of the total movie screens worldwide. Two other films released this year have exceeded 20% market share for the company — Warner Bros.′ 'Sinners' and Paramount's 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.' It's a sign of strength for IMAX's place in the rapidly evolving film industry. IMAX has long been a coveted destination for theatrical releases, but as consumer tastes continue to shift toward premium experiences, it's quickly gaining market share and poised for exponential growth in the coming years. CEO Rich Gelfond is forecasting a $1.2 billion year at the global box for the company, which would be 33% higher than 2024′s haul and a record for the 55-year-old business. Wall Street analysts expect 2026 will be even better. 'Post-pandemic a lot of activities, especially event activities, have really done well [for] premium brands,' Gelfond told CNBC. 'You look at concerts, ticket prices went up. Premium seats have gone up. You look at sporting events, same kind of thing. Broadway. I think people, although they enjoy staying at home, streaming and watching streaming products, when they go out of the home, they want something sufficient distinguished from that.' Investors have rallied behind IMAX stock. Shares of the company are up roughly 60% in the last 12 months. IMAX screens are notably larger than standard movie screens and the theaters feature immersive audio systems. The company doesn't just screen movies, many of the films that appear in IMAX were shot using cameras and technology developed by the company specifically tailored to the IMAX viewing experience. 'This year, we have eight movies in a row in North America that were filmed with IMAX cameras, and typically the box office goes higher when you shoot with the cameras,' Gelfond said. 'And there's a couple reasons for that. One, it's a better way of watching it and listening to it. But also, the filmmakers typically get behind it more, and they tell their audiences that it's the best way to see their work. And I think that's a powerful impetus for audiences to go to IMAX.' These 'filmed for IMAX' titles include features like Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer,' Denis Villeneuve's 'Dune' films and even the latest 'Mission: Impossible' flick from Tom Cruise. Tickets to see a film in IMAX typically cost a few dollars more than standard movie tickets, which can help to boost a box office haul. 'The more 'filmed for IMAX' titles, the more outperformance you seen on the film for IMAX titles,' said Alicia Reese, analyst at Wedbush. 'The better the margins are going to be. As you see margins improve in 2025, you're going to see not just better quality title signings in 2026, but what I expect to see is that the studios will take more ownership of the marketing campaigns with even greater upside.' Roth's Eric Handler said that IMAX has a 'high-class problem of too much content availability.' The 'F1' deal for three weeks of screen programming meant that Universal's 'Jurassic World Rebirth' got edged out: the film missed out on a domestic IMAX release and was only featured on IMAX screens in China. That film will also appear in IMAX screens in Japan next month. Domestically, the movie slate is strong is 2025 and 2026, with a number of major franchise film releases on the books. Warner Bros.′ 'Superman' hits theaters Friday, and coming soon is Disney and Marvel's 'Fantastic Four: First Steps.' Then Universal's 'Wicked: For Good' arrives ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday and Disney's 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' hits theaters just before Christmas. 2026 kicks off with Amazon's 'Project Hail Mary' and will also feature a new Avengers film, the first theatrical Star Wars release since 2019, a sequel to 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie,' a live-action 'Moana' as well as 'Toy Story 5″ and 'Shrek 5.' And also in the mix is Nolan's next feature film 'The Odyssey.' New Hollywood releases are just one piece of IMAX's box office success. 'Not only are they benefiting from Hollywood's recovery, they're also taking advantage of the global footprint and showing local language movies in China, in Japan and South Korea and parts of Europe,' said Eric Handler, analyst at Roth. He noted that 'Ne Zha 2,' a Chinese release that has generated more than $2 billion in global ticket sales, was a particularly strong local language film for IMAX. The company generated nearly $170 million in receipts from screening the film. And there's still room for IMAX to grow. The company currently has around 1,700 screens worldwide, around 400 of which are in North America. Gelfond told CNBC that the company has contracts to build about 500 more IMAX screens. He said the company would share more specific details during its earnings report, which is due to be released later this month. 'We signed almost as many new theaters this year as we signed for the whole year last year,' Gelfond said. 'So there's a lot of growth.'
New York Post
06-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Expect CBS News to undergo a major overhaul under Skydance boss David Ellison
If it were, say, just a decade ago, cachet and power would be conferred on Skydance founder and CEO David Ellison, the soon-to-be chief of Paramount and its once-holy grail of TV news, CBS. Too bad it's not 10 years ago. The names Edward R. Murrow, Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite — the people who built CBS News into the paragon of TV journalism — might come up in casual conversations among old-timers like yours truly, reminiscing about how network news once controlled the political and social agenda. Or maybe they would surface in a journalism class after CBS's current management last week settled a weird lawsuit, filed by President Trump, in order to keep in the good graces of the White House and get the Skydance-Paramount merger through his FCC regulators. But I can guarantee that the 42-year-old Ellison — the son of mega-billionaire Larry Ellison of Oracle fame, who is a MAGA supporter of the president — isn't thinking about the CBS News legacy as he prepares to complete his $8 billion combo. In fact, from what I hear, continuing in the grand tradition of Murrow, Wallace and Cronkite is not at the top of Ellison's mind because, for one, it ain't so grand any longer, and two (maybe most important), he knows it's a lousy business. It's not worth the trouble that it generates. We don't even know if it's profitable since Paramount doesn't disclose the news division's P&L statements. Plus, its product has moved so far to the left that it angers more than half the country. Full disclosure: I don't know David Ellison personally but people I trust do, and they tell me he's substantive, much more than a lucky sperm kid that being Larry's son confers. His independent studio Skydance has produced such recent blockbusters as 'Top Gun: Maverick' and 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.' He doesn't get his news from TikTok — far from it. For the time being, he wants to keep the news division but also move away from its progressive leanings. (A person close to him says look for investments in 'truth-based' news.) He does appreciate the CBS News legacy that he is about to buy — as long as the numbers are working and he believes they aren't, I am told. Sports as crown jewel And that's where things could get scary for the news division. Ellison, I am told, equates CBS with football more than he does with Cronkite. If he's looking to grow stuff, he and his point man in running the new company, former NBCU chief Jeff Shell, are looking at CBS Sports as the tip of the spear. Everything else is about to get the mother of all efficiency reviews, my sources say. Layoffs are likely, as are smaller salaries and squeezed budgets. In Ellison's worldview, CBS News' legacy has cachet but when an anchor like Tony Dokoupil gets upbraided by management — as he did last year — for questioning the work of far left author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Coates' rationalization of the Oct. 7 massacre, something needs to change. It's been a long road from the time Ellison first bid on Paramount, the fading media empire created by dealmaker Sumner Redstone and left to his daughter, Shari. About two years ago David saw a distressed property he could buy on the cheap, decimated more than most of big media by cord-cutting and the vicissitudes of the business, but with prominent legacy properties and a major studio. Initially, Shari was a reluctant seller. She soon came to understand that Paramount's fortunes weren't getting better and her own fortune was evaporating fast. Ellison has the money (his dad's and a partner in private equity firm RedBird Capital) to make the new company work, and help her preserve a semblance of her dad's fortune. With Shari out of the way, Ellison then had to deal with the incoming Trump administration. The president and his dad are famously pals, Larry being a long-time political supporter. But friendship only goes so far in assuaging Trump's hatred for many elements of the mainstream media, and CBS is at the top of his hate list. Conservatives have for years complained about the increasing bias of CBS that went beyond the adversarial nature of Murrow, etc. Trump was the first to do something about it. With the deal facing a regulatory review, his Federal Communications Commission opened an investigation into bias at CBS since it operates over public airwaves (as opposed to cable), examining whether its news meets 'public interest' guidelines, and throttled the deal. Trump also personally sued the network over a '60 Minutes' interview with his 2024 Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, saying the new magazine deceptively edited her infamous word-salad answers. OK, maybe it did. But Trump won the election so where are the 'damages'? Regulatory OK coming Yet, as everyone who has been following my reporting knows, the lawsuit was inextricably tied to getting the deal done and Shari paid. Now that it has been settled — for $16 million plus the expectation of much more in public service ads for pro-Trump causes — word is the regulatory nod is coming in a few weeks. When that happens, Shari pockets about $2 billion, which sounds like a lot until you realize she was probably worth more than $40 billion when she inherited the property. Paramount and CBS will then be Ellison's problem. If I were in the news division, I would be afraid, very afraid.
Indian Express
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
YouTube pirates are cashing in on Hollywood's summer blockbusters
After spending about $100 million on 'Lilo & Stitch,' a live-action remake of a 2002 animated film, Disney had plenty to celebrate. The film pulled in $361 million worldwide on its opening weekend in May and bested 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' at the box office. But the company also had cause to be concerned. In the days after the Disney film's opening, a pirated version of 'Lilo & Stitch' proved to be a hit on YouTube, where more than 200,000 people viewed it, potentially costing Disney millions of dollars in additional sales, according to research from Adalytics, a firm that analyzes advertising campaigns for brands. The findings of the research shed new light on the copyright issues that once threatened to upend YouTube's business. They also show how advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content on YouTube, and they provide rare data about piracy on the platform. YouTube has long tried to tamp down piracy, but users who upload stolen films and television shows have employed new tactics to evade the platform's detection tools, the research showed, including cropping films and manipulating footage. YouTube then recommended the uploaded videos to users on its homepage, promoting pirated streaming of box office releases like 'Lilo & Stitch,' or movies exclusively available on streaming platforms, like 'Captain America: Brave New World,' according to screen recordings compiled by Adalytics and an analysis by The New York Times. YouTube, which is owned by Google, may also have generated revenue from some stolen videos, though it's unclear how much money it may have made. The company has a program known as Content ID to identify videos protected by copyright. It allows copyright holders to block the videos, share in advertising sales of the videos or receive data about who views the videos. Over the years, YouTube has paid billions of dollars to rights holders. YouTube reported flagging 2.2 billion videos last year and said rights holders permitted about 90% of those videos to stay on the platform. Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the company does not analyze the less than 10% of videos it removes at the request of copyright holders and does not track how many of those videos may be recently released, full-length movies. The channels that uploaded the videos of 'Lilo & Stitch' and 'Captain America: Brave New World' were terminated for violating YouTube's policies on spam, Malon said. He declined to say whether the company had profited from commercials shown in copyrighted videos that evaded detection by Content ID or racked up views before rights holders asked that they be taken down. At YouTube's request, Adalytics and the Times provided 200 videos for YouTube to review, most of them full-length films. YouTube analyzed the videos but declined to provide insight into what percentage of the films their rights holders had permitted to stay up or had required to be removed. 'To frame these videos as 'illicit' without first reviewing the specific choices made by each rights holder misunderstands how the media landscape on YouTube works today,' Malon said. While 'mistakes do occur' on YouTube, he said, he dismissed the Adalytics report as an effort to get companies to sign up for the firm's services. Holders of copyrights for the videos, including all the major film studios, did not respond when asked for comment by the Times. The founder of Adalytics, Krzysztof Franaszek, who conducted the research, said he had observed 9,000 examples of possible copyright violations, 'including full-length movies that were in theatrical release, Netflix exclusives such as 'Extraction 2,' TV shows such as 'Family Guy' and live NCAA college football games.' The videos collectively had more than 250 million views. More than 100 of these uploads were also reviewed by the Times. Movies from every major film studio were found on YouTube in unofficial streams uploaded from last July to May, Adalytics found. When briefed on the research findings, Larissa Knapp, the chief content protection officer of the Motion Picture Association, a trade group for movie studios, said she found them concerning. At one point, the anti-piracy work between the studios and YouTube 'did work,' Knapp said. 'But now it seems like some of the stuff may have gone off the rails if illegal content is being placed with ads.' The research recalled a time in YouTube's history when Hollywood accused the platform of profiting from its stolen content. In 2007, Viacom sued YouTube, claiming it engaged in 'brazen' copyright infringement by allowing uploads of the media company's material without its permission. In 2012, YouTube won the suit by arguing it was shielded from liability by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which exempted YouTube from liability for hosting copyrighted work. The law shifted the burden for protecting a copyright from the platform and video creators to rights holders, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. Without the rule, he said, 'the internet would not be able to exist in its existing format.' YouTube has tried to work with film studios, television networks and streaming services to combat piracy. Google, YouTube's parent company, developed its Content ID technology to recognize copyrighted videos, and YouTube became more aggressive at policing its platform for piracy. Copyright holders gained the right to either have the content removed or collect a share of the advertising revenue the videos generated. The box office in the United States and Canada routinely loses $1 billion each year to piracy, which is roughly 15% of its annual haul, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a trade group of 50 entertainment companies that tries to reduce piracy. Franaszek began the research after his advertising clients noticed that as much as 60% of their ad spending on YouTube went to videos or channels that were labeled 'no longer available.' After digging deeper, he found that his clients had paid to support content that YouTube later removed because it violated company policies against nudity, violence or hate speech, or because of other offenses. When videos are removed from the platform, YouTube scrubs advertisers' records so that they can no longer see the name of the video. Advertisers have to go to the link for the removed video to see if it was removed for a copyright violation, Franaszek said. He added that the platform did not fully reimburse the advertisers for the cost of commercials in those videos. Erich Garcia, a senior vice president at which lets consumers compare insurance offerings, said his company's ads routinely ran with videos that had disappeared, limiting his insight into the effectiveness of his promotions. Malon said YouTube advertisers could get more insight into those videos by asking their account representatives for more information. Representatives can provide advertising credits. Ads from Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, Focus Features and dozens of other companies from various industries were found alongside unauthorized film and television uploads, Adalytics said. Pirates deployed a range of deceptive tactics to evade YouTube's anti-piracy algorithms. Some uploaded and voluntarily removed copyrighted videos on the same day, racking up viewers before being caught. Other pirates mirrored the videos to reverse the images, or cropped the frames in an effort to trick the Content ID system. Still others placed clips of regular people at the end of a Hollywood blockbuster video to further cover their tracks, Adalytics and the Times found. Franaszek said Adalytics clients who paid for advertising in videos that were removed over copyright issues had a simple request: 'to have visibility into what content their YouTube ad dollars are funding, and where their ads appear.'
