This month saw a plethora of exciting news for upcoming projects, along with major successes at the box office.
The production company Illumination is gearing up to release The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on April 1st. It has released full trailers and confirmed a crossover with Star Fox, another classic Nintendo gaming staple.
Disney has revealed a trailer for the live-action Moana shot-by-shot remake, featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson reprising his role as Maui, in person this time. The original story Hoppers, from Disney’s Pixar, held its own at the box office for most of March, and placed at #1 on the charts for two consecutive weeks. Despite those successes, Marvel Studios has the honor of delivering Disney’s biggest news this month with the first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, a new street-level story following Spider-Man’s identity crisis after the events of No Way Home. The trailer reached an astonishing one billion views in a matter of four days, shattering records on YouTube. In other Marvel news, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 also launched to positive reception on Disney Plus. From Disney’s and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu saw a new trailer come out. Writer Dave Filoni is confirmed to be contributing to the story.
For Paramount, Scream 7 released in theaters late February, and it saw success through early March, becoming the highest-grossing installment in the franchise so far. Paramount also issued the title reveal for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 a year before its release in March 2027, along with a short teaser and full cast list release that confirmed the return of Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey, and the introduction of the Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman.
Warner Bros. also released the title of the 3rd Dune movie following the success of Dune Part 2 in 2024. Dune Part 3 will likely conclude the series, that has catapulted Timothee Chalamet into the spotlight. In streaming news, The trailer for HBO’s new Harry Potter TV show, which will have a season for each book in the series, was released amid controversy about the casting choice for Snape. The actor’s race (Black) was inconsistent with the source material. The first season will air December of 2026.
Foremost in the news though, Amazon MGM released the biggest hit of the month: Project Hail Mary, a new sci-fi film starring Ryan Gosling on a mission to save Earth from the dimming of the sun, adapting the book by Andy Weir.
The Oscars on March 15th were not well-received, with low viewership and bad ratings. The 98th Academy Awards have been subject to social media ridicule since the ceremony due to the tedious length, among other complaints.
Be sure to be on the lookout for the next retrospective on film news (and a preview of summer’s!) coming in late May!
