Michael is a moving, imperfect, and deeply watchable film that reminded me why Michael Jackson’s music still reaches across generations.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson, with Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier, Kat Graham, Larenz Tate, Jessica Sula, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, and Kendrick Sampson, Michael is a film wrestling with genius, family, trauma, spectacle, and the impossible task of telling a story about a complicated life.

Michael comes in hot with “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” from the Thriller album. You are immediately transported back to 1982.

I had a poster of Michael Jackson on my wall when I was a little girl. I adored him. I remember each record drop. I bought each album as it came out. My friends and I would go to Tower Records, buy vinyl records, and wear them out, listening to them over and over and over.

The music and his songs are beautifully represented, but I was never really worried that the music would be the problem. I was more concerned about how they would tell his life story. Would it feel like a trial, an explanation, or a condemnation? Maybe some people wanted that. I did not.

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The musical numbers really show you something about Michael’s talent. Of course, we already knew he was talented. That is not new. But the movie shows his creativity in a different light. It shows how much he wanted to push music beyond one lane, making it multi-layered storytelling, a real spectacle, and a movement all at once.

Thriller was my favorite musical sequence because it showed that creative ambition so clearly. It reminded you that Michael was not only performing songs. He was building worlds around them.

The film could have gone deeper into his creative process, songwriting, the music industry, his creative choices, and how he ran his concerts, sessions, or rehearsals. Did he become the taskmaster? I would have loved to see more of his process. Instead, it was montages. Beautiful ones, all the same.

I also would have loved a more realistic portrayal of the music industry. As A Tribe Called Quest famously said, “Rule 4080, record company people are shady.” That would have been interesting to dig into more. Instead, the record executives were some of his biggest champions.

The movie went more down the lane of music, performance, family trauma, and Michael’s rise to stardom amid dysfunction.

His abuse, his hoarding of animals, his obsession with Peter Pan, and his desire to stay childlike are told pretty simplistically. Quite matter-of-factly. I wanted more depth there, but I also understand that this movie is not trying to become a full psychological excavation of Michael Jackson. It gives us pieces. Some of them work better than others.

The portrayals of the family left me in real discomfort.

In my opinion, the movie sets up both his parents as villains.

Colman Domingo’s Joe Jackson is complex, disturbing, and difficult to watch. He is an abusive father with a serious intent to make his children more than he was. Abusive, yes. But also, in the film’s portrayal, someone who never has a come-to-Jesus moment. Someone who possibly thought he was protecting his sons by pushing them into success. That is what makes it so uncomfortable.

We have seen versions of this kind of character, a Black father figure, before, like King Richard. A parent who sees something in a child pushes the child toward greatness, and here, the father crosses the line. He is a terror. It is hard to watch.

Domingo’s Joe Jackson is a complex, deeply flawed, violent, and angry man, only slightly presenting ambition and drive through the mask of lifting his children out of poverty. But right underneath are the narcissism, jealousy, and hate.

The film shows that Joe’s wrath was focused on Michael. But we don’t know if that’s true. We do not fully know from this movie whether he abused the other children in the same way, but we definitely see that Michael becomes the target of his cruelty. On the whole, Joe Jackson gets the closest thing to a villain arc, a consequence for his actions. He pushes them to success, and then he is pushed out.

Nia Long’s portrayal of Katherine Jackson was layered. She was an unsympathetic character to me because I could not understand how a mother watches her husband beat her children and does nothing. That is hard for me.

The film bounces between showing her as this strong mother who eventually stands up for Michael, but it felt a little too late. You don’t see any apparent reason she ignores the abuse. Are we supposed to believe that is just what Black mothers do? No. I needed to know her reasons for not protecting Michael or leaving Joe. And when she finally steps in and protects Michael, it feels like a third-act action as opposed to something driven by character. Nia does give the character depth. I could see the fear, the faith, the survival, the denial, and the limitation of her fortitude and strength. I think I understood what the film wanted me to feel. I just could not fully get past what she allowed.

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The movie is a bit top-heavy: a lot of setup, a wide story, and not enough depth.

For example, I wanted more of the brothers. I wanted more of LaToya. I wanted more of Janet. I understand Janet did not want to be a part of it. That is unfortunate because more dynamics between the family members would have given us more heart and more understanding.

Jaafar Jackson’s performance is transcendent. There were times when I forgot I was not watching the real person, and that is what a movie is supposed to do. It is supposed to take you somewhere. It is supposed to suspend your disbelief.

He captures the movement, the posture, the voice, the softness, the stage presence, and the way Michael seemed to exist in his own weather system.

We witnessed the results of his trauma. We saw many times that even after being rich enough to leave, Michael stayed. The movie assumed we would understand that the repercussions of his abuse would be a trauma bond that mixed love, guilt, and hate.

You really get a sense of Michael’s isolation as a result of being famous from such a young age. He was surrounded by people, but still alone, left to play with his pets to replace real friendships.

Another aspect that would have been interesting to see more of was the celebrities and the high-net-worth world around him. We did not see Prince. We did not see Donna Summer. We did not get the folks who would have been in his orbit. We saw a few, Quincy Jones and Don King, but really, that larger world was missing. It would have been exciting to show the world he was moving through, not just the stages he performed on.

I also would have liked to see more of his personal life. Let’s say, for example, Brooke Shields. They had a real friendship. It would have been interesting to see that brought to life. Some glimpse of real friendships. Some sense of who he was when he was not performing or creating, not with family, and not in business mode.

The supporting characters they focused on were a mixed bag. The actors were very good. For example, Miles Teller played his attorney and manager, John Branca, and he did strong work.

Billy Bray, his head of security and bodyguard, played by KeiLyn Durrel Jones, was underdeveloped as a character. I would have liked to see more of him. I understand it is hard to know what really transpired between the two of them, but the movie sets him up in a way that made me want a stronger payoff. Joe Jackson hires him and says, “Protect my son,” and then Billy protects Michael from his own father. Nice. But I would have liked to have gone deeper in the middle. That felt like a missed opportunity.

The directing was grand and big. I saw it on an IMAX screen, and this kind of story was built for that kind of scale. Montages were the main way the film moved through time, with slates indicating the year. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it made the film feel like a string of music videos with narrative scenes in between, which affected the intimacy.

I love scenes that create private reflection, when characters are alone and obviously unaware we are watching. We get to glimpse behind the veil and see human behavior. In this movie, Michael often felt as if someone were watching. Maybe that was intentional. Maybe that is part of who Michael was, a person who had been watched since childhood and never fully knew how to stop performing. But it also kept me at a distance from him.

Let me say it again. Jaafar Jackson was brilliant. Michael was obviously channeling creativity, so much so that it feels miraculous. Jaafar captured an inspired artist in the flow. He embodied that character’s spirit so perfectly. But was there any room for complexity?

I saw Myles Frost play Michael Jackson on Broadway, and he was brilliant, too. It might have been interesting to see someone who is not related to him, someone who is not attached to a particular family legacy, play him in the film. Someone more objective might have brought a different edge, maybe a darker or messier note.

That is not a knock on Jaafar. He is extraordinary. But because he is so connected to Michael, there may be places the performance cannot go, or chooses not to go.

The Pepsi commercial accident was very hard to watch. I remember when that happened, but I do not think I ever really understood how serious it was. Watching it unfold close up again was scary.

Now, about the scandal. This is a review of a movie about a really complicated human being. And to tell a person’s story before the major scandal of their life, it has to be told from the perspective that we do not yet know about the scandal. That is the linear aspect of being alive. People wanting the film to address it directly is complicated because, for most of the movie’s timeline, that part of the story has not happened yet.

I think the film chooses to celebrate the music and give us Michael before the public dismantling of his image. Some people will reject that choice. I understand that. But I also understand why this movie exists in the frame it chooses.

The ending of the movie was an odd choice; I did not quite understand it. It ends with a slate that says more story is coming. Okay, that was a bit of a letdown.

I had an alternative idea. What if he finishes a concert, goes into a dressing room by himself, and then looks at himself in the mirror?

Cue “Man in the Mirror” underneath.

Fade to black.

That may not be perfect either, but it’s better than just a slate. It would have given us reflection. It would have let us sit with him. It would have connected the public performance to the private human being. I would have liked that.

Final thoughts: this movie allowed me to hear and experience his music again, this time with a crowd. I was happy. That made it worth every minute. I think people are going to go see this movie because, as the character says, music crosses boundaries and lines.

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The movie is flawed. It is top-heavy. It skips things I wanted to see. It leaves some relationships underdeveloped. It gives us spectacle when I sometimes wanted intimacy. It gives us genius when I sometimes wanted more humanity. It gives us the music industry, but not enough of it. It gives us family pain, but not always enough family texture. It peaks at Neverland. It shows isolation, animals, Peter Pan, and the desire to stay childlike, but does not fully unpack those threads.

But the musical numbers lift the film past many of its flaws.

I was reminded of what it felt like to love his music before the world around the music became more complicated.

That is the movie’s power.

Rating: Enjoyed It

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This movie is about kicking ass, taking names, and raising hell all wrapped up in one very stylish horror-action ride.

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This is the kind of horror-action-comedy that may feel very familiar, but it is also very fun. It’s stylish, bloody, and completely committed to its own madness. It has a highly charged lead performance from Zazie Beetz, a strong emotional setup with her sister, dynamic fight choreography, and a deliciously strange Patricia Arquette.

Spoilers ahead.

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There are also some outrageous pig-headed demon final boss battles!

The movie is alive. It has energy. It has visual confidence. It has humor. It has emotional stakes. And most importantly, it knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be.

The story follows Asia Reaves, played by Zazie Beetz, an ex-convict who takes a live-in housekeeping job at The Virgil, a mysterious luxury high-rise in New York City. But she is not really there for the job. She is there because her younger sister Maria disappeared while working in that same building years earlier.

That setup works because the movie does not start with the building. It starts with the sisters… in the rain. Everything happens in the rain, by the way!

We meet Asia and Maria ten years earlier, running from their abusive father. They are desperate, scared, and trying to survive. The scene is confusing in the best way because you do not immediately know what kind of danger they are in. Is he their father? A trafficker? A bounty hunter? The movie drops you into the threat before it explains it. Asia ends up shooting him, but not killing him. She runs off to escape the cops, leaving Maria behind, and still gets caught by the police. She goes to prison. This is where she learned to fight.

That is the movie's emotional engine.

Asia is not just trying to survive a haunted building. She is trying to make up for having abandoned her sister once. That guilt is what keeps her moving. That is what makes the violence matter. She is not just fighting cultists, monsters, and rich people who refuse to die. She is fighting her way back to Maria.

And once she gets to The Virgil, the movie really starts to play with our expectations.

The building itself is dark and moody, like something out of an American Horror Story. It’s colorful and Art Deco. Fantastic. It feels like a trap from the second Asia walks in. The doors lock with that heavy, terrifying clang clang clang.

She meets a few of the residents. Typical weirdos for this type of film, nothing too strange to see here. Yet.

Patricia Arquette plays Lilith, the building manager, who shows her around and takes her to her room. She is as peculiar. She is creepy, funny, elegant, and completely committed. She understands the movie she is in. So does Heather Graham. So does Tom Felton. Everyone is operating in the same heightened, sinister, slightly ridiculous universe, which is why the tone works. It is campy without becoming sloppy. It is funny without becoming unserious.

The movie reminded me of a lot of things without feeling like a copy of any one thing. There is a little Kill Bill in the color and movement. A little John Wick in the impossible physicality. A little Cabin in the Woods in the sense that the space itself has been designed to trap people. And yes, there is a Dante’s Inferno feeling to the whole thing, with the floors functioning like levels of hell.

But They Will Kill You has its own weird flavor.

The first major attack in Asia’s room is where the movie shows you what it is really doing. A cultist comes through the air duct and the refrigerator. Asia fights back, and suddenly, we are in full action mode. The fight choreography is physical and frenetic. Zazie Beetz is completely believable in the physicality of the role, even when the movie itself is heightened and ridiculous. She is fast, tough, smart, and relentless.

I loved watching her fight. What I also appreciated is that the movie gives us a reason for her skill. Through flashbacks, we see that Asia learned how to survive violence long before she ever entered The Virgil. She fought because she had to. She fought in prison. She fought because pain was part of her life before this supernatural nightmare ever began.

That matters because Asia is never treated like a damsel. She is not waiting to be saved. She is not confused for long. She is scared, yes. Hurt, yes. Overwhelmed, yes. But she is not helpless. Once the movie puts a machete in her hand, it is off to the races.

And then the movie reveals the big rule: the people in this building cannot die. Limbs grow back. Heads reattach. Bodies regenerate. Someone loses an eyeball, and the eyeball keeps moving through the building like a deranged little cartoon spy.

That is where the story ramps up, and we really wonder how she will get out of this.

It should not work, but it does because the movie fully commits to it. There is a scene where the eyeball has to get up through the ducts, and it literally bounces its way up. It is absurd. It is disgusting. It is clever. I loved it.

This is also where the movie avoids one of my biggest horror pet peeves.

In so many slashers now, people get stabbed, gutted, thrown, beaten, and somehow continue like they have a mild cramp. That drives me crazy when the movie wants us to believe these are regular human beings. Here, the movie gives us a rule. These people are immortal because of the ritual. They can be hurt, but they regenerate. That means the over-the-top violence has logic behind it. You are not sitting there wondering why no one is dying. You are sitting there wondering how Asia is ever going to win.

That is a much better problem.

The cult itself is made up of ultra-wealthy residents who sacrifice staff to maintain their immortality. That is not subtle, and it does not need to be. The rich literally feeding on workers to live forever is a pretty clear metaphor, but the movie is smart enough to wrap it in blood, comedy, and action instead of stopping to lecture you.

The Virgil is not just a building. It is a luxury death machine.

Asia fights in the room. She crawls through ducts. She moves through hidden spaces. She ends up in kitchens, elevator shafts, back rooms, and finally the frozen upper floor, where the demonic rituals happen.

The reunion between Asia and Maria gives the movie its emotional weight. Maria is not just waiting to be rescued. She is angry. She feels abandoned. She has been living inside this nightmare for years, and she has made her own choices. That makes the sister dynamic more interesting. Asia wants to save her. Maria is not sure she wants to be saved.

It would have been easy to make Maria purely innocent, purely grateful, or purely villainous. Instead, the movie gives her resentment. She knows Asia left her behind, even if Asia had reasons, even if Asia was a child herself, even if the situation was impossible. Maria’s anger makes sense. Asia’s guilt makes sense. Their relationship gives the movie something real underneath all the blood and flames.

By the time they are fighting together, it feels earned.

The final act goes completely insane, in the best way.

The top floor is freezing, the cult is gathered, and Satan is basically represented through a severed pig’s head. The image is ridiculous and creepy at the same time. There is fog, cold air, ritualistic nonsense, names written on skin, and Patricia Arquette going full final boss.

I know some people may bump up against the pig head. I did not. Once a movie gives me immortal rich cultists, regenerating limbs, a sentient eyeball, and a high-rise portal to hell, I am willing to go with the pig.

The rules of the ritual are actually very clever. The cultists maintain immortality through names written on the pig’s skin. When a name is removed or erased, they lose that protection. So when Maria is told she has to kill Asia to become immortal, the movie sets us up to think she will betray her sister.

And then the twist lands.

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Maria writes Asia’s name instead and sacrifices herself, making Asia immortal.

That got me. I did not see it coming, and I love it when a movie can still surprise me inside a genre structure I understand. For a second, you are trying to catch up emotionally. Why did Maria do that? What did she write? What just happened? And then Asia does not die. She starts fighting back with immortality on her side, and suddenly, the whole movie flips.

Asia figures out how the ritual works, destroys the pig head, burns the names, and all the immortal residents finally die. It is satisfying because the movie clearly sets up the rule, making the ending feel earned. It is not random. It is not magic for magic’s sake. It pays off.

Asia escapes with Maria’s body, gets outside, and uses the piece of pig skin with her own name on it to change it to Maria’s name. Maria comes back. The poor man driving the car is understandably confused. And the sisters ride away.

It is clever, emotional, and funny. That is a hard combination to pull off.

What I liked most about They Will Kill You is that it never forgets to be entertaining. It is about guilt, family, survival, revenge, atonement, class, exploitation, and women refusing to be victims. But it is also about Zazie Beetz fighting immortal cult members with a flaming axe.

That balance matters.

It is very easy for horror with ideas to become too self-serious. It is also easy for horror-comedy to become weightless. This movie finds a lane in the middle. It has real stakes, but it also lets itself be gross, funny, and absurd.

Zazie Beetz is the reason it holds together. She is fantastic. She gives Asia toughness without turning her into a machine. You can see the exhaustion. You can see the pain. You can see the guilt. You can see the “I am not stopping” energy in her body. She is not invincible until the story literally makes her invincible, and even then, the emotion stays grounded.

Myha’la is also strong as Maria. She brings the anger and hurt that the sister relationship needs. Patricia Arquette is having a ball. Heather Graham is weird and funny. The whole supporting cast understands the assignment.

The design is gorgeous. The fight choreography is beautiful. The makeup and special effects are great. The regeneration effects are disgusting in the right way. The pig at the end is unbelievable. The movie looks rich, slick, bloody, and playful.

It gives us a Black woman lead who is messy, guilty, damaged, brave, and impossible to stop. It gives us a sister story inside a demonic high-rise bloodbath. It gives us rich people literally sacrificing workers to live forever. It gives us Patricia Arquette, a flaming axe, a bouncing eyeball, and a pig head from hell.

Final verdict: I enjoyed They Will Kill You. It feels familiar in the way many action-horror movies do now, with the trapped building, the impossible fights, the bodies that will not stay down, and the video-game-style survival levels. But familiarity is not always a bad thing when the movie is this much fun. Zazie Beetz is fantastic, the action works, the design is gorgeous, Patricia Arquette is having a ball, and the sister story gives the bloodbath an emotional reason to exist. It is violent, funny, stylish, ridiculous, and fully committed to its own madness. Sometimes that is exactly what I want from a genre movie.

Now that They Will Kill You has dropped on VOD, this is the perfect time to catch it. Stream it, enjoy the madness, and let it be exactly what it is: a familiar but very fun genre ride that kicks ass and takes names.

They Will Kill You

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My first review is of Michael. Please consider reading, sharing, commenting, and liking (or hating). Interaction is a good thing.

I co-host The Watchers Podcast with Kevin Marable here at TheBlkScript, and we offer our thoughts on movies and television. But the reality is that when two people are coordinating schedules and editing video, we cannot always get episodes out fast enough to cover all the films we want to discuss.

So writing reviews gives me another way in. It lets me talk about more films, get thoughts out faster when needed, and sit with a movie in a different way, especially when the conversation around it feels wrong, incomplete, or frankly dishonest.

Before I wrote that review, I set a few ground rules for myself regarding my ongoing conversation about one of my favorite things in the whole world: movies.

Let’s talk about it.

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1. Why Me?

So, why me?

Honestly, why the hell not?

This is not about pretending my opinion matters more than anyone else’s. It doesn’t. My reviews are one perspective: one person sitting in a theater or at home, watching something unfold in real time. That is all I am offering: my experience, my point of view, my reaction, and sometimes, after I’ve had time to sit with something, my reflection. You will likely feel differently, and I welcome that.

Backstory: I have spent decades talking about movies. I studied film and television, worked in the industry, and have been obsessed since I was young. I am a writer, a producer, the co-founder of Killer Shot Films, and the founder of my own media company.

I’m also a Black woman, a Gen Xer, and a storyteller. I have always had strong opinions about film and television, but most of the time I shared them with friends or colleagues after the movie.

I’m not pretending that makes my opinion the final word. It doesn’t. But it does mean I have a lens, a history, and a point of view.

2. The Problem

Sometimes the loudest voices shape the narrative before the audience has even had a chance to decide for itself. Sometimes the conversation feels filtered through people who are not actually connected to what they are watching.

That is what frustrates me. Too much of what I see written and said about movies today feels stale, dismissive, or disconnected from the work and the audience it might be speaking to, especially when it comes to films by Black artists and creators. So yes, I want to jump into the conversation.

I want the discourse around films and shows to feel more honest, more alive, and less like the same people saying the same things.

People are allowed to hate a movie I love. That is not the issue. The issue is when the criticism feels lazy, disconnected, or like it came with an agenda.

The point is that lens, connection, and context matter. I care about who gets to frame the conversation, who gets to decide what is “good,” “important,” or “worthy,” and what gets dismissed before people even get in the room.

3. No More Tomatoes

Negative reviews have never kept me out of a theater. Not once. If anything, when people argue passionately about a movie, it can make me more curious. Reviews should open a door…they should not attempt to shut a door before the audience walks in.

There has been growing frustration for me with aggregator-driven film platforms because the numbers can become the conversation before people even see the movie. I remember when those platforms felt more like discovery tools, a place where reactions could make you curious about something you might not normally see. Now it often feels like a scoreboard, and a manipulated one at that.

Why do we want people deciding whether something has value because a percentage told them how to feel? Perception can be shaped, pushed, and distorted, and I have seen enough to know that a number is not always the whole story.

Let’s move towards a conversation, not a conclusion.

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4. Reaction and Reflection

Every review begins with a first impression. It is based on the exact stretch of time I am watching the film, whether that is in a theater or at home.

But that experience can change.

I have walked out of movies disappointed, only to watch them months later and love them. I have had films grow on me. I have had my perspective shift after sitting with something.

I’m in no rush to review, and I’m not trying to beat anyone to the headline. It’s the difference for me between my reaction and reflection. Opinion and perspective are not exactly the same thing either…. so I will be mindful of that when talking about my experience. I will frame my commentary as my perspective, not fact. I could be the only person who feels the way I feel, and that does not make me more right or more wrong. It just makes it my experience.

5. You Had Me at Hello!

I walk into every movie wanting to love it. I want to be surprised, moved, pulled in, and fully inside the experience. I want the movie to work. I am not sitting there hoping something fails, and I am not waiting to tear it down.

I want producers to get to the finish line, and you have to respect how hard it is to get a film or TV show made.

I want them to be good. I want them to make money.

If they are not my cup of tea, that’s okay too. So, I want audiences to show up and make up their own minds.

I want to be honest, but not cruel. Clear, not performative.

I am not interested in takedowns for sport. A lot of the time, what I feel is disappointment more than dislike, and that distinction matters to me.

I will say negative and positive things when I feel them. But, even if a movie disappoints me, I still honor the fact that I’m watching it.

Not every film or show is for every person, and it does not have to be. The goal is the right pairing: the right film finding the right person at the right moment. When that happens, that is the win.

6. The Rating

I’m not doing stars. I’m not doing grades. I’m not reducing the experience to a number. For me, the snapshot at the top of each review will be one of these:

Mind Blown
Loved It
Enjoyed It
I’m Torn!
Didn’t Work for Me
Change My Mind

It is a starting point, a quick read on where I landed after watching.

I’ll try to watch out for recency bias. I’ve thought I loved a movie, then watched it again and thought, really? The opposite thing has happened to me too… I didn’t like a film, then later watched it again and thought, “OMG, I was so wrong.”

If I say I’m Torn!, that does not mean it is bad. If I say Didn’t Work for Me, that does not mean it will not work for you. And if I say Change My Mind, I mean it. I’ve literally talked myself from “didn’t work” to “I enjoyed it” all on my own.

What I care about is conversation. You loved it, and I didn’t. I loved it, and you didn’t. You hated it, but I saw something in it. I hated it, but you helped me see what I missed.

That back-and-forth is the fun part.

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Happy Monday. Did you see any movies this weekend?

I didn’t make it to a theater, but I have tickets for several things for the rest of April: Michael, Normal, Animal Farm, and The Devil Wears Prada 2. This month, I’ve already seen The Drama, Newborn, Project Hail Mary, and They Will Kill You. I only found out about TWKY getting to the theater early for Scream 7 and catching the end of the trailers.

Normally, I show up to the theater twenty-five minutes after the listed start time, walking in right after pre-show content, including commercials and trailers for upcoming movies…ususally around the Coca-Cola ad and the Nicole Kidman AMC moment, having timed it perfectly to avoid every preview trailer.

All this has me thinking... it’s not just me. People are going back to the movies. As of early April, domestic box office revenues hit $2.1 billion, a nearly 24% spike over the same point in 2025. Ticket sales in the first quarter alone were up 23%, driven by everything from Project Hail Mary to Scream 7.

Audiences are showing up. But what’s getting them there? They are buying seats for the films they know about. For the ones that gave them a reason to leave the house.

That last part is the whole conversation.

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Because the films pulling people in right now are not always the better movies. Some are better marketed. And most studios in 2026 have not figured out what that actually means. Some still build their campaigns around trailers and interviews. The default tool. The assumed centerpiece. But I really wonder how much of their potential audience never sees them.

So What Is Marketing?

There is an old framework for thinking about marketing that still holds up.

Imagine you are putting on a show. The biggest risk is never the performance. It’s the empty seats. So let’s say the show you are marketing is a circus.

Advertising is the sign. “Circus is coming to town.” Paid. Controlled. Necessary.

Promotion is putting that sign on an elephant and walking it through town. You create excitement. Interest. Urgency. People stop and look.

Publicity is when the elephant creates a scene. The news covers it. People start talking. You did not pay for that. You cannot control it. But it moves and excites people.

PR (public relations) is the relationship you build with ticket buyers through interviews, articles, and media coverage. The reason people trust the brand or person before they decide to spend their money.

The goal is sales. Simple. When it all works, people buy tickets.

Marketing is not any one of those things. Marketing is the system that makes all of them work together.

Studios know this framework. Most of them are still using it exactly as written, step by step. But it’s no longer enough.

Are Trailers Reaching Us?

I avoid trailers, in theaters and online. Not out of lack of interest. Out of self-preservation. I do not want the movie spoiled.

As of March 2026, the most-viewed movie trailer in history within 24 hours is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which amassed 718.6 million views, shattering the previous record held by Deadpool & Wolverine. That’s reach. And trailer or no trailer, people are going to see that movie.

But for films that fall outside the Marvel, Star Wars, DC, Dune, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Hunger Games universe? I think trailers reach fewer people than studios think.

Sometimes I only find out about a movie walking through the lobby of the theater.

I co-host a podcast, The Watchers, so I go to the movies constantly. And even I will have a film sneak by me completely. No idea it’s coming out until I’m already standing in line for something else.

So what are these marketing departments actually putting out there? And what is actually getting through?

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Getting Attenion vs Selling Tickets

Knowing a movie exists is not the same as needing or wanting to see it.

The campaigns that are winning right now are not just louder. They are smarter. They do not just create awareness. They create something people want to step inside.

And let’s be clear about something. Spider-Man, Marvel, Star Wars, Dune, these are not the test. Those audiences are baked in. They clamor for the trailers. They buy tickets early. They are a coveted and reliable group. The real question is what happens outside that universe, for the films that do not have a built-in army waiting.

That is where marketing actually gets tested. And that is where A24 keeps passing.

That marketing team understood the assignment with The Drama.

The entire rollout told you nothing about the movie. No traditional movie website. Instead, a fake engagement announcement in the Boston Globe. A wedding website. charlyandemmaforever.com.

Built with the kind of detail that makes you stop and look twice. Their love story. Registry. Dress code. FAQs about alcohol and children. Things to do in Boston. RSVPs. Photos shot by high-end celebrity wedding photographers.

You are not being sold to. You are being included.

None of it spoiled anything. And the campaign was not static. As the release date approached, the imagery shifted. Early posters were warm, romantic, idyllic. Then they got darker. More unsettling. The tone changed without anyone explaining why.

People had been circling this film for weeks and still had no idea what it was actually about. That is not a gap in the marketing. That is the marketing.

Then enter Law Roach! Zendaya’s stylist of over a decade, was asked on a red carpet about her real-life relationship with Tom Holland. His response: “You already missed it. They already got married.”

There is no world in which that was an accident.

You do not casually say “you already missed it” in front of cameras, weeks before your client’s film about a couple keeping a secret before their wedding drops. That was not a slip. And it knocked over something the entire internet wanted to talk about.

Within hours, Zendaya was trending. Marriage speculation dominated timelines. Entertainment outlets ran it. Then her mother reposted the clip, pointed to his laugh, and added nothing but a laughing emoji. Not a confirmation. Not a denial. A signal.

When Zendaya appeared on Jimmy Kimmel, she addressed viral AI-generated wedding photos and called them fake. But she never denied a private ceremony. She left the door open just wide enough.

And then there were the red carpets.

Across every premiere, Zendaya wore a deliberate fashion narrative built around something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Fashion influencers tracked it in real time. Fans catalogued each look. It became its own storyline running parallel to the film. She was not making press appearances. She was releasing chapters.

The red carpet comment. The laugh. The repost. The non-denial. The ring. The dresses. Each one a fragment. Together, a campaign inside the campaign.

The audience was not just watching the rollout. They were inside it, interpreting it, debating it, sharing it. The film was already living in the conversation before most people had bought a ticket.

And this is not a one-release move. Zendaya has Dune: Part Three, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and The Odyssey all coming in 2026. She has said publicly that she keeps her relationship private to preserve it for herself. The mystery does not end when The Drama leaves theaters and finally streams. It carries forward.

This is a long game. The Drama has crossed $81 million worldwide on a $28 million budget. It’s doing outstanding numbers.

Good Movie. Nobody Came.

Now let’s look at a smaller movie, They Will Kill You.

Zazie Beetz. New Line Cinema. The Muschietti producers behind the It franchise. SXSW premiere. Strong early reviews. A campaign built around genre comparisons to Kill Bill, John Wick, and Ready or Not. Great tailer and fantastic art!

Everything correct on paper.

Opening weekend: $5 million domestic. Roughly $18 million worldwide against a $20 million budget.

Here is the thing. The premise of They Will Kill You is a gift for exactly this kind of marketing. A woman. A Satanic cult. A fight to get out alive.

That is not a movie you explain. That is a world you make people afraid they might already be inside.

In 1999, The Blair Witch Project did not market a horror film. It marketed a disappearance. A website. Missing persons flyers. Forums full of people debating whether it was real.

By the time the film opened, audiences were not buying tickets to see a movie. They were buying tickets to find out what happened.

They Will Kill You had the same raw material and left it untouched.

Imagine a website for the cult. A manifesto. A recruitment page that felt just real enough to be unsettling. A survivor testimony from Zazie Beetz’s character, shot found-footage style, no studio branding, just a woman describing what she saw. Released quietly. No announcement. Let the internet find it.

That is a door people walk through before they ever see a trailer. That is the conversation that fills seats.

Instead, the campaign told people what the movie was. Genre comparisons. Festival buzz. A trailer that showed its hand.

Awareness Minus Desire is Noise.

Knowing a movie exists is not the same as wanting to see it. This is what studios and distributors are missing.

The orginal framework still works. Advertising, promotion, publicity, PR, sales. The architecture is sound. But for some movies the system has to evolve.

The audience you are trying to reach does not just want to know the circus is coming. They want to feel like they found out before everyone else. They want something to interpret. They want backstage tickets. They want to be in on the secret. They want something to debate. Something they share not because they were told to but because they genuinely cannot help it.

And that is the PR layer most studios seem to be forgetting or not thinking about.

Zendaya has spent years building a relationship with her audience. Not just as a star. As someone people feel they know, follow, and trust. So when Law Roach says something on a red carpet, people believe it is real. When her mother posts a laughing emoji, it means something. That trust is not accidental. It is the result of years of showing up in a specific way.

That is what PR actually does. It is not spin. It is not damage control. It is the reason an audience feels comfortable spending their money before the lights go down.

They Will Kill You did not have that foundation with its audience. No relationship. No trust. No reason to take the leap.

And then there is A24.

A24 has spent over a decade building one of the strongest brand relationships in the film industry. Audiences do not just go to A24 films. They trust them. They seek them out. They tell other people. Just the name on a poster is PR working at full capacity. It is why a $28 million film with Zendaya opens as the second-highest domestic debut in the studio’s history. The film is almost secondary. The trust was already there.

The Drama did not just market a movie. It created a mystery and let the audience live inside it.

Listen for the Strategy

There is an old philosophical question. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Same question for movie marketing.

If a trailer plays and no one watches it, did it sell a single ticket? If a movie poster goes up and the audience walks past it, did it work?

The movie still has to open. The seats still have to fill. And right now a lot of studios are mistaking the trailer and the poster for the strategy.

So I want to know. What actually motivates you to go to the movies? Is it the genre? The star? The story? A trailer you actually watched? Boredom? Something to do with the kids?

Let’s talk about it.

WATCH HERE: CRIME 101

CRIME 101, the best movie we’ve both seen all year? Will this be the sleeper hit of 2026?

Victoria Bert and Kevin Marable break down the new crime thriller starring Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Halle Berry. They dive into the standout performances, the incredible LA getaway sequences, the tense heist at the center of the story, and the twist ending that sets up a possible sequel.

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WATCH HERE: SCREAM 7

The Ghostface franchise is back, but should it be?
The seventh installment of Scream has Victoria and Kevin asking, " Should the filmmakers have pushed the release back?”
In this episode of The Watchers, they dive into the newest installment in the legendary horror series, break down the plot and plot holes, and share what they think should have happened. They talk the kills, the twists, and the performances.
Is Scream 7 a worthy continuation, or is the franchise starting to lose its edge? Does this sequel actually deliver for longtime fans of the franchise?

What did you think of Scream 7?
Let us know in the comments.
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2026 is packed with franchises, prestige projects, independent films, and a few wild cards. We’re breaking down the first half of the year, January through July. This is Victoria and Kevin's personal tier list, not box office predictions. Just an honest reaction to the movies coming out: Epic to Hard Pass!
All films are discussed in chronological release order.

Movies covered include The Rip, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Night Patrol, Mercy, Send Help, Crime 101, Wuthering Heights, Scream 7, The Bride, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Project Hail Mary, The Drama, Ready or Not 2, Michael, Mother Mary, The Mandalorian and Grogu, Disclosure Day, Scary Movie 6, Toy Story 5, Supergirl, Moana, The Odyssey, Evil Dead Burn, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Listen, subscribe, like, follow, and review.
Watch on YouTube, support us on Patreon, and find all our socials in the description.

Watch the full review and jump into the comments to tell us what you think and what we should watch next.

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The night before Easter, on the way to a movie, I met a man named Moses. Let's talk about it.

It was Saturday night, and at the last minute, I ran out to catch The Drama at my local AMC. I made two rookie mistakes:

I didn’t check the current temperature.

I didn’t wear socks.

April in New York City is tricky!

If you’ve lived here long enough, you know that NYC really has 12 seasons. And if you are not familiar, it goes pretty much like this…

1. Winter

2. Fool’s Spring

3. Second Winter

4. Spring of Deception

5. Third Winter

6. The Pollening

7. Actual Spring

8. Summer

9. Hell’s Front Porch

10. False Fall

11. Second Summer

12. Actual Fall

According to those in the know, we are currently in the Spring of Deception.

So Saturday was in the mid-60s during the day and, unbeknownst to me, dropped into the low 40s by 5 pm.

The second I stepped outside, I felt it. Cold. Immediate regret. I buttoned up my demi jacket. But my feet were freezing.

I had a choice: go back upstairs and change…and risk being late to the movie. Or keep it moving.

I kept it moving.

I looked for the M42 bus… that’s an inside joke because on a Saturday… no way.

But then, a third choice presented itself. I spotted a yellow cab on 42nd and 11th. Its bright white light on the roof indicated it was available! It was like a beacon, like a lighthouse in a storm… a light at the end of the tunnel. You get it. I’ll stop.

So, I ran for it. I jumped in and asked the driver to take me across the two avenues to 8th Ave. He looked confused, but turned on the meter. I’m sure stranger things have happened.

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This was not the most cost-effective thing to do… but if there was no traffic, it would be a quick ride, I would be warm, and my problem would be solved.

As I crossed Dyer, where the Lincoln Tunnel spills out, between 9th and 10th, we hit some traffic. Because of course.

So, I jump on the phone with my friend Carissa and launch into the NYC weather conversation. I start talking about how cold it is...and trying to justify taking a cab a few avenues across town (really more to myself than to her) “My feet are freezing. I didn’t wear socks. I don’t want to catch a cold!”

She listens in a very non-judgmental way.

From the front seat, I can see the driver reach into the console between his seats, root around.

He pulls out…socks. SOCKS!

And then he hands me the socks.

New. Bright blue. Soft. Still in the pack.

He says, “I keep them in the car. Put them on. We have to take care of each other.”

I was so stunned.

He told me to put them on in the cab. So I did.

Carissa can hear this whole thing, and she is now saying, “Is he giving you socks!! That is so nice. OMG!” I put the phone down. I wanted to talk to him properly. I then thank him deeply.

There is a thing that happens between New Yorkers when we really see each other. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like you’re seeing a long-lost friend and are reconnecting. Then you will likely never see them again.

This moment was such a beautiful reminder of how wonderful it feels to truly meet another person.

His name is Moses Kim.

I asked him if I could share this and take his picture. I told him, “We need stories like this in the world.” He said, ok.

He told me the last pair he handed out went to a woman who was likely homeless and needed socks.

That’s it. No performance. Just kindness.

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I loved the movie, but honestly, what Moses did for me stayed with me much longer than Zendaya and Robert’s recent drama.

Long enough for me to take time to write about him. Why? Well…

People love to say New York isn’t kind. That it’s cold, hard, disconnected. Or that New Yorkers are not warm. Or that we are rude or impatient.

Not true.

New York is fast. New York is busy. But New York is also full of people like Moses, who hear you, see you, and help without thinking twice.

Take care of someone today.

Even something small.

It matters.

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I’m dyslexic. Let’s talk about it.

I was told when I was 15. But obviously, I was dyslexic before that. Before the “diagnosis,” all I remember feeling was that most folks thought I was dumb. I remember, specifically, in grade school, the nuns making comments that I was not quick. Yikes.

Different things would help them draw this conclusion. While I was clever, funny, and could talk a blue streak, tests were where I fell short. I flipped letters. I switched words. I scrambled numbers. So I did horribly on tests.

Side note: I also have ADHD. They knew nothing of that when I was growing up, so you can only imagine.

Here is the funny thing. I remember thinking I was smart. So did my mom, thank goodness. But the truth was that most things around learning were hard. Reading might as well have been Latin. Before audiobooks were a thing, I would listen to stories on a little record player by my bed. Grimm’s fairy tales were my favorite. That tells you something, doesn’t it? Reading got easier as I got older, and I read fast, but to this day, audiobooks are my favorite way to get into a good book.

Even back then, I loved stories. I was good at penmanship, even though letters would change places. Writing was weird because I knew what I wanted to say, but the output would get jumbled. Math, specifically the times tables, seemed like torture. History. Ugh.

One thing I recall with the clarity of a fever dream is spelling bees. Spelling bees were usually at the end of the week, right alongside a spelling test, which was the other bane of my existence. They were brutal.

I was tall, even as a kid, so thank the lord I was always at the end of the line, waiting and dreading my turn.

Standing there in front of everybody, I would panic.

All I prayed was please don’t let me be the first one out. That was it. The bar was low. The bar was very low.

When it came, I would just pray the word was something I might know. I’m visual. That’s how I learn. I visually recall. I would look at a word and try to figure out how it was spelled based on how it looked in my head. It didn’t help that I would always be told, “Just sound it out.” Yeah, ok. That suggestion didn’t really help. I’ll explain why in a minute.

The moment would come. Victoria, spell “receivership.” Oh no. Not the dreaded i before e, except after c. OUT.

Then, my first walk of shame back to the little desk in my classroom.

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My mom knew something was off. She would say out loud, “This kid is smart, I don’t get it.” She worked hard to help me. Flashcards, running the words with me over and over. Eventually, it paid off. The first time I got a hundred on a spelling test, my teacher, Sister Ann, announced it to the class. Oh wow. Look at this. Victoria got a hundred. She got them all right. It did not feel like a celebration.

If grammar school was bad, high school was worse. St. Catherine’s was built around linear teaching. Repetition. Memorization. It was not built for a brain like mine.

Here’s a layer nobody explained to me, the one I only figured out as I got older.

Now, about sounding out words. My first introduction to language was Spanish. My adoptive mother told me I had lived with a foster family for about a year, and they spoke only Spanish. So the way I heard words, sounded them out, first learned to speak, and learned vowel sounds, was different from the start. A-E-I-O-U in English did not land the way it did for everyone else in that classroom. Nobody ever factored that in. I only figured out why sounding things out never worked much later.

I was talking about this last month with a friend, and they asked me to say the vowels out loud. I smirked and thought, what do you think? And after I finished proudly saying them, she said, “Those are the Spanish vowels.” What? It really showed me how primal that first introduction to letters and sounds was in my life.

But as a kid, none of that had happened yet. All anyone saw was a smart girl who couldn’t pass a spelling test. Spelling was a nightmare. Reading took real effort. Math felt impossible. History, taught as a list of dates, might as well have been another language. It wasn’t until college, when a professor taught history like a story, layered and dimensional, that I actually fell in love with it. I could hold onto it. I understood it in context. The whole visual story of the world in 360.

By high school, I was failing math badly enough to end up in summer school. My parents couldn’t understand it. They knew I was smart. They knew I was trying. So they got me a tutor.

That tutor changed everything.

He was the first person who saw what was actually happening. He told us: she’s dyslexic. But more importantly, he gave me a system. Do the problem forward, then do it backward. Check your work that way. It protects your brain from mistakes you might not see.

It sounds simple. It was not. It was life-changing.

I went from failing math to straight A’s. No joke. I could spot mistakes when teachers were working on the blackboard. I stopped taking finals because I got 100 on every test. In college, I majored in math my first year.

But it turned out math wasn’t what I loved. I switched to history. Then film and communications. Because I loved stories most.

The problem was never that I was dumb. The problem was that nobody taught me in a way my brain could use.

Spelling never became “easy.” Reading still requires focus. To this day, my brain does funny things. It fills in missing words. It skips words. It flips letters and numbers. It rearranges what’s on the page and what’s in my mind’s eye.

Back to college. I remember when white-out arrived. That was massive. Before that, written homework and typed tests were a nightmare. But the real game changer was computers. Or word processors! Spellcheck. Are you kidding me? That one tool let me express myself without the fear of being ridiculed. And then somebody said to me, “You’re a good writer.” Wide eyes. I am?! That was all I needed to hear. I’ve been telling stories ever since. It had nothing to do with my ability to spell.

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The truth is, I didn’t travel some roads because of dyslexia. I was terrible at standardized tests. They didn’t give allowances back when I was in school. Specifically, I didn’t go to law school because I would never take another entrance test after the SATs. I still think about going back to study law.

Even with this “disorder,” I built a career around words. In fact, when I can’t spell a word quickly, I pivot to another word fast. This struggle very likely expanded my vocabulary tenfold.

It turns out the problem was never me. I just wasn’t given the tools that helped me be me.

Dyslexia is not stupidity. It is not laziness. It is a different way of processing. And with the right tools, it can be your superpower.

I’m grateful younger generations have more tools, more language around this, more understanding. That’s real progress. But there are still people who will tell a struggling kid to just try harder. Study more. Focus.

That’s not a fix. That’s just a louder version of the same mistake.

If you’re dyslexic, pay attention to how you learn, not just how you perform. There are great books about how our brains work, but I would start with groups that encourage understanding, not just fixing.

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If you’re looking for resources, a few worth knowing: the International Dyslexia Association for research and local support, Decoding Dyslexia for parent-led advocacy, Understood.org for expert advice, the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity for research-based insights, and Audible and Learning Ally for audiobooks.

Minds work differently. That’s not a problem. That’s just the truth.

I wish someone had told me that sooner.

And honestly, it all makes sense now. The way my brain works, visual, non-linear, pattern-seeking, is exactly what storytelling demands. Film. Television. Screenwriting. Visual art. You're not moving in a straight line. You're holding multiple threads at once, seeing the whole picture, feeling how things connect before you can even explain why. That's not a disorder. That was always my superpower. I just didn't know it yet.

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98 Years. Not Once. Until Last Night.

Let’s talk about what happened at the Oscars last night, because it deserves more than a headline.

Autumn Durald Arkapaw just made history at the 98th Academy Awards, becoming the first woman, and first woman of color, to ever win the Oscar for Best Cinematography for Sinners. The Academy has been handing out this award since 1929. In all that time, only three women had ever even been nominated: Rachel Morrison for Mudbound in 2018, Ari Wegner for The Power of the Dog in 2021, and Mandy Walker for Elvis in 2022. Autumn won where all of them couldn’t, and she did it against the odds, having lost at the BAFTAs, the British Society of Cinematographers, and the American Society of Cinematographers going into Oscar night.

Let that sit for a second.

I have watched the Oscars since I was a very young girl. I know how rare it has been to see a Black woman walk up to that podium and take home a win. Those moments are etched into my memory because there have been so few of them. So last night, when Autumn stepped into that spotlight, it was powerful.

Autumn is of Filipino and African American Creole descent, with African ancestry on her father’s side. And she is the first Black person, man or woman, to ever win Best Cinematography. Bradford Young became the first Black cinematographer ever nominated when he received a nod for Arrival in 2017, a year before the first woman, Rachel Morrison, was nominated for Mudbound. Neither of them won. In 98 years, no Black cinematographer had ever won. Until last night.

She is the first female cinematographer to shoot on IMAX 65mm and Ultra Panavision. She didn’t just shoot Sinners. It was art! It was cinematic! Simply put, she shot it beautifully and boldly.

When she got to the podium, she didn’t just accept an award. She made a statement. She asked every woman in the Dolby Theatre to stand up, saying, “I really want all the women in the room to stand up, because I feel like I don’t get here without you guys.” And backstage, she said something that stopped me: “A lot of little girls that look like me will sleep really well tonight, because they will want to become cinematographers.”

That is a really spectacular thing to consider. A little girl watching television, seeing someone who looks like her hold that trophy, and deciding that the camera is a place she belongs too.

She also gave a beautiful tribute to director Ryan Coogler, recalling that whenever she thanks him, he replies, “No, thank you, thank you for believing in me and thank you for trusting me.” This was their second collaboration after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the trust between them shows in every frame of Sinners.

The night was a big one for the film overall. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor, and Ryan Coogler took Original Screenplay. Composer Ludwig Göransson took home Best Original Score, becoming the first three-time winner in that category in the 21st century, having previously won for Black Panther and Oppenheimer. Sinners had already made Oscar history with a record 16 nominations, and it was a spectacular end to the awards season for Coogler’s film.

But this night, for me, and more than anything, belongs to Autumn.

I love to see it.

Like 4.2 million other horror fans, I went to see Scream 7 on its opening weekend. I was excited. I love this franchise. I’ve loved it a long time! (I’ve even defended the much-maligned Scream 3.) So it goes without saying, I genuinely wanted this one to work. I was ready for it to be EPIC!

But walking out of the theater, I had a very different reaction.

Watching the movie, it felt like the film was scrambling to fill in the gaps. Characters appear without much development. The motivations behind the killers feel weak. The emotional punch that the Scream franchise usually delivers just wasn’t there. And then there’s the final reveal itself. Scream has always been at its best at this moment. The Ghostface killers in this film feel disconnected. The twist lands without the shock or cleverness that the series built its reputation on.

I won’t spoil it here. But I hated it.

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Something felt off. Here is a part of the problem. Before cameras even rolled, the film lost its central stars. Melissa Barrera was fired. Jenna Ortega exited the project. As a result, the director, Christopher Landon, quit. So, by the time the movie was moving forward again, the story’s original direction was clearly no longer viable.

That’s where I think the problem began.

When a franchise loses its main characters and its direction, is it better to push ahead anyway, or pause and rethink the story?

Midway through watching Scream 7, I couldn’t help wondering what this movie might have looked like if the studio had simply paused. Taken a year. Rebuilt the story. Found a bold new angle instead of rushing forward.

On the latest episode of The Watchers, my co-host and I talk through the film, and one question kept coming up for me: Did this movie get rushed into production?

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In a Scream movie, everything hangs on three structural pillars. The opening kill. The meta rant. And the Ghostface reveal, the moment the mask comes off, and the entire story either clicks into place or collapses. In Scream 7, all three collapsed.

Spoilers ahead.

Spoilers ahead.

Spoilers ahead.

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First, let’s talk about the Ghostface reveal.

If you’re going to feel good walking out of a Scream movie, they have to land the reveal. And this one didn’t. Again, SPOILERS.

The final act of Scream 7 reveals that the murders were carried out by three different Ghostfaces working together. One by one, the killers unmask themselves in the finale, explaining how they coordinated the attacks and manipulated events throughout the film. Here are our killers: Jessica Bowden, Sidney Prescott’s seemingly friendly next-door neighbor; Marco, a psychiatric hospital orderly who uses his tech skills to create the AI deepfake calls; and Karl Allan Gibbs, a Stab-obsessed patient who helps carry out the attacks.

Jessica is the mastermind, driven by an obsessive parasocial fixation on Sidney and anger that Sidney skipped the events of Scream VI. Her plan is to force Sidney back into the role of the “final girl” by recreating the mythology around her.

On paper, it could have seemed like a very Scream idea. Fandom obsession, true crime culture, AI manipulation. But in execution, the reveal feels ridiculous. Most people I spoke to figured it out before it happened. More importantly, the killers didn’t have a strong emotional connection to the core characters. The twist lands less like a devastating revelation and more like a mechanical explanation of how the murders were carried out. With the film practically turning to the camera and asking, do you get it?

The franchise now has 18 Ghostface killers across the series. But these three feel the most disconnected of all. There’s no psychological thread tying them together. No devastating betrayal. No reveal that lands in your chest the way the best Scream twists do.

Part of the problem is that the movie telegraphs the reveal too early. In a mystery like this, casting matters. The audience starts clocking suspects the moment they appear, and once suspicion sets in, the tension collapses.

On the podcast, Kevin and I talked about a few directions the movie could have taken that would have been far more interesting.

The boldest move would have been to lean into the controversy surrounding the franchise and make Sam Carpenter the killer. She’s Billy Loomis’s daughter. The darkness has always been there. Turning that thread into the twist would have been shocking, messy, and completely in the spirit of Scream.

Another option would have been to go all in on the Stu Macher mythology. The movie does bring him back, scarred and aged, making a FaceTime call to Sidney. But it feels like a weird cameo in service of a bigger twist rather than a genuinely terrifying deepfake or shocking return. If you’re going to open that door after 30 years, you have to commit to it fully. The film teases the idea and then squanders it.

Or go completely sideways and make Gale Weathers the killer. After decades of covering these murders and building a career off the Ghostface mythology, imagine revealing that she finally snapped and decided to control the story herself.

Those are bold choices. Instead, the killers we get feel random. And when the reveal doesn’t land, the entire movie wobbles.

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The opening scene actually starts with a clever idea: the Stu house turned into an Airbnb for true crime fans. But the sequence quickly falls apart when the killer burns the house down for no clear reason, killing characters who have no real connection to the story or the town. A strong opening should pull you in and set the stakes. This one just sets a house on fire.

The meta rant, delivered by Chad and Mindy, also misses the mark. Instead of cleverly laying out the rules the way Scream usually does, it feels like characters explaining things after the fact rather than shaping the story. It’s a lecture, not a setup.

The section that bothered me most, though, was the writing around Sidney’s daughter Tatum. If your mother is Sidney Prescott, you don’t grow up naive about Ghostface. You grow up studying every case. You’d be a crime junkie. You’ve probably read every article, watched every documentary, and memorized every Ghostface case. You’d be prepared.

Instead, the character is written like another teenager who has no idea what she’s dealing with. Rather than feeling like a baton being passed from mother to daughter, it plays like a confused, terrified girl begging for help. Tatum should feel like someone who has been preparing her whole life for this moment. Instead, the movie treats her like just another victim.

Horror franchises survive bad installments all the time. A movie can succeed financially even when the storytelling doesn't land the way longtime fans hoped. The truth is, horror fans show up, and the brand carries weight. Despite my criticisms, Scream 7 performed very well. The film opened to $64.1 million across 3,540 theaters and has already grossed roughly $152 million worldwide, including about $96 million domestic and $56 million internationally.

Another question is around the director. Was bringing Kevin Williamson back to the franchise the right move? On paper, it made perfect sense. Williamson wrote the original Scream, and for this installment, he returned as both writer and director, so his involvement runs deeper than just a nostalgic callback. The opening weekend numbers suggest audiences were excited about that idea. But the reception tells another story. Scream 7 earned a B- CinemaScore, well below the B+ earned by both Scream 5 and Scream VI. Critics were even harsher, with the film landing a franchise-low 34% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 77% for Scream VI. Nostalgia may have brought people into theaters, but the movie itself didn't give them much reason to keep talking about it. What should have felt like a return to form instead plays like a clunky, back-to-basics installment with surprisingly flat direction and writing that never quite finds the sharp, self-aware edge that once defined the series.

Scream works best when it feels new and dangerous. And this one feels like a carbon copy of itself. Actually, it felt like an unfunny Stab movie.

Let’s see what they do with Scream 8!

Consider watching The Watchers, and let’s talk about it.

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2026 kicked off with a problem we actually love: too many movies, not enough weekends.

In this episode of The Watchers, Victoria Bert (Killer Shot Films) and Kevin Marable TheBlkScript Network, build a 2026 “most anticipated movie” tier list for the first half of the year, and it turns into a full-on debate about what deserves opening weekend energy, what can wait a few days, and what is getting a personal hard pass.

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The categories are simple: Epic, I’m Sat, First Week, Stream It, On the Fence, and Hard Pass, with one rule: this is taste, not a prediction, so nobody come for us.

We talk about over 20 movies and get into everything from high-stakes thrillers (The Rip, Mercy) to horror and franchise loyalty. Scream 7, Ready or Not 2, plus a very honest conversation about what’s actually worth showing up for, and the movies that are being kept so quiet they feel like a dare. Like, what is The Drama about!?

We’re not predicting hits or defending box office narratives; we’re talking about what actually makes us leave the house. What’s worth opening weekend, what can wait, and what might never happen at all. Our pod is about taste, timing, and instinct. We also get into why marketing isn’t cutting through the way it used to, and how even people who live inside this business are missing films until the week they open.

By the end, the funniest part is the scorecard: we’re “sat” for an absurd number of titles, and that’s still only January through July.

Watch the full episode on YouTube, then drop your picks in the comments: what have you already seen?

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I wasn’t, in fact, SAT for Mercy or Send Help thanks to the snowstorm of 2026 and that brutal Arctic cold, but I did catch The Rip on Netflix. Honestly, it held. What grabbed me right away was the opening, sharp, funny, and tense, the kind that immediately tells you this movie knows exactly what it is. Watching Ben Affleck and Matt Damon together is still a pleasure; they cook on screen, especially in the first 60 minutes, when trust, ego, and suspicion collide. SPOILERS

The script is trying very hard to be clever and compelling, sometimes almost too talky for a pressure-cooker crime thriller, but some of the performances carry it. I kept circling back to the question the film keeps asking… Are they the good guys, and who actually benefits when the dust settles? And either Matt’s character is a really smart, good cop or a super dumb, bad guy. The layered misdirection wasn’t that subtle. As soon as Matt’s character started using different amounts of money, I knew he was pulling a “Mission Impossible” move… IFYKYK. I did like the betrayals and backstabbing. Also, a side note, Ben was looking very fit!!! By the time the reveal lands and the sunrise hits at the end, it feels very Michael Mann and bro-coded. It’s funny, grounded, and relatable for a movie about greed, loyalty, and a very big rip.

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The Wicked films did not fail creatively or financially. But I do think they failed strategically.

Splitting the musical into two parts may have given the filmmakers time and space to go deeper, but it broke the momentum. Instead of a 15-minute intermission, we went to get a snack and to pee for a year. Too long.

Wicked, when it came out, was undeniably successful. It dominated the cultural conversation and the box office, earned widespread critical praise, received ten Academy Award nominations, and won two Oscars.

Wicked: For Good also performed well on paper. It received significant recognition, including seven Critics’ Choice nominations and five Golden Globe nominations. But it was notably shut out at the 2026 Academy Awards, receiving no nominations.

The quality of the work did not suddenly evaporate. Director Jon M. Chu shot both films together, an impressive and massive undertaking, which matters because it means these films were made as one continuous creative effort. The performances, the craft, the vision, all of it remained consistent.

So why did the second film turn out to be less than?

That disconnect, more than the snub itself, is what got me thinking. Something larger shifted around these films. And that shift points directly to the strategic choice at the center of this release. The split!

Here’s what I think really happened, and why splitting Wicked into two parts was a mistake.

The Split

The decision to split Wicked into two films was not made at the last minute. It was early, deliberate, and framed as a stance on serving the “art”. In April 2022, director Jon M. Chu and the producers argued that condensing the stage musical into a single film would require cutting songs, compressing character arcs, and flattening emotional beats in ways they considered “fatal” to the source material. Or it would be a four-hour film. They never wavered from these arguments. Sure, on paper, it could work. It’s been donebefore. But Wicked is a classical musical. One story, one emotional build, and one payoff. A crescendo at the end of the first act…with the song Defying Gravity. And here is the key point: a 15-minute break before the softer second half. With a damn good song …For Good…closing it all out. The show works because the audience never really leaves the world. You sit, you live in it, you leave happy. Turning that arc into a sequel structure does not protect the story. It fractured it.

The creative‑integrity argument is further weakened by what actually ended up in the films. In both movies, there are new songs written specifically for the screen and extended scenes, and all of it feels less like “we had to split the story to protect it” and more like “once we split it, we had to keep stuffing it.”

The Box Office

If you want to see that fracture quantified, follow the money.​

The first film, released on November 22, 2024, was a genuine theatrical event. It grossed over $758 million worldwide and delivered a $112.5 million domestic opening weekend. That run made it the highest-grossing Broadway musical adaptation in history. In 2024, Wicked ranked third for the entire year, behind Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, two big franchises with built-in sequel appetite.​

That is not niche success. That is four-quadrant dominance. It set a trajectory.​

Wicked: For Good did not collapse. In its first ten weeks, the second film grossed roughly $524 million worldwide and ranked sixth on the 2025 domestic chart. By normal industry standards, those are “success” numbers. But for what is essentially the second half of the same story, trailing the first film by roughly $250 million dollars is not just variance. It is a loss of heat.​

And that scale of drop is significant because, in theory, it should have gone the other way. If the split had truly created propulsion… if Part Two felt essential rather than optional… You would expect the payoff to at least match, if not exceed, the setup. That is what happens when one narrative arc is stretched over two chapters and the audience stays hooked: the second entry rides the accumulated energy of the first.​

Here, the opposite happened: energy leaked. The box office is not just a reflection of taste. It’s a measure of momentum or anticipation. And they both went down when it should have gone up.​

When I first started researching this, headlines and publications pushed the idea that the opening‑week numbers for Wicked: For Good had soared past Wicked. But once you dig past the headline, the story changes. Over its first seven days, Wicked grossed about $182 million domestically across 3,888 theaters, averaging about 46,800 per theater. While Wicked: For Good’s first week lands only slightly higher in raw dollars, roughly $198 million across 4,115 theaters, or about $48,100 dollars per theater.

That’s a tiny per‑theater edge, basically a statistical shrug rather than some runaway sequel breakout. If the split had truly built momentum, the second film’s opening shouldn’t just be a bit bigger? It should be decisively bigger and then hold.

Check this out… both of the following sequels came out in the same year as Wicked and Wicked: For Good.

Inside Out 2 didn’t just edge past its first movie; it almost doubled it, finishing with over $652.9 million domestic versus the original’s $356.5 million, off a record‑setting $154.2 million opening weekend and ultimately becoming the highest‑grossing animated film of all time.

Zootopia 2 did the same thing on a smaller scale in 2025, outgrossing the 2016 original at the domestic box office with more than $401 million compared to the first film’s $341 million.

In other words, when a sequel is truly riding audience affection, you see it clearly in the numbers: the follow‑up opens bigger, holds longer, and ends higher.

The Big Mo

Dune is actually a useful contrast to Wicked, because it shows what real “part two” momentum looks like. Dune: Part One, released in 2021 in the middle of the pandemic with a compromised theatrical rollout, topped out at around $429.5 million worldwide and roughly $108.3 million domestic. Dune: Part Two arrived three years later into a fully reopened market and blew past those numbers, reaching about $715.2 million worldwide and roughly $282.1 million domestic, off an $82.5 million opening weekend that made it one of 2024’s top earners. That’s what it looks like when a second chapter is actually riding audience goodwill: the domestic number more than doubles, the global total jumps by almost $300 million, and the “part two” feels like the payoff, not an obligation.

The real test for Dune as a multi‑part saga will be the third film. If Part Three lands anywhere near Part Two (I know I’m going!), let alone grows again, you’re looking at a franchise that successfully built momentum across chapters. If it slides back toward Part One’s scale, you’re seeing the same cooling curve that hits so many stretched finales. And that’s the curve Wicked hit early: instead of using a second film to unlock a bigger audience, the split cooled the moment so much that even a technically “higher” opening couldn’t translate into real sequel heat.

The Experience

I saw both films…actaully I saw them both twice. In a FYC Producer’s Guild screening, and then with friends.

Wicked: For Good felt exactly like what it was: the second half of a musical.​ But that didn’t work so well for me in the movies. For the record, the first film left me in a puddle.

On Broadway, the dip is not a flaw. It is the design. But because you’re still in your seat, still in the world, still processing the last button before the lights came up for intermission. You are still connected. You get a QUICK reset, maybe a bathroom break and a drink, you talk about Act One, buy merch in the lobby, and then you go back in for the turn, the reversals, and the 11 p.m. number. That structure relies on continuous emotional occupancy: you’ve never actually left the story.​

On film, released a full year later, that same structure becomes a liability. Wicked: For Good has real strengths. It has a proper 11 p.m.–style climax, and when it lands, it lands. But the film depends on energy generated by the first installment: energy that, in a theater, would still be buzzing in your body ninety minutes in.​ With a twelve-month gap, that energy dissipates. The sequel is forced to stand alone when it was never meant to. It has to recreate the urgency that has already been spent. They try to keep it up through endless marketing that leaves most folks feeling fatigued. Instead of feeling like a crescendo, it feels like a continuation. The story completes, but it doesn’t crest. In awards culture and audience memory, that distinction is everything.​

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The Marketing

The campaign followed the same arc as the structure: what began as smart, touching, and sincere drifted into overkill.​

Even though some felt the Cynthia Erivo/Ariana Grande dynamic was ‘too much’, we can’t deny it worked. Their chemistry and antics kept people talking. The “we’re in this together” narrative reinforced the emotional core of the Wicked “friendship” and gave the film a beating heart in the press. It felt intimate and just slightly manufactured.​ We all bought it.

But stretched across a second full cycle, that same story picked up a low-level…ick factor. Not because the bond itself was false, but because it was repeated so relentlessly that it started to feel like a product line. The same anecdotes, the same talking points, the same “this changed our lives” framing appeared everywhere, long after the audience had absorbed the message. At some point, it tipped.​

It never blew up into a real backlash. Instead, something quieter happened: people stopped talking about it. It just kept going past the point where anyone needed more.​ Overexposure turned warmth into wariness.

Marketing is at its best when it amplifies feelings people already have. Here, by the second year, it was trying to manufacture intensity that had already peaked. Instead of appetite, there was repetition.

The Time Argument

The musical is 2 hours and 45 mins. Even at 3+ hours. I would think they could have pulled that off… One night, one ticket, one story, one event you can circle on the calendar. That could have been the Wicked as one movie moment.

Avatar: Fire and Ice is 3 hours and 17 min. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning was endless… no, just jokes. It was 2 hours and 49 mins. I mean, back in 1985, The Color Purple was 2 hours and 33 mins! I don’t think folks would have passed on seeing Wicked if it had been 3+ hours.

For sure, theater people, speaking as a theater geek, sitting through a long musical with an intermission is the default. That’s what the break is for. You process Act One, and then go back in… no stress. This film could have borrowed that structure. A single Wicked with a built-in intermission could have honored both realities at once. Structurally, the material was already wired for that rhythm. The choice to turn a natural 15-minute pause into a 12-month hiatus is the time decision that never made sense to me. ​

The Intermission

And that intermission didn’t have to be dead air. It could have been one of the most inventive parts of the release strategy.​ Imagine a 15-minute Wicked interval designed as a mini-event:

• In-theater sing-alongs for one or two Act One songs, with lyrics on screen and the cinema leaning into its inner Broadway.​

• Short, exclusive behind-the-scenes clips: quick set tours, rehearsal footage, in-character moments, that only play in theaters, never online.​

• A tight “making of this story beat” segment to emotionally prime the audience for Act Two.​

• Social Media moments! Imagine all the free press.

• Limited-run intermission merch and concessions tied specifically to that mid-film experience.​

All those press clips, junket bits, and behind-the-scenes videos that were sprinkled across two years’ worth of promotion could have been concentrated in that middle space. Instead of exhausting audiences through constant online exposure, the same content could have deepened the experience for the people who actually showed up. The assets existed. The strategy did not.​

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The Money

The argument is not about ticket price alone. It’s about behavior.

Wicked did not need to be split to make more money; the money was always going to come from people seeing it more than once. And paying full price each time.

Fans see it again for the music, again with friends, again as a sing-along, again because it feels like an event. Splitting the film didn’t create that behavior; it forced it.

This IP already commanded Broadway-level pricing behavior in major cities. The smarter strategy was to concentrate that pricing power into a single elevated theatrical moment, rather than split it across two standard releases. A single, complete film would have encouraged voluntary repeat viewing.

Also, nothing is stopping them from re-releasing that full film again next year, or the year after, or as a special event. Re-releases extend demand over time.

By forcing the second viewing into a separate film, the strategy turned enthusiasm into obligation.

The numbers are pretty clear about what happens when studios treat a single film as an event that returns.

The Re-Release

Re-releases make real money. Not nostalgia money, but tens and hundreds of millions in incremental revenue. Titanic alone earned roughly $350 million from its 2012 3D re-release. The Lion King pulled in about $186 million from its 3D return. Star Wars and its sequels generated hundreds of millions of dollars through special-edition reissues. Even Avatar has repeatedly gone back to theaters and kept earning. The pattern is clear. When an IP reaches this level of cultural scale, bringing it back is not a gamble. It is a proven, repeatable business strategy.

Jaws’ 50th-anniversary theatrical re-release brought in around 14 million, with negligible new marketing or production costs. No sequel, no new plot, just “see this the way it was meant to be seen,” and audiences showed up.​

Apply that logic to Wicked. The first film’s 758 million worldwide haul is a strong baseline. Even a conservative re-release capturing a fraction of that audience, say 20 to 25 percent, could plausibly add well over 150 million in high-margin theatrical revenue. Add in sing-along editions, anniversary screenings, and special-event showings, and you’re looking at a renewable revenue stream built off one coherent, intact film.​

An even closer example is Hamilton, which was re-released theatrically in 2025, five years after its original Disney+ release. Audiences had already watched it at home, many of them repeatedly. And yet the theatrical re-release still earned approximately $20.9 million worldwide.

Re-releases make money because the theatrical experience is different. It is communal. It is elevated.

Let’s also put it on the record that Wicked will be re-released. And when it is, it will be the entire story, together, in one sitting. That version will not be positioned as a correction or a compromise, but as inevitability. Once an IP reaches this level of cultural scale, it must return to theaters.

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The Snub

So, why the Oscar snub? Wicked: For Good deserved a nod! Not because awards are the only metric of value, but because it was a worthy film. ​

The first film received ten Oscar nominations, two wins, and was celebrated mightily.

The second film zip. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members didn’t nominate anyone or anything. Maybe the moment cooled, and you cannot campaign your way back into a moment once you’ve stretched it past its natural lifespan.

What failed, to me, was the strategy around the film. A classically structured story was stretched across too much time, padded to fill a second slot, and marketed past the point of saturation. The result was not a disaster. It was diminishing returns, culturally for sure.​ Wicked didn’t get ignored because it was unworthy. I think it’s simple: by the time the second movie arrived, the true moment had passed, and instead of defying gravity, it crash-landed.

The Reality

We will never know what a single, uninterrupted Wicked might have done: one towering box office run, one awards campaign, one sustained cultural crescendo. It’s unlimited.

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The Watchers Podcast cohosts Victoria and Kevin interview Night Patrol’s Nicki Micheaux.

Night Patrol is a new horror film that riffs on policing, power, and survival.

The film imagines a rogue, vampire police unit terrorizing a Los Angeles housing project, forcing rival gangs to unite against a shared enemy.
Victoria and Kevin are joined by actor Nicki Micheaux, who plays the film’s matriarch and mystic, for a conversation about character, symbolism, and her turn in the horror genre.

Night Patrol is directed by Ryan Prows. The film stars Nicki Micheaux, Jermaine Fowler, RJ Cyler, Justin Long, Dermot Mulroney, and CM Punk.

Also The Streaming Watch List breaks down what’s actually worth watching, from Landman to His/Hers, these are the best shows streaming you can catch in 2026.
What should we watch next?

Watch the full review and jump into the comments to tell us what you think! What should we watch next?

Night Patrol premieres January 16th.

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TheBlkScript

Central Hub For Actors, Screenwriters, & Filmmakers Of Color. Creator Of BLIND SIDES™

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They cover movies like The Holiday and Die Hard, YES... that's a holiday movie. And they unpack why these films hold up, what makes them comfort watches, and how holiday movies balance joy, chaos, love, and loss. A relaxed, fun conversation perfect for the season.

Watch the full episode and jump into the comments to tell us your favorite holiday movie.

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Victoria: @killershotfilms_
Kevin: @theblkscript

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TheBlkScript

Central Hub For Actors, Screenwriters, & Filmmakers Of Color. Creator Of BLIND SIDES™

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They discuss performances, tone, themes of power and belief, and how this chapter compares with Knives Out and Glass Onion: sharp opinions, thoughtful analysis, and a spoiler-filled conversation for listeners who have seen the film.

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I’m in Italy for the holidays. Every day, businesses shut down from 1 to 3 p.m. Stores close. Streets quiet. Lunch isn’t something you squeeze in; it’s something you honor. No one apologizes for it. No one explains it. The same happens in Spanish-speaking countries with siesta.

Stores could be open, pulling in the holiday shopping dollars, but instead, they close, and the staff disappear to eat, rest, or do whatever they please.

Watching this has made one thing painfully clear: in the United States, our relationship with relaxing, pausing, and even resting is broken.

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I come from a work culture that glorifies exhaustion. We brag about being up at 5 a.m., about going to bed at 1 a.m. We push harder. Do more. Produce constantly as if exhaustion is proof that we matter, as if burnout is the price of ambition.

We treat “running on fumes” like a badge of honor, but it is breaking us, not building us. Working ourselves to exhaustion doesn’t make us sharper or more dedicated; it makes us foggy, irritable, and less present in our own lives. Pushing through when our bodies are begging for rest is not commitment. It is self-abandonment dressed up as ambition.

Let’s stop. Basta! (That means enough in Italian.) Let’s normalize chilling out.

Sleep is when the body repairs itself.
Rest is when the nervous system resets.
Stillness is not laziness; it’s maintenance.

Stop saying, “I’m being lazy today.”

• Lazy is not lying down.

• Lazy is not choosing rest.

• Lazy is not grabbing a peaceful lunch.

I say it all the time: “I’m just being lazy.” But most of the time, what I’m actually doing is trying to stave off exhaustion. And I know I am many things, but one thing I am not is lazy.

We deserve the right to chill.
We deserve the right to power down.
We deserve the right to stop performing productivity.
We deserve the right to lower our cortisol levels and protect our peace.

We are not required to run at 120 miles an hour, seven days a week, until our bodies force us to stop. We are allowed to pause before the crash.

Things can wait.
The emails.
The mess.
The task that somehow keeps finding us.
It will still be there tomorrow.

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Eat lunch. Take a nap. Go for a walk. Let your mind wander for a moment. Try meditating or daydreaming. Just take a break.

There is value in letting ideas swirl. In letting thoughts marinate. In disconnecting long enough for your nervous system to remember what calm feels like.

Italy didn’t invent this; no culture did. They just refused to apologize for it.

Remember: fertile soil rests.
This year, I’m choosing to rest and see what grows.

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I put on Ryan Serhant’s Owning Manhattan expecting it to fade into the background. It took over my entire day.

The second season dropped on Netflix on Friday, all eight episodes, and I fully expected it to keep me company while I worked around the apartment. By episode two, I was on the couch, doing nothing. I was seated, invested, and locked in.

The Reality of Craft

This show understands exactly what it is. It knows we know the cameras are there, and instead of pretending otherwise, it leans into it. There are drone shots, multicamera one-on-ones, and the classic confessionals. It is familiar, but feels fresh.

One of my favorite choices is when Ryan ends a scene by looking straight into the lens to deliver a line. It could feel gimmicky, but he uses it sparingly, and when he does, it lands. It gives the moment weight. It is a quiet acknowledgment of us.

Bottom line, the storytelling is sharp. The editing is sharp. The casting is sublime. The emotions are earned. The stakes feel real.

This is reality TV at its best because it respects the audience’s intelligence.

And it hooked me in a way no real estate show ever has. In the past, I have found most of them to be either hollow or stressful. The cast rarely seems interested in selling anything. They want screen time.

As a former reality show producer, I know how the donuts are made. I know the tricks, the narrative shaping, the scaffolding. But this show blended drama with reality, with multimillion-dollar stakes that felt grounded in something real. I was all in.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Ryan Serhant’s Gravity

When I think about why Owning Manhattan works, I start with its star, Ryan Serhant. The man has built a brokerage that moves billions in real estate across the country. He expanded his company considerably in two seasons, and that is not growth, that is velocity. What interested me this season was not the scale of his success but how he is carrying it. The management of his staff. The ambition to build something global. His desire to stay the big dog in a game where the ground shifts under him every day. The negotiation between his public image and the private demands of being a husband and father. The electricity he brings into any room, the creativity he injects into deals, and his drive to win are compelling.

Real estate gave him fame, fortune, and a platform. Ryan, now in his forties, moved to New York to pursue acting. As the lore goes, he landed a role on As the World Turns in 2007. To pay the bills between acting jobs, he got his real estate license. Then came the Bravo years, Million Dollar Listing New York, and Sell It Like Serhant. Owning Manhattan is the first time I really saw the full force of what he does and how he does it. Sometimes the detour is the destination.

Everything in the show orbits around him, as it should. His ambition sets the tempo. His expectations create friction among the agents. His blind spots generate the drama. There is a moment in the season when he fires an agent. Under pressure from developers unhappy with slow sales, he tells his former assistant, now lead on this building, that he’s out. I thought, this will not end well, you should walk away from those developers. But he caved to them. No surprise, a few episodes later, the developers fired the Serhant team anyway. What was a surprise was that he admitted the mistake to his agent and to us. It is rare to see that level of accountability on camera.

Another moment that stayed with me was his big flash sale. Ryan takes a $12 million apartment, a combination of three units in one package, and drops it to $6 million for a limited window. The tactic is to spark a bidding war. When that does not happen, you can see the pressure building up. But this is where his skill shows up. He figures out another way. He takes an eight-million-dollar offer, breaks the parcel up from a three to a two, and reframes the entire deal. He also got everyone involved to agree. Negotiation, at its core, is creativity under pressure, and this was one of the clearest examples of that all season.

He expects a lot from himself, and that is his bottom line. When he tells his people, I expect outcomes, it is not a slogan. It is how he operates. His standards land in different ways depending on who you are. For some, it is fuel. For others, it sends them straight into a spiral.

The Empire Era

Season 2 makes it clear that the show is no longer about selling apartments in Manhattan. This is the building of an empire. The goal sounds boastful, yet Ryan talks with such certainty that you believe him.

He is also dealing with backlash from rival agencies. You can feel the resentment around his expansion. People do not like how fast he has grown. They do not like that he is bold about it. And while the criticism clearly gets to him, he does not back down. He promises to poach agents and do bigger deals. It is confrontational and aggressive, yet honest. I love the motto, move fast and break things,” and that is what he is doing. He goes after one of the top agents at a major agency in the city. This is when I knew it was time to buckle up. How he lures this top seller is when the whole tone of the season shifts. Watching him seduce that agent told me everything I needed to know about where we were headed.

Ryan has made the metrics brutally clear. He cares about outcome. Loyalty means nothing if you cannot deliver. In a business built around sales, that level of simplicity is stressful. It removes the excuses. Their stock is directly connected to their numbers.

What makes the show compelling is that these people are flying without a safety net.

Negotiation as a Spectator Sport

I took a negotiation course at Harvard’s Online School, and I swear there were moments in this show that felt like bonus modules. The agents negotiate at every level and at every turn. They negotiate perspective. They negotiate energy. They negotiate before numbers enter the conversation. You see the subtle ways power shows up long before the conversation turns to money.

And they stay impressively calm. You can practically hear their hearts beating, yet their faces do not move. Watching that level of emotional discipline is its own form of entertainment. Enjoy the moment Ryan is negotiating with Peter Zaitzaff - the sexy rabbit - it’s intense!

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The Real Deals

Make no mistake, the real estate is not the backdrop. It is the spine of the show. The deals reveal who these people are under pressure. What they know and how they negotiate when the ground shifts. Here are the unexpected moments.

The 60 Million Dollar Man

Peter Zaitzeff was a study in confidence and control. He was closing a sixty-million-dollar deal, and the moment he hung up on Ryan mid-negotiation was next level. I could not tell if it was a tactic or simply time management. It was not disrespectful. It was precision. Did he know exactly what he was doing? Did he know how far he could push any agent? I think Ryan was shocked. A new dynamic formed between them in real time, and it felt fresh in a way you do not often see on these shows. Ryan brought in top-tier talent, and I found myself thinking, Ryan, this is what happens when you hire the best. It was intense, and I will not spoil the outcome, but it is one of the season's strongest sequences.

The Bitcoin Deal

Jade Shenker’s bitcoin transaction was impressive. She understood leverage and the psychology of both buyer and seller in a way that made the entire deal feel sharp. She made me curious about an asset I had never cared about. It was a smart move. The seller is in the Bitcoin world. How could he say no? Jade understood that. She turned a nontraditional asset into a logical move. I even googled Bitcoin!

The Broadway Building

Was it theatrical? Yes. Did the staging overcomplicate the message? Absolutely. Did it work? Without question. Luxury real estate is theater. You are selling identity as much as space, and that building became a stage for the fantasy. For all its excess, it moved the needle, and that is the only outcome that matters in a market like this.

Polished & Perfect Imperfections

The cast is not perfect, which is exactly why they are perfect for this show.

For example, Niall Lundgren, standing next to Ryan in the photo above, struggles with the new wave of agents. He was strong in Season 1; now he seems more desperate to take up space. But he shows up for other agents. He supports Chloe. He supports Genesis. His effort reads as genuine, which makes him compelling to watch. Here are a few different agents and how I saw them this season.

In the end

As the season ended, I was left with questions. Will Jordan stay or build something of his own? Will Chloe return to Broadway? Will Genesis start closing big? Will Ryan bring on partners? This show worked because I care about the answers.

What did you think?

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This is not just the best real estate show on television. It is the best reality show on television. Full stop. Season three cannot come fast enough.

Streaming was a great liberation for me. One price. One app. No cable bundle. No appointments. Watch what I want, when I want, at the pace I choose. That was the dream I was sold. That we were all sold, it is the pitch that built an entire industry.

Seventeen years later, look where I am now. I pay more. I get less. And somehow I have more cords than ever.

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Now I have eight cords

Here is the absolute joke. I cut the cord, and now I have:

Netflix Premium
Max
Disney Plus Premium
Hulu Premium
Paramount Plus with Showtime
Peacock Premium Plus
Apple TV Plus
Amazon Prime Video ad-free
Shudder
BritBox
Acorn TV

Streaming services, each one with its own promises and price hikes, its own timing, its own retention tricks, its own mini cable bill.

This is not freedom. This is fragmentation disguised as choice.

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Prices used to tell a different story.

Seventeen years ago, Netflix and Hulu launched the streaming revolution with prices that felt like a miracle.

Netflix streaming was $7.99 a month.
Hulu Plus was $7.99.
Disney+ debuted in 2019 at $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year.

These prices were genuine alternatives to cable. Streamers were hungry for subscribers, so they kept prices low and dropped full seasons at once. It felt new, modern, and generous.

Now look at the numbers.

Netflix Premium in 2025 is $24.99 a month.
Disney+ Premium in 2025 is $18.99 a month.
Hulu Premium is $17.99.
Max Premium is $22.99.
Apple TV Plus is $12.99.
Paramount Plus with Showtime is $12.99.
Peacock Premium Plus is $13.99.
Prime Video ad-free is $36.98.
Shudder, BritBox, and Acorn are around $7 to $10 each.

In less than two decades, the cost of basic streaming has tripled in many cases.

And we get fewer episodes for the higher price.

The slow return of appointment TV.

The joy of a binge is practically a bygone pleasure. Bit by bit, streamers have brought back the slow-release schedule. Six to twelve episodes stretched across weeks. Ten episodes are sliced into part one and part two, and seasons are broken into chunks to keep you subscribed as long as possible. This is not a creative decision. It is a retention strategy.

Disney+ and Hulu release nearly everything weekly.
Max and HBO stay weekly.
Paramount Plus uses weekly pacing for dramas, comedies, and franchise shows.
Apple TV Plus is almost entirely weekly.
Netflix, the company that created the binge era, now slices seasons into two parts and staggers releases month by month.

Every major service has embraced it. Shockingly, Peacock dropped All Her Fault with all eight episodes at once. I was so excited, I made an appointment to binge it.

We left cable to get away from this. Now we pay more to live through it again.

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Have we been hoodwinked?

There is no secret behind the price hikes, and if there is, I do not know it. This is business. Companies push until people push back. The same thing happened with cable. Prices kept rising, channels multiplied, and programming was sliced into every tier they could dream up.

Streaming is following the same pattern. They will continue to raise prices, split seasons, and test how much the audience will tolerate before the model breaks.

Streaming was supposed to replace cable with freedom and simplicity. Instead, it has recreated the old system in pieces, each one priced higher than the last.

The cost of streaming today.

A typical household might have:

Netflix Premium
Max
Disney Plus Premium
Hulu Premium
Paramount Plus with Showtime
Prime Video ad-free

Total monthly cost: 120 to 140 dollars
Total yearly cost: 1,440 to 1,680 dollars

This is not a theoretical number. This is the new normal for anyone with four to six major platforms.

Compare this to cable before the cord-cutting movement. In major cities like New York, from 2018 to 2020, a complete cable package with local channels and a couple of premiums usually cost $150 to $200 a month, or $1,800 to $2,400 a year. Cable included everything. Local news. Live sports. Network TV. Kids programming. Dozens of channels.

Streaming, at the same price, now gives us shorter seasons, slower releases, and fewer hours of content.

They won, & now they are rolling the clock back.

Streaming has already taken over how we watch television. The platforms have the audience, the habits, and the market share. Once they secured that power, the shift began.

The binge era that pulled us in has been replaced with a release model that looks a lot like early 2000s TV. Slow pacing. Stretched schedules. A weekly rhythm designed to keep you subscribed longer, not entertained faster.

The revolution that once felt refreshing now feels like the same old system in a new outfit.

And it is costing us more. Some of us much more. The bill keeps rising even as the control keeps shrinking.

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So what do we do?

Here is the practical part.

If they slow down content, slow down spending.

Wait for full seasons.
Watch one episode. If you like it, stop. Wait until the entire season is available. This restores your control.

Rotate subscriptions.
Subscribe for one month, watch what you want, cancel, and move on.

Never keep more than two services active at once.
Your wallet will thank you.

Something else I do is watch the first episode of a new show, then stop. If I decide it is worth it, I wait until the season is complete. Then I subscribe for the month. Then I leave.

That is the freedom streaming promised.

In the meantime, I cut off the account, and if by next month I am not missing it, I will cut the subscription.

Something has to give, and I am tired of it being more of my money.

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