Scouting Hollywood: April 20-26

A roundup of news, gossip and history of the entertainment business brought to you from Hollywood, California.

Video games are the bomb at the movies! Universal’s animated Super Mario Bros. Movie dominated the Box Office with an astounding $146 million opening, far surpassing the current 2023 champ of Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Mario appealed to audiences of all ages and was well received in foreign countries as well.  In its second week the tooner pulled down another $87 million for a total worldwide Box Office take of nearly $700 million. Rest assured the sequel is already in the works.

Having trouble deciding what to watch tonight? According to Reelgood, which aggregates data from streaming services, a total of 36,674 TV shows and movies are available instantly among the nine largest subscription based streaming services. Of course, audiences consider less than half of those “quality” or better. Then there’s the pesky problem of increasing cost of the services as well as a slow down in original programming being produced by the services. Still can’t decide? Maybe consider a book instead. The classics are classics for a reason.