25 Movies, Many Stars, 0 Hits: Hollywood Falls to New Lows

Happy Friday! It’s a rainy, gray day here in LA, and it feels like the whole city is moving a little slower. The big thing I’m watching today is a Hollywood story that makes it pretty clear how rough the theatrical landscape has gotten.

Driving the news: Hollywood studios released 25 major dramas and comedies in the recent cycle, many with big casts and full marketing pushes, yet none delivered a breakout hit. The box office slump is sharper than typical seasonal softness and signals a deeper demand issue, as reported by Brooks Barnes for the The New York Times (link).

The stakes: The traditional formula of stars plus scale plus theatrical window is no longer producing reliable returns. Audience behavior has shifted toward streaming and fragmented viewing, leaving high budget films exposed to lower conversion in theaters.

The friction: Studios are still operating with legacy assumptions about wide releases and heavy promotional spend while viewers increasingly expect flexibility, shorter formats, and on demand access. The gap between industry decisions and audience preference is widening.

What this unlocks: Pressure to rebalance portfolios toward smaller budgets, hybrid release strategies, and content designed for clearer audience segments. Streamers also get pulled deeper into the mid-budget space as studios retreat, which gives them more leverage but forces tighter discipline around what actually moves subscribers. The shift pushes both sides toward more intentional spending, sharper audience targeting, and fewer prestige bets that don’t deliver measurable returns.

Bottom line: The box office downturn is a clear signal that the old theatrical model no longer fits how people watch, and both studios and streamers will have to rethink budgets, formats, and release strategies if they want to stop bleeding momentum.

For everything else, see below 👇:

Streaming & Platforms

1. 🧮 Earnings calls are treated as routine but still reveal key ad-tech and publisher signals (Victoria McNally for AdExchanger) — Link.

2. 📨 Beehiiv expands into a zero-commission digital-products marketplace with new tools including an AI website builder and podcast hosting (Luis Rijo for PPC Land) — Link.

3. 📺 YouTube is addressing creator concerns over content moderation and video-appeal processes (Luis Rijo for PPC Land) — Link.

4. 📡 YouTube TV enters blackout risk as its Disney bundle deal renewal looms with ESPN/ABC carriers (Namita Sharma for Variety) — Link.

Entertainment & Media

5. 🎮 Netflix plans to merge its gaming IP into TV development as part of a deeper cross-media strategy (Nicole Sperling for The New York Times) — Link.

6. 🎬 The popular plush-toy brand Labubu is being adapted into a feature film by Sony Pictures despite no creative team yet attached (J. Kim Murphy for Deadline) — Link.

7. 📊 ‘Wicked: One Wonderful Night’ Scores 3.6 Million Viewers on NBC (Ethan Shanfeld for Variety) — Link.

8. 🏆 The Path Sinners Could Take to Oscars Victory? We’ve Seen It Before (Joe Reid for Vulture) — Link.

Marketing & Brand Activations

9. 🥤 Liquid Death teamed up with The Running Man for an in-film commercial instead of standard product placement (Chris Kelly for Marketing Dive) — Link.

10. 🏃‍♂️ Major brands activated around the 2025 NYC Marathon with immersive pop-ups, athlete experiences and high-visibility sponsorships (Event Marketer Staff for Event Marketer) — Link.

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