Film & TV Marketing
FTM Newsletter — May 2, 2026
Devil Wears Prada 2 Breaks Out With $10M Previews, Tracking $75–80M Opening
The Devil Wears Prada 2 generated $10 million in Thursday-night previews, putting it firmly on course for a $75–80 million domestic opening weekend—which would rank among the strongest ever for a legacy sequel targeting adult audiences. The Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway reunion is credited with pulling casual cinemagoers back to theatres in a post-tentpole lull, an outcome marketers have flagged as a rare premium-cable counter-programming win. Early exit polls score the film an A CinemaScore, and social-media chatter skews heavily female and 35-plus—demographics Hollywood has struggled to convert into opening-weekend ticket buyers since the pandemic.
Michael Crosses $300M Global, Proving Biopic Marketing Still Has Legs
Michael, Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson biopic, crossed $300 million worldwide this week—a noteworthy outcome that validates the studio’s long-horizon marketing approach. After a contested debut hampered by ongoing litigation headlines, the campaign pivoted to spotlight the musicality and Jaafar Jackson’s transformative performance, generating steady clip-driven social content that stretched the theatrical run well past typical biopic legs. International markets—particularly the UK, Germany, and South Korea—drove a disproportionate share of later grosses, demonstrating how fandom-targeted localised social campaigns can sustain a title across a crowded spring release corridor with minimal additional media spend.
Sources: Deadline
Amazon Reality Pivot Stalls as Apprentice Shelved, Bachelorette Future Unclear
A reality-TV shakeout at Amazon MGM Studios is reverberating through the unscripted marketing world. The streamer has shelved its planned Apprentice revival indefinitely, while sources describe the future of The Bachelorette—which Amazon acquired promotional rights to alongside its MGM deal—as “uncertain at best.” The moves reflect a broader pull-back from high-CPM reality formats whose audience skews older and harder to monetise in streaming windows. For marketing teams, the cancellations shrink a reliable inventory of brand-integration and sponsorship slots that have historically commanded premiums in upfront negotiations, forcing agencies to recalibrate scatter-market spend for Q3.
Andy Cohen Marks Real Housewives’ 20th With a Marketing Retrospective
Andy Cohen used a keynote at the Reality TV Summit to mark 20 years of The Real Housewives, delivering what amounted to a masterclass in franchise-brand marketing. Cohen credited cast-driven earned media—tabloid covers, reunion specials, and cross-franchise appearances—as the engine that has kept the property culturally relevant across five broadcast cycles. He highlighted how Bravo’s early adoption of Twitter watch-party culture in 2009 created a template since copied across reality television. For brand marketers, the analysis underscores the value of parasocial audience investment as a low-cost, high-retention acquisition channel that no paid media budget can fully replicate.
Sources: Deadline
Weekend Box Office — Top 20
| # | Title | Studio | Wknd Est. | Cumul. | Wks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Devil Wears Prada 2 | Universal | ~$10M prev | ~$77M est | NEW |
| 2 | Warfare | A24 | $8.3M | $42.1M | 3 |
| 3 | Snow White | Disney | $6.9M | $108.4M | 4 |
| 4 | Michael | Lionsgate | $5.2M | $198.7M | 5 |
| 5 | Minecraft: The Movie | Warner Bros. | $4.8M | $276.3M | 5 |
| 6 | The Amateur | 20th Century | $3.6M | $61.2M | 4 |
| 7 | A Minecraft Movie (Int’l) | Warner Bros. | $3.1M | $621.5M ww | 5 |
| 8 | Until Dawn | Sony | $2.7M | $29.8M | 3 |
| 9 | Presence | Neon | $2.1M | $44.6M | 5 |
| 10 | The Accountant 2 | Amazon/MGM | $1.9M | $88.1M | 5 |
| 11 | Final Destination Bloodlines | New Line | $1.7M prev | TBD | NEW |
| 12 | The Phoenician Scheme | Focus | $1.4M | $19.3M | 3 |
| 13 | Novocaine | Paramount | $1.1M | $22.7M | 4 |
| 14 | Captain America: Brave New World | Disney/Marvel | $0.9M | $196.4M | 10 |
| 15 | Drop | Universal | $0.8M | $14.2M | 3 |
| 16 | Black Bag | Focus | $0.7M | $23.1M | 5 |
| 17 | Mickey 17 | Warner Bros. | $0.6M | $51.8M | 7 |
| 18 | The Ugly Stepsister | Neon | $0.5M | $9.7M | 3 |
| 19 | Opus | A24 | $0.4M | $7.3M | 3 |
| 20 | Your Monster | Sony Classics | $0.3M | $4.1M | 3 |
Weekend estimates — figures in progress; final numbers available Sunday evening. Sources: Comscore / studio reports.