As we’d expect from one of the hottest sports moments of the year, the Super Bowl weekend traditionally sees a very sluggish domestic box office. With studios and distributors keen to see the momentum gained in 2024 carry forward into the 2025 box office landscape, what were the results from this key weekend on the calendar? Generally, quite positive, as entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, of Blake & Wang P.A., is here to share.

Brandon Blake 

Best Post-COVID Result

Was it a record-beater? No, as we would expect. However, this weekend’s box office will be one of the strongest overall results for this weekend since the pandemic disruptions. Dog Man turned in a solid performance, landing at $13.7M in takings over what was actually its second release weekend. We haven’t seen that since Death on the Nile in 2022, which only claimed $12.8M over the same weekend. 

Ironically, 2022 is the weekend to beat overall, too, with $53.8M across all titles. While the results are still being calculated, this weekend looks to have turned in a healthy $54.4M. 

Indies Perform Well

This weekend also saw two small-budget movies launch, Heart Eyes from Spyglass and Sony, and Love Hurts from Universal and 87North. While both turned in sub-$10M performances, as one can expect from smaller titles, those still represent a milestone recovery point for this critical slice of the box office pie, again building on 2024’s momentum. 

Heart Eyes did particularly well, bringing in $8.5M, with Love Hurts netting a lukewarm $5.8M. Once again, this highlights how important diverse slates including lower-budget titles are for the overall health of the box office, even if they don’t turn in the splashy figures blockbusters can.

While Super Bowl weekend will never be anything to write home about at the box office, the fact that 2025 managed to deliver a very credible performance despite the lure of this iconic part of the sports calendar points to a far healthier and happier box office than we’ve seen in previous years. Let’s hope that momentum continues to build in the rest of the year. 

According to Nielsen’s “Monthly Media Distributor” rankings, Disney has managed to keep YouTube in second place for viewing market share— but it was a close race indeed. To tell us more, we have Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake. 

Brandon Blake

December Champions

The ratings cover the entirety of the Disney “empire,” so they also feature ABC and cable channels alongside their streaming platforms. Together, these accounted for about 11.2% of overall TV viewing domestically. YouTube was hot on their heels at 11.1%, however.

Disney also took home the accolades for the most-viewed TV series in 2024. Ironically, their child-focused Bluey IP, with 55.62B (yes, billion) minutes watched throughout the year. In fact, Disney showed all 5 of the Top 5 Series list for 2024 on one Disney platform or another, though not all titles were actual Disney IPs. 

Close Competition

YouTube, meanwhile, seems to be benefiting greatly from parent company Google’s switch to pushing the app as a “viewing destination” for real TV rather than just another video platform. Intriguingly, Paramount Global came in third place, though given its sprawling suite of channels, including CBS and Paramount+, that may not be as surprising as it first seems. It also offers the ever-popular NFL games. 

While it missed the Top 3, Netflix made significant gains, with Virgin River and Squid Game’s second season premiere as well as some select NFL games to offer viewers. They currently sit at around 8% of market share. Warner Bros. Discovery took home 6%, while Amazon Prime also saw a small increase, landing at 4%.

The Roku Channel had its own positive gains as well, increasing by 0.3% to cap out at 2% of the viewing market share. This builds on Roku’s recent bragging that the service now reaches 90M households through its streaming services. All in all, it’s an interesting spread of TV viewership. Now, the real question is whether YouTube can beat out the House of Mouse for that top spot this year. 

The South Korean hit TV show has managed to sustain audience interest through another season. No doubt, much to Netflix’s delight. To share the latest news on this breakout TV series, we have Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A.

Brandon Blake

Dominating Streaming Ratings

The many successes of Squid Game’s first season surprised the world, as it got immense audience traction despite being an English dub production. It was inevitable that the season 2 release would attract all eyes. And it certainly has delivered.

The season 2 debut dominated streaming following its release, to the surprise of very few. However, according to Nielsen’s latest streaming report, it even netted itself a record— the highest single week of viewership. 

Festive Season Release

Season 2 debuted in the Nielsen week of December 23 -December 29, 2024. Likely, hoping to capitalize on the many people home for the holidays and looking for an entertainment escape from family bickering. It launched on December 26, making it a four-day week for them. All the same, the show racked up 4.9B viewer minutes despite the curtailed week. 

Now, Nielsen only charts appearances, not the actual season, so it’s possible some of the figures could belong to season 1 recaps as well. However, the original Squid Game season made no appearance on the charts for the preceding week. So, we can probably assume most of the glory belongs to season 2 viewership.

This also places it ahead of the season 1 debut week, which took 3B viewed minutes. It earned itself a spot on the non-English series chart within just 3 days.

It’s a popular show and a popular season, and we did see 7 other titles cross the billion-minute threshold in the same period. However, it’s still a remarkable accomplishment for the series and Netflix alike. 

At a difficult time for Hollywood’s home state, there is at least some positive news to enjoy. FilmLA finally saw an uptick in shoot days for the Greater Los Angeles area at the end of 2024. Our local entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake of Blake & Wang P.A., shares the full story. 

Brandon Blake

Ending 2024 on a High Note

While 2024 overall still saw a 5.6% decline in shoot days, that trend showed a significant reversal as we headed into the last quarter of 2024. Shoot days ticked up by 6.2%, finally ending a consecutive chain of 11 quarters where declines were noted.

Even more encouragingly, this increase was seen across all the production types that FilmLA tracks, other than Reality TV. It’s not the most wonderful news— this was still LA’s second-least productive year, second only to 2020— but it is an overall net positive, and that’s still worth a little celebration.

Bright Spots

Nor was it the only bright spot in FilmLA’s latest report. The Feature Films production category saw a massive boost (82.4%) in that final quarter. Most analysts are laying this gain at the door of indie film producers. In fact, this same category saw an 18.8% improvement across the full year. Likewise, scripted TV dramas saw a strong rise, doubling its annual output from 2023 figures. 

While 2025 will be another of those “unusual years” that seem to be the norm in the 2020s, with the impact of recent fire events inevitably taking their own toll on the area, there is some good news ahead for the state, at least. Governor Newsom’s planned expansion of the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program from its current $330M to $750M is still set to go ahead, which will hopefully incentivize productions to return to LA for their shooting needs as well. Right now, California needs all the positive news it can generate, and at least things are looking up for the industry.

As we’ve seen over and over again in the last year, a great box office performance can be an ideal primer for streaming success. It seems Universal is demonstrating this yet again as Wicked shifts to PVOD viewing. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer Los Angeles, Brandon Blake, takes a closer look.

Brandon Blake

Fantastic First Week

In its first week on PVOD, Wicked has added a further $70M to its takings, bringing in $26M of that on its very first release day. This has propelled it to the highest Day 1 and first week on record for a premium-released theatrical title from Universal. In fact, it has almost doubled its previous record for the Super Mario Bros Movie, which launched at $44M.

The title will remain in an exclusive PVOD streaming window for another 2.5 months until shifting to NBCUniversal’s Peacock service for general streaming. This comes after its 40-day exclusive theatrical window.

A Slight Strategy Change

Interestingly, Wicked saw a small shift in Universal’s typical strategy, which has been to shift movies to PVOD after their fifth weekend in-theater. Instead, they chose to leave Wicked in theaters an extra week to capitalize on New Year’s Eve moviegoers and net some extra publicity along the way, including a Rose Parade float for the movie. 

Although, as we would expect, its PVOD release has impacted the film’s box office takings, it is currently sitting at $453M domestic and $686M globally and added just short of $10M over the past weekend.

Notably, the Universal Group has been one of the few studios to formalize its offerings into set “PVOD windows” in this way, with that exclusive streaming release window now being an integral part of their release strategy. It is estimated to have generated around $1.5B in extra revenue from them. Will we see other studios and distributors look to a similar strategy as we go forward into the streaming era? It will certainly be interesting to watch.

The state of Germany’s film industry, most notably its proposed new film funding laws, has been a worrying issue for their entertainment landscape. A last-minute clarification has made for many happy faces in the industry, but what’s the core deal? Our Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, has the full story for us.

Brandon Blake

The Film Funding Law

As with most European film industries, Germany’s depends heavily on governmental subsidies. The current film funding legislation is set to expire at the end of December 2024. This could have left the entire country’s industry at a standstill without a clear deal. 

Alas, the deal isn’t everything that was hoped for, with considerable election campaigning (most of it fractious) interfering on all fronts. So, the new deal isn’t without controversy, especially among more progressive members of the industry. 

However, there are considerable changes that should make projects easier to approve, including pre-approval for those with a proven track record in the country and more. This should help increase Germany’s competitiveness on a global scale. 

Good News Overall 

However, the German film industry is happiest to have clarity going ahead into the new year. As we noted above, this has been a difficult period to get any sense from governmental institutions, as they focus more on campaigning than getting the job done. 

It also represents one of three key reforms the industry hopes for. The others are a new tax incentive model to make Germany more competitive on that front and a potential law that will push streaming platforms to invest in local productions. However, these will have to wait for the new government, whatever form it takes. 

Perhaps the most exciting development for those in the industry is automatic approval for funding from the German Motion Picture Fund (GMPF) and German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), which mostly work with higher-end productions. This will allow German producers to claim up to 30% of local production costs back. 

Overall, it looks like there’s extra reason for the German film industry to celebrate over this festive season, and plenty more to come, too.

There’s some more good news for indie producers to round out the year. With the backing of RedBird Capital, 3 talented entertainment industry stalwarts have announced the formation of Prologue Entertainment, a new studio focused primarily on indie film and TV. Brandon Blake, our entertainment lawyer on the ground from Blake & Wang P.A., unpacks what we know so far. 

Brandon Blake

Premium Scripted Content

Prologue Entertainment will bring together Lloyd Braun, Noah Oppenheim, and Sarah Bremner at the helm, each well-established industry veterans. Jeff Zucker will oversee RedBird’s investment in the new entity. 

To begin with, the studio will focus mostly on scripted fiction for both the film and TV markets and already has three projects lined up for production. The Root of All Evil is a psychological thriller based on real reporting from a Mexico City exorcism, while Trapped is being billed as a “female survival thriller.” An unnamed project for Netflix directed by Kathryn Bigelow is now also in post-production.

A Familiar Crew

Many in the industry will recognize Braun from his time as ABC Entertainment Television Group’s chairman, where he helped bring popular projects like Desperate Housewives, Lost, and Grey’s Anatomy to life. He most recently served as the Head of Yahoo! Media Group and as Chairman of WME.

Meanwhile, Bremner oversaw the TV and film slate as President of ARRAY Filmworks, including Oscar nominee White Tiger, alongside other key projects. She also spent 5 years working with the Netflix Original Film Group that brought us Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Oppenheim served as President of NBC News, overseeing their business and editorial operations alongside their global bureaus and digital platforms. He’s perhaps best known as the co-creator of Netflix’s Zero Day. His chops as a writer speak for themselves, too, with a win for a screenplay (Jackie) at the Venice Film Festival, and a co-writing position on the team for the immensely successful Maze Runner trilogy.

It’s always exciting to see a new indie studio launch, especially as demand for smaller films is on the rise at the box office. Let’s hope to see many more exciting new projects from this stable.

AMC, despite some noted successes over the last few years, simply can’t seem to catch a break. Possibly as AMC seems to have repeatedly failed to learn its lesson on clear communication with stockholders. After AMC again took a significant beating on the stock market this week, our Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, takes a look at what lessons AMC needs to learn— and what sparked the sudden downturn this time.

Brandon Blake

Stock Drop After SEC Filing

Overall, AMC shares dropped by 9% in the wake of news revealed from a recent SEC filing. This filing revealed that the company intends to sell off roughly 50M in stock shares, primarily to strengthen its balance sheet and reinvest in its core business. These proceeds are also earmarked to fund its ambitious “GO Plan,” which it announced last month.

It’s likely this focus on upgrading their facilities was sparked by news that Regal, too, is looking at a luxury overhaul for 425 of its theaters to revitalize them for the new face of exhibition. While AMC has taken great strides in addressing the balance sheet issues that have plagued it since the COVID lockdowns, it still needs to address its outstanding debt burden as well. AMC currently has about 375M shares outstanding.

Anger from Investors

AMC has, however, incurred the wrath of many of its stockholders on the back of the announcement. AMC netted some publicity in the early post-COVID era as it became a core focus of the short lived “meme stock” movement. While this was its salvation at a particularly rocky time, it does mean that AMC has drifted away from private asset companies as its major shareholders into an individual investor-controlled situation since 2021. This means that its current shareholder base is not always the most experienced in the ups and downs of the stock market itself.

Current investors reacted poorly to the news, fearing that this stock divestiture would dilute their investment positions. Others feel that the move will dilute the many gains the theatrical industry has seen over a bumper Thanksgiving period. While ups and downs are the nature of the market, AMC’s stock value has dropped 21% over 2024. Clearly, it’s time to take a different approach to communicating its financial needs to its unique stockholder base, or market punishment will continue to follow.

For those following Nielsen’s struggles over the last few years, you will already know that the limited access to first-party data makes tracking streaming ratings with the same efficacy we once could cable difficult. However, that lack could now be behind us. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, has all the facts on this new breaking news.

Brandon Blake

A Shift in Audience Measurement

Last week, the Media Rating Council formally approved Nielsen’s plan to incorporate streaming platforms’ first-party data into its national TV ratings. This could be the boost that truly comprehensive audience measurement needed to stay meaningful in a fast-changing entertainment landscape.

The initial implementation of this “panel plus big data” measurement system has been limited, but it is promising. Amazon’s Thursday Night Football has served as the test case to date. Intriguingly, it showed an 8% increase in viewership when streaming data is included, or a jump from 13.2M to 14.26M viewers per game.

A Repeating Pattern

Nor is Thursday Night Football the only case where this has happened. In fact, NBC’s Sunday Night Football showed even more dramatic gains, with streaming on Peacock and other digital platforms boosting average viewership from 18.9M to 21.3M — a 13% increase. Other major networks, including Fox, ESPN, and CBS, have reported comparable streaming-driven audience increases for live sports events.

That’s live sports, however. There’s limitations still to face for non-live events, as most regular programming doesn’t stream simultaneously with its broadcast airings. Despite these constraints, integrating streaming data into traditional ratings will be a big step forward for the industry overall. Networks and streaming platforms increasingly rely on verifiable quantitative evidence of their total reach, primarily to woo advertisers to their service in an ad-supported era.

It seems that a more accurate representation of true audience numbers is, if not here, then at least a whole lot closer than it once was— and that’s definitely something to celebrate.

If you’ve noticed old favorites, like the ever-popular Bob’s Burgers adult cartoon, having something of a revival, thank Fox and Hulu. The two companies have had a streaming arrangement in place for a while now and, due to its many successes, will be extending the deal further over the coming years. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, has all the details for us.

Brandon Blake

Multi-Year Partnership

In March 2023, Fox and Hulu announced a multi-year deal that gave Hulu in-season streaming rights to Fox’s primetime programming. This agreement included Fox Entertainment and Fox Alternative Entertainment shows and has worked out incredibly well for them.

The network has now signed a new, multi-year content partnership agreement with the Disney-owned streamer. The details will stay pretty much the same. Fox’s primetime shows, including Bob’s Burgers and The Simpsons, will still head to Hulu the day after they premiere on Fox. Additionally, the two services share marketing, with both brands appearing on relevant promotional material.

The Fox Streaming Question

Fox, shockingly, still needs a major SVOD service of its own. While it does own the FAST service Tubi, it doesn’t carry all its programming, nor is there any next-day streaming to the platform. However, this isn’t the first rodeo for Fox and Hulu together. Fox was actually an early Hulu partner, subsequently selling its share to Disney when they acquired 21st Century Fox. However, this does mean that both Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy, two of the most-watched shows on streaming domestically according to Nielsen data, are technically owned by Disney after the merger.

It seems Fox, at least, is keen to keep Hulu as their default home for next-day streaming of their titles across scripted, non-scripted, and animated alike. The joint marketing campaign has also worked well for them, so there’s little surprise in the extension of this deal, although series fans will no doubt be glad to know their favorite hits will keep on playing for years to come.