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Robert Pattison Sci-fi ‘Mickey 17’ Opens in 1st Place, but Profitability is a Long Way Off

Robert Pattinson, left, and director Bong Joon Ho pose for photographer at the photo call for the film 'Mickey 17' at the International Film Festival, Berlinale, in Berlin, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Robert Pattinson, left, and director Bong Joon Ho pose for photographer at the photo call for the film 'Mickey 17' at the International Film Festival, Berlinale, in Berlin, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
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Robert Pattison Sci-fi ‘Mickey 17’ Opens in 1st Place, but Profitability is a Long Way Off

Robert Pattinson, left, and director Bong Joon Ho pose for photographer at the photo call for the film 'Mickey 17' at the International Film Festival, Berlinale, in Berlin, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Robert Pattinson, left, and director Bong Joon Ho pose for photographer at the photo call for the film 'Mickey 17' at the International Film Festival, Berlinale, in Berlin, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

“Parasite” filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s original science fiction film “Mickey 17” opened in first place on the North American box office charts. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Robert Pattinson-led film earned $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters, which was enough to dethrone “Captain America: Brave New World” after a three-week reign.
Overseas, “Mickey 17” has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. But profitability for the film is a long way off: It cost a reported $118 million to produce, which does not account for millions spent on marketing and promotion.
A week following the Oscars, where “Anora” filmmaker Sean Baker made an impassioned speech about the importance of the theatrical experience – for filmmakers to keep making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases and for audiences to keep going – “Mickey 17” is perhaps the perfect representation of this moment in the business, or at least an interesting case study. It’s an original film from an Oscar-winning director led by a big star that was afforded a blockbuster budget and given a robust theatrical release by Warner Bros., one of the few major studios remaining. But despite all of that, and reviews that were mostly positive (79% on RottenTomatoes), audiences did not treat it as an event movie, and it may ultimately struggle to break even.
Originally set for release in March 2024, Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning “Parasite” faced several delays, which he has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, Pattinson plays an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo also star.
It opened in 3,807 locations domestically where it performed best in New York and Los Angeles. Premium large format showings, including IMAX screens, also accounted for nearly half of its opening weekend. Internationally, it did especially well in Korea, where it made an estimated $14.6 million.
Second place went to “Captain America: Brave New World,” which added $8.5 million from 3,480 locations in North America and $9.2 million internationally. Its global total currently rests at $370.8 million. The Walt Disney Studios is on track to become the first studio to cross $1 billion in 2025 sometime this week.
Holdovers “Last Breath,” “The Monkey” and “Paddington in Peru” rounded out the top five. The weekend also had several other newcomers in “In the Lost Lands,” a fantasy film from Paul W.S. Anderson starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista, and Angel Studios' “Rule Breakers,” about Afghani girls on a robotics team.
Neon upped the theater count for “Anora” to nearly 2,000 screens after it won five Oscars on Sunday, including best picture, best director and best actress. It earned an estimated $1.9 million (up 595% from last weekend), bringing its total grosses to $18.4 million.
According to data from Comscore, the 2025 box office as a whole is up 1% from where it was last year on this weekend and down 34.2% from the last pre-pandemic box office year of 2019.

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Entertainment

Spanish Soccer Team Desperately Seeking Madonna and Her 36-Year-Old Shirt

Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)
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Spanish Soccer Team Desperately Seeking Madonna and Her 36-Year-Old Shirt

Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)

Spanish soccer team Celta Vigo is desperately seeking Madonna as it goes in search of a 36-year-old soccer shirt the pop star wore during a 1990 concert at its Balaidos stadium.

Madonna appeared on stage wearing the club's true blue colors during her Blonde Ambition tour in July 1990.

She delighted locals who claimed the material girl as one of their own and brought unexpected attention to defender Jose Manuel Espinosa, whose No. 5 shirt she wore.

However, the whereabouts of the cherished garment are unknown and, after searching fruitlessly for decades, Celta is asking the 67-year-old Madonna to help find it for the club's archive.

“Although ours was not the only football shirt you ever wore on stage, this iconic image has grown to shine differently as years have passed,” Celta president Marián Mouriño Terrazo wrote in an open letter to the American icon.

“Over time we came to better understand what you stood for back then: questioning established norms and standing up to those who try to tell you what you can or cannot do. At our club we recognize ourselves in this line of thought. That is why we hold on to the hope of finding the garment you once wore.

“Do you have it? If you know where it may be, or if you would like to join us in the search to retrieve it, please contact us via private message.”

The appeal caused a commotion on social media after it was published on Wednesday and the club doubled down before Friday's 2-1 home league defeat by Real Madrid, playing Madonna’s songs before kickoff and putting her picture on the field and on social media.

Mouriño Terrazo told local media he was hopeful the repercussions would reach the pop star.

“I imagine that the letter reached Madonna and that she will reply,” he said.

Madonna burst on the scene in 1983 with the hit Holiday and followed that with a run of top-10 hits that included “Like a Virgin”,” Papa Don’t Preach” and “Ray of Light.”

She remains one of the most successful recording artists in history.

Entertainment

Britney Spears Arrested and Released, California Sheriff's Records Show

(FILES) US singer Britney Spears arrives for the premiere of Sony Pictures' "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California on July 22, 2019. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
(FILES) US singer Britney Spears arrives for the premiere of Sony Pictures' "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California on July 22, 2019. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
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Britney Spears Arrested and Released, California Sheriff's Records Show

(FILES) US singer Britney Spears arrives for the premiere of Sony Pictures' "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California on July 22, 2019. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
(FILES) US singer Britney Spears arrives for the premiere of Sony Pictures' "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California on July 22, 2019. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)

Britney Spears was arrested Wednesday night in Southern California and booked early the following morning, though the charge was not clear, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s office website.

Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff's office; the California Highway Patrol, which was identified as the arresting agency; and Spears' representative.

Spears was arrested around 9:30 p.m. in Ventura County and released on Thursday, sheriff's office records show. She has a May 4 court date schedule, The Associated Press reported.

Spears, born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana, was a teen pop phenomenon who became a defining superstar of the ’90s and 2000s. She rose to fame from Disney Channel’s “The Mickey Mouse Club” to MTV and beyond, with such era-defining hits like “... Baby One More Time,” “Oops! ... I Did It Again” and “Toxic.”

Most of her albums have been certified platinum, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, with two diamond titles: 1999’s “ ... Baby One More Time” and 2000’s “Oops! ... I Did It Again.” Her last full-length album, “Glory,” was released in 2016.

Spears became a focus of tabloids in the early 2000s, and a source of public scrutiny, as she battled mental illness and paparazzi documented the details of her private life.

Later, as cultural opinion evolved to recognize the misogynistic media coverage of the time, Spears’ fight to control her life became the focus of the #FreeBritney movement.

In 2008, Spears was placed under a court-ordered conservatorship, run primarily by her father and his lawyers, that would control her personal and financial decisions for well over a decade. It was dissolved in 2021. Two years later, she released a bestselling, tell-all memoir, “The Woman in Me.”

Entertainment

Disney Pixar's 'Hoppers' Seeks to Turn Viral Meme Into Box Office Gold

US actor Jon Hamm (L) poses with Tom Lizard as he arrives for the world premiere of Disney and Pixar's film 'Hoppers' at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles, California, USA, 23 February 2026. EPA/JILL CONNELLY
US actor Jon Hamm (L) poses with Tom Lizard as he arrives for the world premiere of Disney and Pixar's film 'Hoppers' at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles, California, USA, 23 February 2026. EPA/JILL CONNELLY
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Disney Pixar's 'Hoppers' Seeks to Turn Viral Meme Into Box Office Gold

US actor Jon Hamm (L) poses with Tom Lizard as he arrives for the world premiere of Disney and Pixar's film 'Hoppers' at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles, California, USA, 23 February 2026. EPA/JILL CONNELLY
US actor Jon Hamm (L) poses with Tom Lizard as he arrives for the world premiere of Disney and Pixar's film 'Hoppers' at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles, California, USA, 23 February 2026. EPA/JILL CONNELLY

Walt Disney's Pixar Animation Studios is hoping a viral meme featuring a googly-eyed lizard character from its new film, "Hoppers," translates into box office success when the movie opens this weekend in theaters.

The studio unwittingly spawned the social media hit when a 28-second clip of the goofy-looking sea-green reptile repeatedly tapping a glowing screen to trigger an automated voice that says "lizard" appeared in the end credits of another Pixar film, "Elio," released last June.

The clip went viral. It inspired music mixes to songs from Far East Movement and The Ting Tings on TikTok, a "Lizard Click" website with a button that repeats the word "lizard" in a robotic voice, and thousands of social media posts that, within two months, attracted some 316 million views, according to Disney.

"I don't know that you can ever predict these things. As soon as you try to make ⁠something go viral, ⁠that's like certain death," said Pixar's Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter. "We just thought it was funny. We thought this character is quirky and weird."

According to Reuters, Pixar quietly laid claim to the character in a social media post in August, simply saying, "his name is Tom."

"People fell in love with Tom the Lizard," said Martha Morrison, head of marketing for Walt Disney Studios. "Then, we were sort of figuring out when's the right time to identify that Tom the Lizard is part of our movie."

The film is about a young animal lover, Mabel, who uses new technology ⁠to "hop" her consciousness into a robotic beaver and communicate directly with animals.

While audiences have flocked to cinemas to see animated sequels, such as Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which is approaching $2 billion in worldwide ticket sales, original films with unfamiliar characters and stories, like "Elio," have struggled at the box office, bringing in a modest $20.8 million on opening weekend.

"Hoppers" is on track to open to $35 to $40 million in the US and Canada, according to one estimate.

Original animation has always been a harder sell, but that's been particularly true since the COVID-19 outbreak, when Disney released animated films like “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red” straight to its Disney+ streaming service.

Families got accustomed to seeing new animated films from the comfort of their own living rooms.

"You know, it's tough right now because people on the one hand say they want original stuff, but they, with their pocketbooks, kind of vote more for the ⁠sequels," said Docter. "I think what ⁠it is, you have to balance like stuff that people go, 'I recognize that, I see that in my own life, but it also feels like nothing I've ever seen before,' which is a really difficult needle to thread."

Tom Lizard has become an ambassador for "Hoppers," showing up in person at screenings, DJ-ing an event for social media influencers and photo-bombing ESPN broadcasts in San Francisco during Super Bowl week.

The appearances are part of a broader marketing push that includes advance screenings and sneak peeks, in addition to commercials that aired during the Super Bowl and the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.

The goal is to be in as many places as possible, convey the film's unique brand of humor and create a sense of urgency for movie-goers to head to the theaters, said Morrison.

Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said "Hoppers" has received the best reviews for a Pixar movie in a decade.

"Original animated films such as 'Dog Man,' 'The Wild Robot' and most recently 'GOAT' have all done very well because they're actually good movies," said Dergarabedian. "That's a currency that can deliver dividends for the long term."