Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
March 21 - March 27

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Apple TV+, the media streaming service created by the tech giant in 2019, is posting an annual $1 billion loss. While streamer start-ups are expected to struggle at first as they build up their subscriber base and original programming library, they should be headed toward something approaching profitability six years in. Considering that Apple made $391 billion over the last fiscal year, that $1 billion is a drop in the bucket...

Rafa Sales Ross. Excerpt from: “The television world may be feeling less hopeful following the Oscars. The ceremony saw audience growth stall after three years of ratings boosts, preventing the (usually) most watched non-sports broadcast from reaching pre-pandemic levels. Solid ratings gains among younger age groups, however, should give the Academy some hope for the future — even if said future isn’t on TV. Total audience still dipped, but in a surprising bucking of trends, the 18-49 rating increased 19%, from 3.92 in 2024 to 4.54 — the highest total the Oscars have had for that key demo since 2020. What’s even more promising news is the Oscars saw a six-year ratings high of 3.92 among adults 18-34. These jumps in younger audiences were likely fueled by the ceremony streaming online for the first time...

Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow,” the dialogue-free survival tale of a solitary cat’s journey that won both the Oscar and Golden Globe for best animated feature earlier this year, has been embraced by moviegoers around the world. Budgeted at $3.4 million and sold internationally by Charades, “Flow” has grossed, as of March 17, more than $36 million worldwide. This includes $4.6 million (€4.5 million) in North America, where it opened in November and was released by Sideshow and Janus Films. The feature went on to gross about $6.7 million in Mexico; $1 million in Brazil; $3.4 million in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay; $2.1 million in its native Latvia; $5.4 million in France (from 682,217 admissions); $1 million in Germany (after its first weekend); $1.3 million in the Netherlands; $1.6 million in Spain; $2.7 million in China (after its third weekend); and $591,000 in Vietnam from 157,000 admissions (after its first weekend), among other territories...

Released in just 85 cinemas across Japan on Feb. 21, Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle ranked eighth at Japan’s box office in its opening weekend and has earned over $5 million to date. More impressively, however, over 30 percent of the film’s viewers returned to see it more than once. To watch the Hypnosis Mic, viewers must first download a mobile app onto their phone and scan a QR code at the cinema that identifies which screening they are attending. The anime tells the story of six battle rap teams vying for musical glory and stardom. The story is structured around a sequence of battles — featuring original songs by some of Japan’s leading hip hop groups, such as Creepy Nuts and Kreva — and at numerous points throughout the film, viewers are prompted to vote on their desired outcome. The audience’s preferences are instantly tallied and the film is recut accordingly. One viewing of the full feature takes 100-106 minutes, depending on the route the audience takes through the story. Altogether, the film is made up of over five hours of available footage comprising 48 different potential versions...

China’s vertical short drama boom took center stage on Hong Kong Filmart’s opening day, with a collection of the creatives driving the trend extolling the opportunities being offered in a market they predict will soon be worth around $14 billion annually. The phase “vertical short drama” refers to series shot with a vertical rather than horizontal orientation so they can more easily be viewed on smartphones. They first emerged on Snapchat and Instagram Stories before being picked up by the likes of the California-based ReelShort and Singapore’s DramaBox platforms. More recently, Chinese creators have come to dominate the market as TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin have latched onto the trend, which is now also being explored by Chinese streamers such as iQIYI, platforms that had previously opted for more tradition longform series...

Iconic auteur Werner Herzog is divulging his best advice for aspiring filmmakers: Go and get some real world experience, the more bizarre the better. Herzog, who hosts an 11-day workshop that he deemed a “film school for rogues,” told CBS that he encourages attendees to work in sex clubs or “lunatic asylums” to fund their features. “For the rogues, I also say, ‘You are able-bodied. Earn money to finance your first films. But don’t earn it with clerical works in an office,'” Herzog said. “‘Go out and work as a bouncer in a sex club. Work as a warden in a lunatic asylum. Go out to a cattle ranch and learn how to milk a cow. Earn your money that way, in real life.'” He added, “You do not become a poet by being in a college. You have to go outside of what the norm is. You have to have a certain amount of, I say, good criminal energy to make a film.” ...