Project Hail Mary is a good omen

And Star Trek is dead, again.

Mar 27, 2026

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Project Hail Mary’s box office is proof that Hollywood is healing

And audiences are going to reap the benefits. So in case you missed it, Amazon MGM released the sci-fi adventure/comedy film Project Hail Mary in theaters last weekend. It’s based on a book by Andy Weir, written by Drew Goddard, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and it stars Ryan Gosling.

They shot it on a $200 million dollar budget, it was expected to gross $65M opening. Instead it brought in a huge $80.5 million dollars domestic and $141 total worldwide opening weekend, making it the biggest opening of the year so far and the biggest ever for Amazon MGM.

So needless to say, this is a huge victory for originality in movie theaters. Now, Project Hail Mary isn’t a wholly original film — it’s based on a book. But it’s not a sequel. Remake, or reboot, nor is it part of a franchise or attached to some big recognizable brand, so it’s far more “original” than most of the big budget blockbusters the studios typically put out.

And so the fact that Amazon MGM spent that much money on it, gave the creative team the freedom to make the best movie possible, and then marketed it well, so that it actually became a hit in theaters, in today’s Hollywood that’s pretty remarkable. Just a massive win for originality. And hopefully it serves as proof that original, new stories are worth making and the more original success stories we get like this, the more Hollywood will make.

The Lion King’s co-songwriter is suing a comedian for $27 million

Because the comedian dared to make a joke about the Circle of Life lyrics on a podcast

Alright so in one corner, you’ve got Lebo M. The South African film producer and composer most well known for collaborating with Elton John, Tim Rice, and Hans Zimmer on The Lion King songs and score. He famously wrote and sang the opening Zulu chant at the beginning of The Circle of Life, “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba,”

And in the other corner is Learnmore Jonasi, a 32-year-old a Zimbabwean stand-up comedian, actor and MC, who has performed all over the world, won many awards, and was even a top 5 finalist on America’s Got Talent.

On Feb 25th, Jonasi appeared on the One54 Africa podcast and he made a humorous observation that the Circle of Life’s opening chant really translated to “ “Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god.” That clip went insanely viral, it’s been ripped and reupload everywhere, getting millions upon millions of views.

But Lebo M was not happy about that. And has decided to sue Jonasi for $27 MILLION, claiming that his misleading representation is in violation of the Lantham Act, which is part of US trademark law and that it’s defamation per se, trade libel, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.

The lawsuit says Jonasi “”presented this as authoritative fact, not comedy,” and that in doing so he “mocked the chant’s cultural significance with exaggerated imitations.” And that his podcast comments was “a fabricated, trivializing distortion, meant as a sick joke for unlawful self-profit and destruction of the imaginative and artistic work of Lebo M.”

The suit goes on to say “The true meaning of Nants’ ingonyama bagithi Baba is ‘All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.’”

Jonasi put out a statement on social media, seemingly before the lawsuit was filed, saying, “This was just a joke … I had no idea it had a different meaning.” Apparently in private conversations, Lebo M insulted Jonas personally, so the comedian refused to apologize, saying, “No I never insulted him.”

The new Spider Man trailer just made Hollywood history

And it’s proof Sony marketers are secret geniuses. If you have a pulse and a cell phone, you probably saw that Sony released the first trailer for Spider Man Brand New Day last week. The reason I say that is because a lot of people watched the trailer.

According to tracking firm WaveMetrix, it’s been viewed 1.1 billion times, which means it just broke the record as the biggest trailer launch of all time and it’s the only trailer to ever cross 1 billion views in its first week.

This was after it hit 718.6 million views in its first 24 hours, which was also a record, basically doubling The previous record holder, the first “Deadpool and Wolverine,” trailer which had 365 million views in its first 24 hours.

So how did Sony pull this off? First Spider-Man is essentially the most popular and beloved super hero, so that always helps but they knew that absence makes the heat grow fonder. It’s been 5 years since the last SpiderMan movie, which was the ultra successful Spider-Man No Way Home. So a lot of anticipation has been building in general for the film and then Sony waited a long time to release this trailer.

They made fans wait longer than normal to see any footage from the movie. For months fans were begging and speculating where’s the trailer where’s the trailer. It was genius of Sony to build up that tension and hype. So of course when they finally delivered, it was a record breaking smash hit.

This major director says Netflix’s testing process “makes you want to kill yourself”

And that’s coming from a guy who loves to screen test his movies. Paul Feig is secretly one of the most successful directors in all of Hollywood. He has a particular knack for turning modestly budgeted films into major hits. Bridesmaids for example shot on a $32M budget and grossed $306M at the box office. The Heat, Spy, and A Simple Favor all had 8 figure budgets and 9 figure grosses, and he just did it again with The Housemaid, which shot on a $35M budget and has so far grossed nearly $400 million dollars worldwide.

So on a recent episode of The Town podcast, Feig chalked this up to screen testing. He thoroughly screens his movies with test audiences before release to figure out what’s working. And while he loves getting that feedback in person in a theater, he did not have nice things to say about Netflix’s VIRTUAL screen testing process.

“One of the worst experiences I ever had was when I did for Netflix, The School For Good and Evil” Feig said he tested it a few times in theaters, but Netflix wanted to do an “online test.” He explained “So it’s basically a big Zoom screen with a million different boxes in it. And you watch people at home watch the movie and it makes you want to kill yourself”

Feig could not believe how distracted people were, “Literally someone’s making a sandwich. The cat’s walking by. They walk away to the bathroom for five minutes And then that person’s like ‘Well I didn’t understand’ It’s like, ‘yeah you missed the whole fucking thing’”

On the one hand, it makes sense that Netflix would test this way, because their users are at home. But should filmmakers be directing movies for distracted people?

Star Trek is dead — again — but there is hope for its future

Tell me, Is there any franchise that’s gone through more ups and downs than Star Trek? It seems just when things get good for Trekkies and Trekkers, the rug gets pulled out from under them.

You see recently, it was a great time to be a Star Trek fan, because Paramount committed to making a ton of new shows for streaming. Over the last 8 years, we got Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds, and finally Starfleet Academy. We had not seen peak Star Trek like that since the mid 90s.

But one by one, all of those shows either ended or were canceled and as of March 2026, all that’s left are 2 already shot seasons of Strange New Worlds — that have yet to air and we just learned that the newest show Starfleet Academy is done after its upcoming 2nd season. They just wrapped filming of that 2nd season in February.

Which means for the first time in nearly a decade, there are no Star Trek shows in production. Now that said, Star Trek’s overseer Alex Kurtzman did just renew his deal with Paramount. So it’s possible there will be more to come.

And Paramount is redirecting Star Trek back to the big screen. Dungeons and Dragons filmmakers Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley are developing an entirely new Star Trek movie that will deliver a fresh take on the nearly 60-year-old franchise.

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